“Too big to rig,” proclaimed yesterday’s Canadian Press headline, carrying more than a little water for Jeffrey Rath, house legalist of the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project, who spoke the words. “Alberta separation petition succeeds with 223K verified signatures,” the rest of the headline said, factually enough up to a point.
So there’s your hard-news summary of yesterday’s development in the continuing saga of the Alberta Prosperity Project/Stay Free Alberta-proposed, United Conservative Party-backed separation petition that a Court of King’s Bench judge ruled to be unconstitutional in May and on which the Alberta Court of Appeal has yet to render a decision.
Still, someone reading this headline far from Wild Rose Country might conclude that Alberta has already all but separated from Canada. That’s not quite the case, though. The CBC’s headline on its version of the story was less colourful, but had the quality of being both easy to understand and accurate: “Elections Alberta verifies signatures for petition calling for independence referendum.”
Elections Alberta – which describes itself as “an independent, non-partisan office of the Legislative Assembly, responsible for administering provincial elections, by-elections and referendums” – declared in a press release yesterday that based on the 384 signatures it verified it was confident that of the 279,337 signatures it counted that 222,597 were valid.
This led news reports to state that Elections Alberta “found 222,597 verified signatures.” I’m pretty sure you can’t reach that conclusion based on what Elections Alberta actually said in its long and murky commentary.
The agency called the 222,597 signatures that received its imprimatur the “Total number of verified signatures after random statistical sampling method applied with a 95% confidence level (Citizen Initiative Act s.6(5)).”
Elections Alberta said that as part of the verification process, it “screened the petition and has confirmed that none of the signatures submitted came from the seeded names on the Republican Party of Alberta’s List of Electors.”
This, of course, does not mean that the illegally obtained and used list was not utilized by domestic or foreign actors to contact and proselytize would-be signers, or for other more nefarious purposes.
“Caller ID identifying calls were from Elections AB was active for the petition verification process,” the press release also said. Presumably that was noted because they were definitely not identified to signers of musician Corb Lund’s Water Not Coal petition – at least the call I received and answered was not.
So what’s next? As Elections Alberta pointed out, the next step in the process remains on hold while the proponents, and the Alberta Government, appeal the Court of King’s Bench ruling on the constitutionality of the question.
In two decisions in May, Justice Shaina Leonard ruled that Chief Elections Officer Gordon McClure made an error in law when he approved the APP/SFA citizen initiative petition and didn’t consider an earlier court decision saying Alberta separation would violate the treaty rights of First Nations.
Then in June, APP/SFA got a break when another judge decided the signature verification process could proceed while the appeal of the original decision continued, but everything else would have to await the Appeal Court’s decision.
I suspect most Albertans would have been prepared to accept the agency’s assertion its conclusion was based on a “statistically valid sample size” were it not for the fiasco surrounding its rejection of Mr. Lund’s Water Not Coal petition at the start of this month.
“I think we got screwed on this thing pretty hard, actually,” Mr. Lund said a few days after that decision by Elections Alberta. “After being briefed by my lawyer/scrutineer that was in the room during the count, I have some real issues with the way this was handled.”
“The system proved to be so deeply flawed that many people believe it’s crooked,” Postmedia columnist Don Braid said in a July 10 column.
So rest assured that public confidence in the dramatically different results of Elections Alberta’s decision on the separation petition will be somewhat south of the agency’s 95-per-cent confidence level as well.
An interesting question someone might want to ask Elections Alberta or the appropriate UCP politicians is, Did Justice Minister Mickey Amery’s department have a lawyer-scrutineer in on the counting of the APP/SFA signature validation process? If yes, did they challenge as large a percentage of signatures as in the case of Water Not Coal? And if not, why not?
For his part, Mr. Rath told The Canadian Press that Elections Alberta was biased against his side, claiming that “we succeeded in spite of them.”
“We knew we needed to have way more signatures than we needed,” he told CP, “because we knew Elections Alberta was going to pull every dirty trick in the book to try to disqualify us.”
So, at this point, Elections Alberta has so botched the process that both pro-Canadian and pro-separation Albertans profoundly distrust it.
No reasonable government would allow a separation referendum to proceed on Oct. 19 in the hands of an agency with a credibility gap as wide as the province. The United Conservative Party is determined to do so anyway, for reasons that now should be obvious to anyone paying attention.
