When Prime Minister Mark Carney called Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s relentless campaign to ensure there’s some form of separation referendum on a provincial ballot next fall “a dangerous bluff” and “not helpful” yesterday, City News in Ottawa sent a reporter to find a Conservative MP who would complain about it.
To many of us, Mr. Carney’s mild-mannered and carefully worded remarks to a group of reporters at an outdoor announcement about affordable housing might have sounded like the understatement of the year. After all, as Governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, he occupied a ringside seat to the Brexit disaster, the damaging impacts of which are still being felt in the United Kingdom.
“The Brexit analogy comes up over and over again – and for good reason,” Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt told Britain’s Guardian newspaper. “Not only was it poorly thought out, but David Cameron put it to a ballot and then campaigned against it – which is exactly what Danielle Smith said she would do.”
But it never takes much to crank up the Conservative rage machine in this country, and it looks as if it wasn’t much trouble for City’s national reporter, Xiaoli Li, to rustle up an appropriately angry Conservative MP from Calgary.
“He has no right to wag his finger,” huffed the MP in question, Michelle Rempel Garner, on the news clip broadcast by City News across the country. “There’s one person who can unite the country right now, and one job it is, and it’s Mark Carney’s.”
“But he can’t just wag his finger,” she continued, unbothered by the fact that neither literally nor figuratively was Mr. Carney wagging his finger when he noted how easy it is for referenda of this nature to be manipulated by bad actors foreign and domestic and for there to be disastrous consequences as a result.
It is, in other words, an obvious risk that could impact many of us, and one that Ms. Smith is obviously willing to take.
According to Ms. Rempel Garner, finding a solution to the blackmail scheme ginned up by Ms. Smith and her separatist allies in the United Conservative Party and seemingly inspired by Preston Manning’s 51st State scheme, which he outlined to Ms. Smith in 2021, rests entirely on Mr. Carney’s shoulders.
Well, I’m sure we can all agree that ex officio the prime minister is bound to play an important role in solving this problem, but a little responsible behaviour by Conservative politicians, federal and provincial, in Alberta in particular, might be helpful as well.
Ms. Rempel Garner then got down to the nature of the of the solution, as she sees it, which naturally involves increasing exports of fossil fuel products – a development to which, by the sound of it, Mr. Carney has no objections whatsoever, notwithstanding the need for a prime minister to at least consider the thoughts of Canadians outside Alberta. “He has to project real action,” she said, “tell Albertans when a shovel is gonna go in the ground for pipelines.”
“As an Albertan, what I can tell you, sitting in the House of Commons, which has made my blood boil for a decade, is watching the flippancy with which they thought they could just pit region against region and think that everything was gonna be OK, right?”
This, of course, is utter nonsense, although of a sort often taken to be unvarnished truth in Alberta because it is repeated so often. Mr. Carney was certainly not being flippant. Nor was his predecessor Mr. Trudeau – who to this day gets no credit from Alberta MPs for spending $34.2 billion to build Alberta a new pipeline to the West Coast along the route of an old one. That is a feat that no other PM of any stripe has managed since 1953, when the PM was Louis St. Laurent, also a Liberal.
The City clip concludes with Ms. Rempel Garner, in high dudgeon, saying: “And then pointing the finger at my province this morning after doing that? That is not what we need in leadership right now!”*
“My province,” indeed. Is this not the same Ms. Rempel Garner who was not so long ago a permanent resident of Oklahoma, and from all the evidence on the Internet, may still be?
A reader of this blog asked me a couple of nights ago who I thought would be the first Alberta elected official to step up and say they’re not voting for Canadian unity. Some rural reeve? Some town councillor? An MLA? An MP?
Maybe it could be Ms. Rempel Garner, the Honourable Member for Calgary-Nose Hill, who once pondered running to lead the UCP when Jason Kenney was skidded out the door? Scratch an Alberta separatist with any influence, and you’ll find a 51st State annexationist. So why not an elected official who feels at home in Oklahoma?
Well, probably not. Federal Conservative Leader and Alberta MP Pierre Poilievre has pledged that all 33 of his Alberta MPs will campaign for Alberta to remain in Canada. “It is the job of the prime minister of Canada to unite the country, and as prime minister in waiting, I will begin that work myself,” he really said. Mind you, Ms. Smith says that she too will campaign for Alberta to remain Canadian, which is odd since she continues to do everything she can to achieve the opposite result.
Just for fun, let’s finish up with Mr. Kenney, the first UCP premier, pushed out by Danielle Smith and her separatist allies, and now a bitter opponent of Ms. Smith’s separatist schemes. On the night the Brexit referendum results came in from the U.K., he infamously tweeted: “Congratulations to the British people on choosing hope over fear by embracing a confident, sovereign future, open to the world!”
I wonder if he still sees Brexit the same way, or if he’s reconsidered?
*An exact transcript of Ms. Rempel Garner’s final comment in the City News clip would read: “That is not what we need in leadership right wing, right now!”* God and Ms. Rempel Garner only know the origin of that slip.
When surrounded by traitors, the merely plutocratic can look virtuous.
Michelle Rempel-Garner should stay in Oklahoma. Danielle Smith and the UCP should join her.
Maybe you should mind your own business. If you like the direction Carney is taking Canada then I hope your kids and grandchildren will be thrilled. Give one reason Alberta should stay in Canada.
Well at least as far as we know the MP from Oklahoma didn’t travel to Mar a Lago several times in the last year. Unfortunately, that is something that our Manchurian Candidate Premier and some of her separatist pals can’t say.
However, it is interesting that the finger wagging is now coming from Rempel Garner, not Smith or the Federal conservative leader. I feel both have reasons to stay silent on this for now. We’ll see if that lasts.
I agree the Brexit analogy is apt, particularly as Carney had a front row seat to see what happened there. As the saying goes, if you play with matches your fingers may get burned. Worse than that happened to the UK PM Cameron, whose bad judgement also led to the end of his time as leader. I don’t know, maybe he wasn’t quite as slick a talker as Smith, but regardless there is often damage to a person’s credibility when they try to play both sides without regard to the consequences.
It may be hard for Poilievre to stand up for Canada, given that many UCP supporters who have separatist leanings may also support the CPC, but it will also not help him gain support elsewhere if all he does is criticize the PM for trying to stand up for Canada.
Besides, as The Star reported in a recent story, Poilièvre isn’t even eligible to vote in the October referenda.
https://www.thestar.com/politics/he-may-be-an-alberta-mp-but-pierre-poilievre-wont-be-able-to-vote-in-referendum/article_1c2fed8d-99b7-4002-8475-6f3db404874a.html
Carney’s remarks were even more “mild-mannered and carefully worded” than you seem to have realised. He didn’t use the phrase “dangerous bluff” in reference to the referendum itself, as your first paragraph suggests. He said, quite accurately, that it would be a dangerous bluff during a referendum campaign to make an argument along the lines of “vote for this, and we will strengthen our hand in a future negotiation”. He was so careful, in fact, that he didn’t even explicitly say that he was talking about the separatist side, although he obviously was.
After that, however, Carney sort of went off the rails, in a way that makes me think Mr Project Fear hasn’t quite got over the sting of Brexit. He said the UK was “still trying to undo what people didn’t think they were voting for”, and sure, some Brits undoubtedly did vote Leave without thinking it would ever actually happen. But plenty of people undoubtedly voted Leave because they wanted to do exactly that, and as for the country trying to undo Brexit, Carney must not have noticed that Reform UK were the big winners of the local elections earlier this month. So our prime minister was just demonstrating his seemingly pathological inability to believe that anyone could ever disagree with him about anything of significance.
More importantly, those of us in Alberta who would very much prefer to stay in Canada should stop worrying about Brexit, because the two situations are highly disanalogous. The UK has substantial linguistic and cultural differences with most other European powers (Ireland being the only halfway plausible exception), is in a perfectly good geographic position to function as a sovereign country, and before Brexit had been a fully independent sovereign country within living memory. It must have been easy for British voters to see the case for returning to that status, or in other words for reinstituting standard nation-to-nation relationships with other European countries instead of staying in a supranational union with them. It’s not obvious to me that they were wrong, in the end, to vote Leave – I think, as Zhou Enlai may or may not have said about the French Revolution, that it’s too soon to tell. But Alberta is clearly in a very different place with respect to the rest of Canada, not just in geographic terms but also in historical, linguistic and cultural ones, than Britain is in with respect to continental Europe.
Except Britain hasn’t been an economic or colonial power since 1945. So they essentially cut their nose off to spite their face, believing that free movement within the EU was the reason for their economic maladies, not Thatcherism followed by neoliberalism, not to mention they still have a KING.