“Albertans are barrelling towards the separation referendum that Danielle Smith forced upon us and she and her government don’t appear to be interested in talking about it,” political commentator Dave Cournoyer observed wonderingly in his Substack yesterday.
No matter what happens on Referendum Day, this will not end well.
Hi, my name is Jesse and I was a volunteer with elections Alberta, collecting signatures in regards to the question of Alberta independance. Im writing to you today because this article is slandering my participation with elections Alberta to collect signatures for the petition on independance, where you falsely allege that I collected signatures based on an illicitely obtained list of voters.
This is totally false, and these accusations are considered slanderous.
We collected signatures by waiting at a highway stop, waving Alberta flags, and passing motorists on their ways home from work stopped to sign our petition. At no point did I recieve any list of potential voters.
We didn’t go to specific houses according to an illicitely obtained list. There was a list used to collect signatures from specific households, and this was established from the virtual petition launched by Alberta Prosperity Project, which people would have to visit the site and intentionally sign up for stating their desire for independence by visiting their web page. This APP list was then used to form a small localized data base of potential voters, and this is publicly available information which your organisation has completely failed to mention to a slanderous degree.
This was the only list used. Otherwise, all signatures I collected were from random passing motorists and pedestrians, and I personally collected 25 signatures in the 3 times I volunteered.
I was threatened to be killed by members involved with the forever Canada petition. I was told I would be blown up, targeted, and shot because I was simply involved in the democratic process of Canada by so called “tolerant Canadians” and there was an active police investigation on this matter. Because of the threats of violence to me and my family, I was forced to make the difficult decision to stop volunteering, because of the extremist left wing political rhetoric which organisations like your self apparently help propogate and fail to report on.
I am recording this article, and may file this as further evidence of media radicalization of Canadian citizens using demonstrably false reporting tactics, and if necessary, I will hold your organisation responsible for your irresponsible rhetoric if any harm is to come to myself, my family or my property.
OF THIS NOTICE TAKE HEED, AND GOVERN YOURSELVES ACCORDINGLY
Hilarious! I needed this spicy satire when everything is doomy and gloomy, and that’s just the smoke-filled sky.
Oh, settle down. You were not slandered. Why are you separatists such whiners? I collected signatures for Lund’s petition. I know I didn’t cheat but I also know that we did not have access to a leaked voter list.
Lie dog with dogs, man. Wake up with fleas. Same as it ever was.
In light of THE FACT that the security of the voters’ list has been has been compromised, we can not take for granted that the petitions hold up to scrutiny.
Is the Republican Party of Alberta prepared to bear the cost of redressing the concerns of Albertans whose privacy has been compromised?
They were identified as the responsible party due to the fact the list was “salted” with identifiers, who were not actual persons.
This also brings into question, the likelihood of voter suppression including acts of intimidation, of those identified as most likely to vote against separatists who have been involved in financial improprieties. (Do not give the “sucker”, an even break)
As far as your concerns about threats against yourself, please let us know which detachment of law enforcement was contacted. If these threats were made through social media, please direct our attention towards those posts. The vast majority of us who are troubled by current events, want to see a fair outcome, and we are not aggressive in defense of our path forward.
We do know that “Figures Lie and Liars Figure” because of the stakes involved.
Hi Jesse, interesting comment. Referring to this article you say it is “…further evidence of media radicalization of Canadian citizens using demonstrably false reporting tactics…” Can you specify which are the “demonstrably false reporting tactics” in this post as that’s what your comment seems to say?
So much to unpack here, but I’ll stick with the first part. I was completely unaware that Elections Alberta collected signatures “for the petition on independence,” or that they used volunteers to do so. Even more surprising is that the list of potential signatories provided to the volunteers was obtained from APP. /sarc
DJC, I hope your “organization” is investigating this travesty.
Dear Mr. Kilvington,
I feel compelled to reply to your posting on David Climenhaga’s Alberta Politics Blog.
First of all, I am sorry that you were threatened and intimidated for your actions supporting Alberta’s independence from Canada. Emotions are running very high on this issue, but that is no excuse for personal threats of harm.
I reread Mr. Climenhaga’s posting that you are calling slanderous. As far as I can see, the posting is an analysis of the current situation mostly involving Elections Alberta. He did not accuse any one specifically of cheating, only suggested that it could possibly have happened.
It is a documented fact that an Alberta Voters list was shared illegally and with that, the heighten awareness of the possibility of further illegal use. I myself have kept much closer tabs on my personal information.