So now they can’t trade with the continent that is just across the straight from them, their economy is even worse than before (and why wouldn’t it be, they haven’t made any changes) and they’re still blaming it, all of it, on “migrants”.
England has been living beyond its means for like two HUNDRED years, that’s what the empire (was) for. They weren’t ever isolationist. It’s a natural and predictable outcome that the economy inside Britain would shrink in relation to the loss of the empire outside of Britain, because that’s how they sustained it. British people grew fat off of the wealth of Ireland during the genocidal famine, because it wasn’t a famine, it was theft. Ireland had vast of grain, meat, and produce, it was just all taken by the landlord class and shipped back to England.
Would a populace that grew up in Thatcherite England, with a Thatcherite education voted differently ? Or were they rather easily manipulated by a few carnival barkers by Tommy Robinson? Is there really that much more to it?
If Bird is Canadian, then as Canadian should know we have a King too—one and the same person, in fact. He doesn’t equate with economic maladies, Thatcherism or neoliberalism. The sins-of-the-fathers examples are as elucidating as the fact that we are all guilty (my Sunday school teacher used to start every class with, “remember, children, we are all sinners.”)
The King—or, rather, the use of the British rules of royal succession instead of electing a head of state—is much preferable to hyperpartisan elected presidencies we know all too well. Neither Britain nor Canada—nor any Commonwealth Nation for that matter—is ruled by the King and not at all by the royal family. The office doesn’t cost Canadians anything; we don’t pay taxes to the King, as many royal bashers seem to think.
Of course the English royals lost their monarchy (starting with the head of one King) and now perform mostly ceremonial services when not called upon to exercise their most important task: to ensure Canadians (Aussies, Kiwis, &c) have popularly-elected governments that can act at all times. It’s most often an easy job when voters elect a majority parliament but is a critical one when they elect a hung parliament or, alternatively, when a governing party loses parliamentary confidence and the King (in Canada, one of his representative governors) must discern if there is another group of parliamentarians in the existing house which will commit to passing bills into law (or, failing that, dissolving the parliament and calling a general election to replace it) . This office is the only one which can make unbiased decisions about which party is recognized as government, and that isn’t always easy.
God Save The King/ Dieu Protège Le Roy
I reluctantly support the monarchy, but only because (1) getting rid of it would be too difficult, requiring as it does a unanimously vote of Parliament and all 10 provincially legislatures, and (2) it does still serve a number of importance purposes, some of which you elucidated here.
But if we were to ditch it, it wouldn’t necessarily need to be replaced with a powerful, US-style Presidency. There are other models. the most attractive of which, IMHO, is the kind of largely ceremonial State Presidency used in modern Germany, among other places (Israel is another).
France has yet another model, with a theoretically powerfully executive President, but also a Prime Minister responsibility to its parliament. The French system is a bit of a hybrid between the kind of responsible government we have, and a US-style Presidency. But their President is elected by direct popular vote, without an electoral college.
https://www.elysee.fr/en/french-presidency/the-institutions
Corwin, This is a Liberal slated article. No need wasting time with rationalisim.
The fact that most news media outlets these days are owned by people who have a conservative agenda is nothing new, nor is it anything good because the media has fanned the flames of extremism. Rempel, is a hypocrite no doubt. She calls Alberta “Her province” while she lives in a republican American household. Best not to get into semantics and word salads to distract from the reality that our premier is a seditious traitor and should be charged accordingly. Rempel et al. support Smith because we all know that conservatives are team players and that they do not play fairly – no matter what. There should be class action lawsuit against Smith and her counterparts for their malfeasance, which of course will never happen. Clearly there is no accountability and the fact that no one can stop the carnage is why people are getting twisted up in knots trying to find the right words to describe a human created crisis. Folks in the media pander to conservatives and the reporters are either too lazy, ignorant, or stupid, to ask following questions that hold their interviewees to account. However, now when one does muster the courage to ask a pointed question they get shut down by frothing at the mouth conservative extremists. MSNOW and outlets alike are like a fart in the wind as far as their influence goes and the folks who work at Fox News, for example, know it. The media constantly giving credence to fascist conservatives has emboldened the far right. Rempel and her ilk have done nothing to support Canada, but have in fact undermined Canada, by talking out of both sides of their mouths. Nay, we need to get back to the outrage that people are currently experiencing regarding the future of Canada. We are at a crossroads of stability because of people like Smith, Rempel, Harper, and so on. They have an agenda and if you recall Harper saying something along the lines of “You won’t recognize Canada when I’m done. . .” is proof that they are tacit and overt separatists from the get go. We live in an extremely dangerous time and must face the reality of our situation; not dilute the crisis by distracting ourselves. Brexit was the result of manipulation by the conservatives and the result was unworkable according to some people. Don’t split hairs. The dismantling of Canada is the work of international world destroyers, whether they be American or Russian; the fact that these bad actors have duped the population into thinking that busting up a country is a pleasant thing to do – the mindset of thinking it is okay to leave people behind – is the height of madness, and stupidity. Greed has turned into a criminal enterprise. People of criminal intent are either running the show – as in the USA, Belarus, Russia, etc – or are trying to shape the world into a dystopia of utter perfidy.