I have been following provincial politics for many years and as a proud Canadian and Albertan, I am saddened by the current state of affairs. I do know from experience that plenty of extremist right-wing rhetoric exists as well.
So, I will be voting to remain in Canada and am sincerely hoping that this matter will be settled and animosity will disappear so we can get on with our everyday lives.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizen
The hilarity that you expect tolerance while never showing an ounce of any. you are the devils children.
Hi Jesse, I like how you slandered the Forever Canadian volunteers there. What’s with that? Just couldn’t help yourself? Anyway, the entitlement displayed by separatists is absolutely infuriating. Maybe address that and we can talk.
I simply cannot and will not trust the UCP and Danielle Smith to do what is right. They clearly want the separatists to have their way. Ditto for the coal mining companies, hence the rejection of Corb Lund’s Water Not Coal Petition. If there is a way to botch the democratic process, the UCP and Danielle Smith have mastered it.
I am curious to know how this “will not end well”?
Privacy for citizens.
Transparency for governments, what they fund, their bodies, public institutions, charities, public media, social media sites and corporations. Right up there on da interwebz for investigative journos and bloggers to comb through. Journo/blogging nerds love that stuff.
How is this so hard to figure out? Where is the money, flowing?
Follow the money.
As a resident of Calgary’s ward 10 who remembers well the Margo Aftergood, mail in ballot scandal, I do not completely trust that mechanism for voting.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/margot-aftergood-runs-for-council-ward-7-1.4064694 DJC
Mail-ins are now normalized because of the epidemiological circumstance of Covid; most citizens were willing to acquiesce. However, even if each ballot was verified as to the eligibility of who cast it, it’s impossible to verify that the voter was not coerced or bribed to cast a certain way not exactly cher personal preference.
Such corruptions cannot accurately be quantified but it’s reasonable to assume that some number of mail-ins are fraudulent; it’s also reasonable to assume most voters are law-abiding—or at very least afraid of getting caught and punished for casting fraudulently (or for coercing or bribing other voters to vote a certain way), so that the proportion of fraudulent ballots is very small—well, relatively, anyway.
However, since the democratic-majoritarian rule of 50%+1 is absolute, and that single ‘plus-one’ vote cannot be derived statistically by sample in any politic way, mail-ins perforce remain suspect when the margin of victory is very small (for whatever reason, very close election results have become more frequent of late, as the spate of official recounts show).
It could therefore be said that only supermajority thresholds to avoid near-ties can ameliorate the possibility that a counted margin of victory is smaller than the number of fraudulent ballots statistically expected when mail-ins are used. (Naturally, casting at designated voting-places in the privacy of the voting booth completely eliminates this problem.)
Granted, mail-ins feature better veracity than online voting, a system sometimes used by municipalities in order to save money, but online is never used for electing sovereign governments. The risk-analysis distinction is fairly sound because municipal budgeting is very limited with respect taxation, spending, and borrowing by the terms of their provincial or federal (in the Territories) charters so that any potential electoral corruption could not possibly bankrupt the sovereign jurisdiction whereas corruption of sovereign elections could have that potential; ergo the “Cadillac of voting systems” is used for electing sovereign governments: hand-marked paper ballots (in the secrecy of the voting booth) that are archivable (for possible recounts), hand-counted (in the presence of candidates’ scrutineers) at a designated voting-place (where voter eligibility is identified and registered).
In a perfect world all elections would use the “Cadillac of voting systems.”
Do these “non-partisan” organizations think sane people will believe they are non-partisan when we see their partisan actions?
There is little doubt that Elections Alberta has been effectly compromised by the Seppies. At this point, they are just going along with this routine and hope that the referendum is crushed and Queen Danielle’s antics come to an end. I recall that was the mindset going into Brexit and that didn’t turn out as planned.
I believe that Big Daddy Carney has something in the works if things should go awry. Perhaps associations with certain Europeans who can make accidents with open windows a thing?
Big Daddy the Carny Banker is associated with the OG defenestrators. The CIA threw Frank Olson out a window in 1953. That year their murder manual was published as part of Operation PBSuccess to overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala. “2. Accidents. For secret assassination, either simple or chase, the contrived accident is the most effective technique. When successfully executed, it causes little excitement and is only casually investigated. The most efficient accident, in simple assassination, is a fall of 75 feet or more onto a hard surface. Elevator shafts, stair wells, unscreened windows and bridges will serve.” https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000135832.pdf
Never mind your “certain Europeans”. Our esteemed ally in NATO, and Norad, and the Five Eyes and Northcom and the tarsands has all the expertise anyone could require when it comes to political murder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Olson DJC
Aren’t Russians the masters of defenestration? I thought the Brits preferred poison umbrella tips and the CIA favoured poison ice darts fired from a heart attack gun.