Somewhere I heard there were a number of UCP MLA’s riding on a separatist float in the St. Albert Victoria Day parade this past weekend. So far this story has not identified those that allegedly were on the float, or maybe it was speculation?
Looks like I was mistaken as I did not listen carefully to the participants in the Rainmaker Rodeo parade. On that account further investigation seems to suggest Shane Getson as being the one in the parade. It looks like Jason Stephan may have been the first one to break ranks as noted in a recent article: Jason “Stephan drew attention and criticism in late March when he penned an op-ed for the Western Standard calling on “all who love freedom and prosperity” to sign Stay Free Alberta’s petition to force an independence referendum, because Canada’s Constitution is “rigged against Alberta” and the status quo is unacceptable.”
“a dangerous bluff”
That observation is not fully enlarged upon as is Jared Wesley’s (“This Is Danielle Smith’s Referendum”).
The “relentless separatist campaign” and the grievance politics that it embraces has been and is the focused campaign of a small group of academics at the University of Calgary, Jack Mintz, Tom Flanagan, Ted Morton, Barry Copper, and David Bercuson, for example. The School of Public Policy is aptly named, as the aim appears to be one of shaping and directing Alberta public opinion in certain desired directions.
They are some of the individuals along with Preston Manning who are advising the political student in private.
The Premier (along with Mitch Sylvestre, David Parker, Jeffrey Rath, ect.) is the public face and public representative for those academically developed separatist ideas.
A flow chart detailing the interconnections between all of these individuals could be a useful tool in understanding the dynamics behind the Alberta separatist gambit.
Do we need to do seven degrees of separation with the 1905 partition of Bengal, because there’s that?
Good work. Thanks, Abs. The Modern Army Combative Program sounds like fun. Makes me wish I was still in my 50s or 60s! DJC
I’m putting this squarely on the shoulders of the American media moguls who own all the outlets and all the algorithms.
Who cares if some backwoods Alberta MP whinges about Carney? How is that news? Why is PP all over the news front pages, regardless of media type, all the time? Why does some conservative cretin commenter I don’t know, have never watched and don’t care about, keep being forced into YouTube front page Canadian news algorithms? Who is paying that guy? This is exactly how YouTube made Alex Jones famous. I couldn’t get him off the front page of YouTube even though I never watched him.
I’m all for outrage. I’m outraged about a lot of things. I get the sentiment. That’s what podcasters and commenters are for. Outrage. Pointing out injustices. Whatever.
What I don’t get is the manipulation and stupidity.
I’m thinking that the actual best use of the CRTC would be for it to force the sell off of all American-owned mass media in Canada. Truth in Advertising. If it claims to be Canadian, Canadians have to own it.
We should all be free to watch media from around the world, regardless of the political bent or propaganda leanings–but nobody but Canadians should be allowed to own anything claimed to be Canadian media.
Let the Yankee profit machine whinging, begin!
B: Your point about the media is well taken.
Smith opens door to amending constitution to alter treaty rights | National Post https://share.google/IwFAGqrWBy9wG0rtb
@Anonymous,
Ah the National Post…3/4 owned by Chatham Assets, a criminal enterprise convicted of “improper trading of fixed income securities”,. Thanks for the proof of my point that we need to turf out American influence in Canadian news companies.
Dixie Dani doesn’t understand treaties any better than she understands constitutional law. “If it gets in my way, I break it” which is Trump-thinking 101.
Imma coin a new term now, since AI seems to be busy meming them rapidly I figure I’m due for one.