Never mind the foreigners. I have it from a reliable source that certain domestic organizations set fire to houses when their owners are out: intimidation, not termination. Much more polite.
Remind me again, what are we talking about and why are we talking about it?
Abs: Credit where credit is due, it appears to have been the Bulgarians who came up with the ricin-tipped umbrella. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_umbrella The Russians are frequently accused of being masters of defenestration, but those of you who have read the first book of War and Peace will know that they may have grounds to plead not guilty. The CIA seems to have used a number of techniques, although crude indiscriminate bombing campaigns seem to be the method favoured by the country’s current administration. As far as anyone knows, I believe, the Mounties stand accused only of setting fire to a single barn. DJC
@Just Me
Carney doesn’t even need any of that.
To start with, there’s zero legal basis on which they can separate. Endlessly whinging to the Americans does not legislation, make.
If he wants to hit it with a sledgehammer to end it he can claim it’s a security risk and shut all this sh*t down, today. He’s just letting it play out for now rather than risk the reputational damage and hard feelings in Alberta he’d cause by doing that.
Also, it flushes Canada’s dark underbelly out into the open where they can be seen and publicly countered. Kind of like how Iran got rid of a large proportion of foreign interference assets when their legitimate protesters were infiltrated. Find the starlinks that cost a year’s salary, arrest the users–find the majority of undercover assets. Go through all the cell phones, find the rest. Let the legitimate protesters go or slap them on the wrist. Send out the grannies to take back the streets and quell the uproar.
Everyone’s walking around with trackers in their pockets. If the separatists don’t think their actions and money flow is being tracked by both Canadian and American (which now includes Israel) security forces–the are dumber than they appear.
I’m sure a few are true believers. Just like the truckers. But a large proportion of their leaders are American assets and they’re too blinded by anger to see it.
You are assuming that the US respects Canadian law. What if US troops occupy Alberta the day after the referendum, to ‘protect’ their interests, and then publish the ‘results’ to justify it?
There was a time when that would have been unthinkable, and not so long ago. Now, who knows?
Canada has a legal system, but I am convinced the rule of law has disappeared in the USA.
Paul: This is a legitimate concern. If Alberta separates from Canada, I am pretty sure you can assume that the rule of law will quickly be a thing of the past here too. DJC
@Paul,
I’ve absolutely considered that, and said it in comments on previous articles, here as well as elsewhere–that the USA may well use Alberta’s “fweedumb” they’ve now manufactured as the excuse to invade. One of the main reasons I want CSIS and the RCMP to do full investigations into the UCP and separatist movement and their cash flows. Add in Pierre Polliviere to be sure. Our lettered-agencies also need to be completely detached from USA intelligence who are now also legislatively in bed with Israel.
There’s little law left in the USA and what is grinding along far too slowly, is being bogged under in the legal sh*tstorm constantly being shovelled.
The one and only reason that the US might take a step back on it isn’t for any “good” reason–it’s because their war-mongering whitehouse wankers have not had to fight on their own doorstep for the past century which is why they’ve been so eager to commit wars elsewhere where they don’t pay for the consequences of their actions.
In the age of drones and missiles even the current reprobates in office know invading Alberta could wind up getting them the French revolution treatment. Even their mind-shattering levels of propaganda may not be able to cover for that.
The longer I think about it, the more I believe it doesn’t really matter *what* Carney and his trade team do with CUSMA. It’s clearly not worth the paper it’s written on nor are any other previous arrangements/treaties/agreements with the USA. That is what rattled Trudeau.
So, Alberta or not, we need to be on a full-scale war footing. I don’t mean waiting in line for half a decade to buy a bunch of large, expensive, currently useless huge purchases, either. I mean cheap, small, mobile, armaments that we can build, hide and replace, swiftly for a war of attrition.
Our crackhouse downstairs neighbours told us they brought weapons into the house and the sooner we accommodate to that reality the less chance they get stoned and stupid enough to run up the stairs.