ViciStupidity…pronounced “Vichy-Stupidity” for the Vicious Stupidity these collaborating neo-cons keep inflicting on the rest of us.
Also…
So, one guy on the block wants to blow up his rental house leaving a huge gaping hole in the neighbourhood and making the original owner living in the basement, homeless.
Yet for some reason, he’s offended that the owner in the basement, the neighbours then the mayor steps in and tells him it’s an illegal and ill-conceived idea and he tells them all to MYOB.
Are you kidding me? Is this what passes for Alberta separatist logic?
Has anyone ever seen a photo of Oklahoma MP Rempel Garner and Whitehouse spokesperson Karoline Leavitt together? I think they they might be the same person.
As an aside, who will be the first politician to stand up and say the words it is time to end this grievance bullshit in Alberta.
Nothing says loyalty to Canada like “allegedly” living in the US state of Oklahoma for the past seven years and being married to a highly-decorated US Army veteran.
Say, didn’t another US Army veteran play a key role in leaking the personal information of 2.9M Albertans, which is now reportedly in the hands of MAGA radicals in the US? Do tell. What is with these US Army veterans, anyways?
Thanks for taking time out from your 7th wedding anniversary yesterday to wag your finger at Canadians living in Canada, MP Rempel Garner. Better get that boiling blood condition checked out before you blow a fuse.
Where is ICE when you really need them?
Klown Kollege Konventional Wisdom. The Carny Banker was head of the Bank of Canada when the wheels finally fell off the global derivatives scam in 2008. The entire global banking system had failed, including that in Canada. To this day a complete and utter fiction is maintained that Canadian banks somehow navigated this catastrophic failure. The Canadian banks were bailed out with jiggery pokery through CMHC, among other sleights of hand. The entire system as refloated by Quantitative Easing and none of the garbage was ever cleared from the US Fed books. The EU was exposed at that time as nothing more than an instrument of US control. The US central banks bailed out the Europeans. The EU is an instrument of US imperialism and the fact that the Nazi kooks in England didn’t care for it is not an indication of its merits. The UK was a “functioning” state prior to joining the EU, and still operates at a roughly equivalent level of crappiness. The EU is being de-energized and de-industrialized currently as a function of US policy. CIA ensures US ownership of the region. Derpberta cannot operate as an independent state. So Epstein Empire, here we come!
Michelle Rempel, the Member for Oklahoma, seems to be of the opinion that Alberta is Uber Alles. Since it was some years ago she signed onto something called the ‘Buffalo Accord’, which was some document that declared that the British Crown gave special rights to people (white people) in Rupert’s Land, it was believed that she was hitting the sauce pretty hard. Clearly a sommelier’s work is never, ever done. So the former U of C event planner is now cautioning a twice central bank governor (among many other things) over calling Queen Danielle a traitor is pretty rich. But she’s probably one of these half-glass full is bad kind of people, so gets to pass this barre.
I’m surprised Rempel didn’t mention something about farts.
@djc
“Resident of Oklahoma”? Explain please.
Gerald: “‘I divorced shortly after I was elected,’ she tells me. ‘We got married too young.’ She has since married Jeff Garner, a U.S. Army veteran who ran an equine-therapy centre in Oklahoma. (Early in the pandemic, before the government recalled Canadians home, she was working remotely from Oklahoma when her family received word of her mother-in-law’s cancer diagnosis.) The two met on an airplane from New Orleans. ‘I sat down by the window and I put my earphones and sleep mask on, the universal signal of ‘Just Don’t Talk to Me,’’ Rempel Garner recalls. ‘And Jeff changed his seat—he’s a large man—so he could sit in the middle seat beside me. And he had me.’ The pair married in May 2019; Stephen Harper was their officiant. Rempel Garner is now a stepmother to three, and a step-grandmother.” https://chatelaine.com/living/politics/michelle-rempel-garner/
“US army veteran” Is doing a lot of heavy lifting. They met on a flight ? Interesting.
Anyone know what Jeff actually did ?
Bird: Not me off hand. DJC
No, not a clue.
http://www.veteranstherapyhaven.org/jeffrey-garner.html
So an Alberta mp with an arguably huge conflict of interest is having a sissy fit about a pm of Canada doing his job?