I know a retired couple, a nurse and a x police officer who came out to Alberta a few years ago to be closer to their grandchildren. They just moved back, because Alberta is so F*ed up. This province under Smith and the UPC has become a cesspool, just like the U.S. Corruption, lies, deceit we have it all thanks to Smith. We also have on-line gambling, because the UPC want the 20% kick back, no matter how many people gets hurt. And how am I suppose to vote in the October referendum, when all my government ID, has a PO box, instead of a street address? Thanks Elections Alberta! Nothin’ says lovin’, like Smith and her corruption.
Trawling (not trolling) through the far right wing social media pages has been amusing these past few days. There are the usual suspects touting Danielle as someone who plays 4D chess, in light of her decisions and comments at the recent PEI premier’s get together. (On the War Room pay roll?) But others are mad. Really mad. They don’t like her apparent fan girl crush on Mark Carney. To quote – “she didn’t campaign on this. This isn’t what she told us at the AGM/Town Hall. She’s done a 180 on us. I don’t recognize this woman – has she been cloned and we’re seeing a fake Danielle?” Well, now these folks know how the rest of us feel. Cough, cough. Separation petition. Alberta Pension Plan. Alberta Police Force. Privatized health care. Danielle didn’t run on any of these issues in the last election. Yet, here we are. (I hope she hasn’t been cloned. One is enough!)
It looks like Dingy Smith is still in her dictator mode. In addition to extrapolating a very small sample to verify the petition so the separation question can be asked and supported by her (in spite of what she claims), it will be interesting to see if another question appears on the ballot. This again running contrary to her claim the coal / water petition by Corb Lund was too late to be added to the list, so seeing she flip -flops on this one will interesting. Of other note, she is now questioning where the support for the Forever Canada is coming from and the rapid response from Thomas L which in my view is none of her business. Of course she seems to stick her nose into all sorts of things that are none of her business, perhaps to distract from her failures.
The game was rigged from the beginning because the UCP moved the goal posts. Forever Canadian was required to get at least 294,000 signatures (we got 456,000), well above what the separatists managed to get. But this doesn’t really matter that much. There is no way the separatists win in October, provided enough remain voters turn out. Also, about those false names planted in the voters list. If none of them showed up in the separatist signatures, that doesn’t mean they didn’t use the stolen list. It’s all about probabilities. Somebody should ask Elections Alberta what is the most probable number of forged signatures, with a 95% confidence level.
I predicted this a few weeks back so no surprises here. Don’t expect the appeal to come through either folks; I predict that one will go to the seppies as well. Spineless judges, useless media and seppie premier fueled by dark money will ensure this shitshow of a referendum will go ahead. Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
I’ll see your “seppie premier” and “dark money” but raise your “spineless judges” and “useless media” because, in their cases, no distinction was made between lower court and SCoC judges, nor between MSM and independent media.
First, insofar as Albertapolitics.ca, for one example of many, is an influential part of the media-sphere, it can’t be said all media are “useless.” Second, I’m from BC where landmark SCoC decisions on Aboriginal Rights have breached a century and a quarter of Crown-sponsored injustices against indigenous nations and people in a way that can hardly be called “spineless.” Those rulings affect indigenous nations across the country.
I’m sure not gonna bet against the “bumpy ride” though.
Yes I meant MSM, I shouldn’t have assumed everyone would have known that. And I was referring to provincial level judges, not Supreme Court, where supposedly the fate of the seppies’ referendum question lies. I’m sure I’m not alone but I don’t think for a second that an Alberta CKB judge (or panel of judges, whatever the case may be) has the cajones to shut down the referendum question. Their concern over threats and civil unrest will override any lawful judgement siding with treaty rights. Ottawa Clownvoy, anyone? I can already hear the cries of “democracy killed by unelected judges” coming from the far right. Let me be very clear with this, I’m no lawyer but there’s a strong possibility that legally the seppies’ question SHOULD be declared null and void based on existing treaties but I don’t see it happening. The next logical step of course would be elevating it to the SCoC but by the time that happens the referendum question-for-a-question will already be done. Smith is counting on this. Like I said before, buckle up…
As I recall, even the citizens of Narnia got a larger sample size when they were in this exact situation.
Remember how they knew that lists from two parties could be combined to delete all names that were not found on both? Salt out! (Shysters out!) I’m pretty sure the Control Women’s Bodies Party was in on that one. In Narnia.