“Ms. Rempel Garner then got down to the nature of the of the solution, as she sees it, which naturally involves increasing exports of fossil fuel product…”
There is a useful counterfactual that I like to bring up when anyone says that all Alberta needs is pipelines and the separatists will go away. Imagine a situation where, in the 1970’s the Trudeau government did NOT invest huge amounts of money into the development of the oil sands (via research, etc) and/or the Chretien government did not change the tax rules to make it easier for oil sands companies to make profits. And imagine a group of yahoos who threatened separation if the oil sands (we used to call them tar sands when I was growing up in Edmonton) were never developed. Yet, here we are today, with the oil sands producing records amount of oil and wealth for Alberta and we are closer to separation than ever before.
In short, it will never matter how well Alberta is treated by the federal government (or other provinces)…because this is really not about resources development and export it is about something else. And I would posit that this something else is a very wealthy province that has low taxes and lots of first class services not knowing how good it has it (even when times are tough Albertans still have the highest per capita income in Canada). This is like wealthy, bored teenagers who complain that their parents are continually harshing their buzz and they won’t stand for it anymore, goddamit! And it’s also about a provincial government that, except for four years in the mid teens, doesn’t have to work too hard to get people to vote them back in (both at the federal and provincial levels). And what better way to distract people about the political and economic capture of their province by the oil and gas industry than to create and maintain this absolute fiction that they are the economic driver of Canada but, at the same time, are being impoverished by Quebec and Ottawa (has anybody ever noticed this bizarre contradiction?)
Shane Getson. Allegedly. Actually there are photos posted on social media of Getson riding in a parade with his separatist buddies over the weekend. Also, allegedly, Dale Nally took part in another separatist event the past few days. So, the question is – what will Danielle Smith do? It would appear that at least some members of her caucus have lost respect for her – and lost their fear of what might happen if they cross her? Writing on the wall for another Alberta UCP premier? If she does nothing to reprimand or punish these MLA’s (and who knows how many others), we’ll know her days are numbered. If that’s the case, perhaps we can all join Mr. Kenney in a toast with his favourite ‘budget’ Irish whiskey.
Last I heard Getson is not running in next election. So possibly he is showing true colour’s now.
A simple rule of thumb to analyze Canadian politics correctly is to ignore Michelle Rempel. And instead of wasting time on the separatist fantasy, can we please talk about the other nine questions, which constitute a very real threat. Take this one for example: “Do you support working with other provinces to allow Alberta to opt out of federal programs without losing funding?” Like, say, universal health care. Or how about this one: “Should Alberta seek constitutional amendments to ensure provincial laws take precedence over federal laws in areas of shared jurisdiction?” Can we please start talking about these things before conservative voters say yes to these questions and really destroy our province?
“Should Alberta seek constitutional amendments to ensure provincial laws take precedence over federal laws in areas of shared jurisdiction?”
Hey, I can do that too…I just had a referendum in my household that asks whether or not I get a big tax refund in April, regardless of my taxable income. It was a unanimous ‘yes’. So the federal government better come through or I might just separate (and by separate, I mean I won’t play my Gordon Lightfoot or Guess Who CDs anymore).
That’s a great idea! I better hold a referendum in my household too. Not sure about what yet but, just in case, better get ‘er done before the old lady gets home.
Well, to be fair, I’m fairly sure some one comes around and collects your passport if you don’t play Lightfoot or The Guess Who at least once per year …
Well said.
And to motivate another audience, let us can call out the inherent racism in any of the other referendumb questions.
(And no, not a typo: it’s a critique)
“A simple rule of thumb to analyze Canadian politics correctly is to ignore Michelle Rempel”. And yet, there are normally credible players in Canada’s political punditocracy who actual see her as a reasonable voice on federal politics. For example, she’s been interviewed by both former Liberal strategist David Herle on his Herle Burly podcast, and by retired CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge on his The Bridge podcast.
Go figure.
The referendum appears planned as a sneaky little exercise in omnibus-ing. Most of the “solutions” to the other questions could only occur in a “sovereign” Alberta (or that would likely be the UCP interpretation).
But wait, we can still cast a (non-binding) vote either way. (wink, nudge)
Brexit is different from the situation we’re in. First, the UK to the EU is different from Alberta is to Canada — the UK is independent nation while Alberta is in a confederation. Second, the UK is surrounded by sea while Alberta is land locked. Third, the British are not continental Europeans.
All true, of course. But there are process similarities that we need to be mindful of, including the potential of people voting a certain way to “send a message”, not realizing the true consequences, and low turnout amongst less motivated voters leading to a stronger “Leave” vote than would happen if turnout were higher.
Once again a separatist claims alberta as “their province” despite having moved here as an adult, seeking employment opportunities. Michelle is from Manitoba. Quite frankly I’m sick of people who aren’t from alberta moving here in adulthood and cosplaying, yes cosplaying Michelle, as a born and bred, bronco ridin, Stetson wearing albertan. Don’t come back from Oklahoma, you and your military veteran husband can enjoy all the for profit healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, and insane political climate all you want, we’re good on all that American disorder.
I’ve noticed that some of Alberta’s most ardent nationalists are people born elsewhere. As the old saying goes, there is no greater fundamentalist than a convert.
Premier Wab spoke eloquently in both official languages in response to Premier Smith’s 10 years of gripes with Ottawa. Enough said. The multi-lingual Premier has lived in the same Canada (his people much longer than Smith’s) and loves Canada, serves Canada, has the requisite brain power to be a Premier, and has learned through life a lot of things, including other languages to begin.
Re: Brexit.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the main difference is England was never constitutionally bound to stay within the EU, probably would have been wise of them to do so, but in a fit of arrogance they went another, disastrous way. They were still using the POUND, they hadn’t even adopted the euro. Perhaps a more apt example would be if they dissolved the UK, or removed themselves *that* way, but that’s not what happened.
Of course, alberta can’t even leave confederation unilaterally, and the courts have ruled that the treaties are binding so they’re not even close to parallel situations. Albertans, I don’t think are as arrogant or foolish as the British have proved themselves to be time and again, that remains to be seen.
The only way they are similar is that Carney is in the mix again somehow, the supporters are utterly uninformed and largely bigoted, And both the consequences and the international ridicule would be enormous.
It’s also clear that Yankee Doodle Dani and her ilk have zero respects for the courts. This is again, why maybe not the stupidest idea to give her a security clearance. 1, she’ll never be able to say she “didn’t know” who the separatists are, and 2) as we saw with the centurion project, these people are in no way as slick as they think they are and if sedition is truly her game then FEDERAL national security charges are definitely the best way to prosecute, and I’m guessing they would be easily caught.
I wouldn’t count carney out just yet. “Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake” when is Dani not making them ? Do you think CSIS doesn’t have a file going on her by now ? I bet it’s one of the first things she sought and I bet it’s above her clearance.
What kind of politician has no respect for the justice system? Why, a corrupt politician who fears being tried and possibly jailed for corrupt practices.
For an issue that is as legally and constitutionally moot as secession from the Canadian federation, it’s conspicuous that so many are demanding the Prime Minster or the leader of the Opposition, federal Members of Parliament both, get into the fray. No less than Canada’s future, indeed its very existence is at stake, disparate voices opine. Mainstream and social media are also in there like a dirty shirt which, to be fair, is legitimized by newsworthiness, but tends to fuel rather than inform the national angst. It’s hard to tell which is which.
It’s hard to deny that the angst is real, but also hard to deny that it’s simply not true that the secession movement is an existential threat to Canadian sovereignty or territorial integrity. No doubt this atmosphere of dysinformed dread sells copy, baits clicks, and “contributes to the debate”—the euphemism for ‘stirring up controversy and contention.’ The cognitive dissonances so-propagated are designed to undermine our basest lizard-brains—nay, let us concede that even a guppy is smart enough not to rise to this stuff.
But, hey!—looks like Ai to the rescue because the stultifying nature of polarizing propaganda has successfully shut off genuine intelligence in so many of us, just when it behooves goodness to closely watch those who are taking advantage of the opportunity that genuine stupidity presents.
The PM does have ex officio responsibility to advise the Governor General on the matter of national unity, and that usually only with respect foreign affaires; he also has official responsibility to liaise with provinces insofar as policy-making includes both provincial and federal interests and involvement. However, the integrity of the country does not fall entirely in his bailiwick, as much as some insist it should and suppose it should be his “top priority,” and it only does so in certain conditions. We can’t discount that some take the “top priority” position for no other purpose than to criticize him for either not engaging or engaging too much with an issue that isn’t really his office’s concern. At least we don’t know yet.