As I recall, all proponents were subject to the same rules. Elections Narnia used call display every time it called signees to verify signatures. Furthermore, when Elections Narnia found out that a number of names were used falsely in what is called “fraud” nowadays, they noted this information and called the Narnia RCMP-equivalent. They did not tell the folks who did not sign (but had their names purloined from a stolen voters’ list, signed on the other side of the wardrobe), “Well, tough luck. You have no recourse, and if you think it’s bad now, just wait until the general election when someone uses your stolen data to vote on your behalf, and tough luck twice because you will have no recourse then, either.”
Remember how the level of state corruption, foreign interference, voter suppression, gerrymandering and outright fraud was rife, so they called the United Nations to provide technical assistance in ensuring free and fair elections? Ya, me too.
The thing is, even the federal government of Narnia was alarmed about the outcome of such rampant anti-democratic tactics. It was so concerned that it did something.
Are we in Narnia or Alberta?
This is the pilot project. The UCP is using this referendum to test how many people they can disenfranchise, how many rural constituencies they can rig to take bites out of city constituencies, how much foreign interference can escape notice, how much influence peddling can go on without consequences for the politicians who enrich themselves with it, how many government agencies can be infiltrated with party hacks until the slogan “without fear or favour” is a distant memory. By the time the next general election rolls around, Alberta will be fully compromised and corrupted. The process is well under way. If they manage to break up Canada, the rest of the country will fall to dictatorship, too.
Who is behind all this? Who has the most to gain? Who is playing hybrid warfare with our country and who has rolled out the welcome mat? Wild guesses, anyone?
When is anyone going to go something to stop it?
ABS
I loved your question ‘When is anyone going to stop this?’
Apparently nobody. Legally, it looks that our democracy is a dictatorship of the right after all. It does not surprise me. Mark Carney just appeases all of it like Chamberlain with Hitler and we all know what happened after. Danielle Smith is a separatist and a Trumpian and she will carry on as designed by the far right. We can protest, scream a lot but will be met with police force. So much for pointing fingers to those pesky communists in Russia, Cuba or Venezuela. Try it and you will see where you will find yourself. So it is almost certain that both here and in the US these corrupted coups are going to have bad consequences and it is not out of this world to imagine what can happen in the US coming this November if Trump interferes with elections. There is a per capita average of 1.2 guns per person across the entire population in the US. Do not despair though Marco Rubio, Vance and Testosterone Pete Hegseth have it all under control. They need a new assignment after the boring Venezuela and Iran entertainment trips.
What worries me most about this entirely fiasco, is what both Naheed Nenshi and Jason Kenney seem to agree on: voter turnout and voter motivation. Kenney, surprisingly, said it better: the separatists will crawl over broken glass to get to the polls, while opponents might not turn out in high enough numbers to put this issue to bed for at least a generation, as it ought to be.
If the “Remain” vote is 80% or higher, I think we all breathe a big sigh of relief.
But if the vote for a second referendum is higher than 30%, even though it’s defeated, it will give the separatist cause enough oxygen to say, as René Lévesque famously said in 1980, “à la prochaine fois” (until the next time). [Well, they probably won’t actually say it in French, because, you know, “bilingualism sucks”, but you know what I mean].
This is all so out there that I woke up this morning thinking that I now live in Russia. Danielle Smith and her gang of illiterate gangsters are pushing the limits. First time it was just a loud voice protest but be careful.
As far as voter turnout I think they have already accomplished what they wanted. Discrediting Elections Alberta, I believe, is pretty much accomplished and now the question is – Do you trust Elections Alberta with your vote? I do not. The way the Alberta Government has dealt with the separatist petition and the petitions for remaining in Canada and the coal mines is so obvious biased in favour of Jack Rath or Rat’s cult that no one with half a brain cares about whatever they say anymore. As always a carbon copy of what Trump is doing in the US. So yes this is going to be another major circus that could very well destroy the future of the province and the majority of its inhabitants. The sad part is that they do not give a SHIT. The objective is not the future of our families. The objective is far right utopia and Armageddon. They already have their messiah waiting in the US, you know, the one Danielle just jumped on a plane to go to his swear in, like a Rock and Roll screaming teenager.
Carlos: I see what happens in Latin American countries, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, and in other countries. They have leaders who are absolutely power hungry. Knowing how Danielle Smith is, this is what she wants.
Nicaragua’s Ortega says no more elections, extending 20-year rule : NPR https://share.google/OAmfq2TKTuWWXP0wW
My conservative friends and I see Mark Carney as being another Peter Lougheed showing us that he cares about the wellbeing of all Albertans and we think he’s playing Danielle Smith for a fool and she isn’t smart enough to understand it.
Oilmen tell us that there is no need to waste billions more of taxpayers money on building more pipelines when the obvious solution is to increase oil royalties and corporate taxes back up to the Lougheed levels, and Carney knows it and has no interest in building more. There’s lots of excuses he could use to get out of approving it.
If Carney knows that just a fair tax system and royalties would fix everything and he does not say it, he is with them. The fact is that the UCP wants to make the oil companies extremely rich and then compensate the loss of revenue by doubling production. Once they accomplish that they reduce the taxes to zero and no royalties and WE the People continue poor. Peter Lougheed was the only conservative I know that wanted the people of Alberta to get some of the benefits. Danielle Smith and gang want the benefits for themselves and their landlords and the rest of us can go to the line up to get the crumbs, we are simply not deserving.
I am sorry to say but I am still not convinced about Mark Carney. He has lied a lot and his book and his values are now good to be used as toilet paper.
Thanks for writing this, David. I am one of the people you alluded to who have lost confidence in Elections Alberta’s independence. I expect a similar lack of confidence will be felt by the seppies if/when the separation vote does not go as they hope.
I think this is going to turn the entire October 19 referendum into a complete morass. It is too easy to imagine Elections Alberta blaming huge line-ups at the polls in Edmonton and progressive areas of Calgary on lack of staff available in those areas, while conveniently there were lots of staff available in rural areas.
I also don’t trust the people who will be counting the paper ballots in the referendum. Elections Alberta has said they will need to hire 60,000 workers to count the ballots, and I recently saw a news story that said that number could increase to 90,000. I have no confidence EA can find that many people in rural areas who will not fudge the numbers, and I expect the seppies feel a similar lack of confidence about the people needed in urban areas.
Not ending well is probably better than a dose of PPP, or ‘Perceived Psephological Perfidy’ not ending at all. The Q is not about whence it came to Canada—that is, Alberta—; we already know that. Rather the question is about how far the democratic disease has progressed toward the ‘tipping point’ after which it becomes ‘Perpetual PPP’ —the chronic wasting affliction which might be termed “terminal” in the sense that the patient will certainly die with it if not actually from it.
Treatment depends on whether the condition has passed the point of no return which in that case palliation, or “keeping the patient comfortable,” is recommended if chi’s too far gone to survive the the faint-hope, or “near-death-experience” of a radical cranial-transplant procedure. If caught early enough the patient can expect to lead a near-normal life with regular injections of Omega-[PPP–PP=Pº]™
Canadians are uniquely seated in the front-row gallery overlooking the great operating theatre of US democracy, and have full access to the library of Anglo-Saxmaniacal history and political economy. Distrust of government is evident through the fog of American myth from colonial days, particularly of parliamentary representation, the primal rationale for seeking remedy by way of popular rebellion. And that was only the beginning.
The myth crowed “freedom,” but the reality cried “slavery!” The myth jeered “Mad Tyrant!” but the completely nonpolitical King was only occasionally out of his head and is more favourably compared to one of his predecessors who completely lost his over the legitimacy of parliament. The US myth claimed an autochthonous-like “birthplace of democracy” while the dearth of affordable land in the original Thirteen States made the new republic’s property-owning requirement to be an eligible voter an effective disenfranchisement of many rural Americans; cheaper land on t’other side of Appalachia featured rampant psephological perfidies like ballot-stuffing, vote-buying, and violent voter suppression of a truly “Wild West” nature. The Cherokees’ franchise was granted by treaty but then taken away when they were brutally deported on the Trail of Tears, as was that of newly-freed slaves when racist Jim Crow laws replaced martial law imposed during the defeated Confederacy’s Reconstruction. US history reads like the Bible: humankind keeps looking its divine gift-horse in the mouth, sliding two steps backward with every one step of democratic progress, one recent example being the reversing of nonpartisan electoral-boundary committees in certain states, allowing blatantly unabashed, race-based gerrymandering to corrupt democracy once again.