The official opportunity cannot properly present itself to Carney until it becomes the business of the HoC, and that would be either if a province unilaterally declares independence or the matter of a constitutional amendment calls upon the federal parliament to consider either ratifying the amendment or not. Presumably Carney would whip his caucus members’ votes to accept or not the proposed amendment. That of course would be to amend the Constitution to say that a secession must be ratified by all eleven sovereign parliaments in Canada, as the SCoC recommended decades ago.
Otherwise Carney would be wading into shark-infested waters where it’s questionable if any position is politically safe or profitable. The safest route is called wu wei in Chinese—doing by not-doing—which would mean he restrict himself to as official—and as officiously boring— a response as he can—that is, to simply remind that a legal process exists to address secession that’s as available to Alberta as any other province: amend the Constitution first, refer the question to Alberta (in this case) voters in a Clarity Act-approved referendum and, if a majority of voters approve of secession, present it to the ten provincial legislatures and the federal HoC for their respective considerations and, ultimately, their votes to ratify the secession or not. There is no other legal way for a province to secede—indeed, until the amendment is ratified, there is no way at all. At the moment there is no need for Carney to intercede further than that.
I suppose the PM might ask rhetorically if premier Smith has initiated the constitutional amendment process—and maybe even, “if not, why not?”
The Loyalist Opposition is effectively “the government in waiting.” Poilievre likes to style himself the “prime minister in waiting” which presumes either that 35 Liberal MPs irrevocably vanish and the government is thence toppled in a nonconfidence vote AND the GG has not already granted an early election, or the electorate votes in more CPC MPs than any other party in a general election, however precipitated (either by nonconfidence, snap, 4-year scheduled, or 5-year constitutional term-limit).
In any case, Poilievre is probably more appropriately involved in the secession “debate” than Carney because he represents an Alberta riding. His problem is squaring his obligatory federalist position against secession in a riding where, as the safest federal Conservative riding in Alberta (and Canada, which is how PP got his seat back in Ottawa), a lot of separatists reside. He’d tarried for days after Smith doubled-back on her separatist referendum, doubtlessly careful about this dilemma. A solution to the question of if or how he should engage has apparently been found.
We just don’t know (yet) whether Ms Rumphole’s finger-saluting parlance in the HoC is particularly covering Smith’s retreat from imposing an illegal (so-judged in a court of law) referendum or whether the bane-trust of the CPC thought it up on its own. The tactics are about the same: blame it on Sleepy Joe–uh—I mean, Justin Trudeau and maybe some of it will stick onto Carney. Which is why Carney should probably avoid getting down into the mud on this one.
The moot mud, that is.
Oh Dear all we needed is for Michelle nut case to get involved as well. Let Oklahoma become the 51 state LOL.
Carlos– So is that Oklahoma crude, or Oklahoma rude?
Still laughing at ‘sissy fit’ , the Wab “correction” and the A&W chef’s kiss …all and all, today was not a total lost cause.
Small victories.
Sorry anytime I here the words Oklahoma I have an internal rude and crude allergy LOL.
Saw Rempel up on her pins in the House of Commons. She’s aged but she hasn’t improved. Just flapping her gums but not making much sense.
If Smith is going to campaign against Albert leaving Canada then why did she want a vote. its just a huge waste of money and the last time I checked Alberta wasn’t floating in cash, b.s. yes, cash, no.
Now of course there does seem to be a fair amount of discussion regarding a pipe line to the coast. Perhaps some Albertans have forgotten, to get a pipeline to the Pacific Ocean you have to go through B.C. I for one am not in favour of that at all. I’m not the only one. All that gunk is going to be loaded on to ships and then they are to float somewhere else. Problem is some times those ships don’t float, they sink and all that gunk causes a mess and screws with the water quality and that upsets the fish and sharks and whales, etc. Also we wouldn’t be able to use some of the beaches.
Forest fires have already started in B.C. Not much snow this past winter and not much rain lately. We don’t need more oil, gas in the world. Alberta might want to think of the future and not how to make money for oil corporations. Did those oil companies ever pay for the abandoned well clean up? I vote Smith and her government the worst in Canada. They certainly aren’t the brightest.
Poor Rempelstiltskin! Locked in Preston’s panic room, destined to weave separatist straw into gold for the rest of time. Grim.
It is simply about Michelle Rempel trying very hard to get a little national air time. If it was not this it would be something else.
And of course for the voters back home in her riding.
Content free and meaningless to say the least.