The USA was anti-government before it was born and baked it into its Constitution by precluding a strong federal government, by allowing states to conduct federal elections the way they want—including gerrymandering federal electoral districts—, by instituting a powerful but democratically disproportional federal Senate to represent state interests— plus a goofy Electoral College—, by allowing the popular election of law officials rather than professional peers appointing officers based on credentials and merit, &c—all intended to make government intervention over citizens’ will, no matter how ill-informed they are, as difficult as possible. One glaring example is the persistent popular defiance of government attempts to preclude the teaching of Biblical Creationism in high school science classes. (In 1925 John T Scopes was convicted of violating a Tennessee law for teaching the theory of human evolution to his high school class. He died in 1970, a couple years after the law was repealed. However, the issue still crops up on occasion, in 1987 and as recently as 2005 .)
Learning from American mistakes, the Canadian Constitution contrasts with the USA’s: we have a strong federal government, a nonpartisan judiciary and law enforcement, there’s no constitutional right to carry guns, &c. Nevertheless, por many similarities make it remarkable that Americans’ historic distrust of government has no close parallel in Canada (cƒ: 1837 Rebellions of Upper & Lower Canada vs American Revolution; Freedumb Convoy 2022 vs Jan6, 2021; Quebec Referenda 1980 & ’95 vs secession of Confederate States of America 1861-65). and, to the extent purposeful undermining of trust in the electoral office has manifest in Alberta, we have to ask whether tRump’s uniquely blatant denigration of democracy by way of psephological perfidy represents a mutation of traditional American distrust virulent enough to catch fire north of the border, or whether Danielle Smith’s own, apparently intentional undermining of trust in the provincial electoral office is organic contagion the ROC needs to guard against —or if it’s mere political performance.
Everything tRump does is for his own personal gain whereas Smith is functioning as a proxy for Big Bitumen (when tRump tried to showcase gifting Venezuela to Big Oil, execs they threw it back in his face; who on earth would want that idiot for a political proxy?) Because Smith and tRump are similarly content as political ignoramuses heedless of legal and constitutional pitfalls, it looks like they can propagate distrust in elections in equal measure, but they’re quite different in their respective contexts: where Smith criticizes government involvement in society, tRump kicked-off his new career by specifically attacking certain elections when he questioned Obama’s legitimacy and eligibility as candidate for a 2nd term. It was chronologically incongruent to broach the accusation as a psephological point, but tRump could not otherwise gin white bigotry, in not so many words, until the 1st Black President had already served his 1st term.
tRump perfunctorily blames others; he has a number of favourites, but elections are among his most longstanding scapegoats used only for that purpose since otherwise they don’t make much sense. He predicted the 2016 election would be rigged against him and maintained the falsehood even after he won; to this day he hasn’t stoped wailing that 2020 was “stolen” from him when it’s amply proved it wasn’t; he predicted 2024 would be rigged against him and stands by it even though he won. Crazy in detail, but in sequence the jibes are supposed to rationalize declaring a psephological emergency—that is, to throw a wrench into upcoming midterms, plunge the country into chaos, and justify his ruling by whim. He wasn’t lying about being a dictator, or that if evangelicals voted for him they’d never have to bother with another election again. Projecting his own perfidy onto his enemies, he declares that midterms have to be “saved” from Democratic saboteurs; he pretends to joke that he’ll run for “a fourth term” (another cheeky way of claiming to have won in 2020, making 2024 his 3rd, not his actual 2nd term). His are the most viciously demeaning attacks on the veracity and trustworthiness of US elections anyone’s ever heard.
As fantastically evil as his rhetorical powers are, he’s had markedly poorer results when his electoral sabotages are challenged in reality, in courts of law. But many if not most Americans are inured to distrusting government to some degree and might just as well consider tRump nothing more than particularly bad case of this particularly ordinary kind of flu. If they can survive him, they will remain the same when it passes. Which advises against making tRump-Derangement-Syndrome vaccine mandatory.
Smith’s undermining of trust in electoral processes—in this case petitions and referenda—might be a symptom of the tRumpublican disease, but despite widespread fretting about Alberta separation, diagolonosis is only possible with respect the corpus and Constitution of the Canadian federation which, as evil as her attempts to weaken them are, appears to be weathering all of it fairly well anyhow. Recall Poilievre’s attempt at voter-suppression with his 2014 “Fair Elections Act,” and the HarperCons’ raft of campaign infractions and crimes, both of which got mopped up in 2015 —and ain’t never been back since. And recall K-Boy’s highly suspect “Kamikaze” ploy which earned an RCMP investigation into the UCP’s very first leadership race: Also mopped up when he was ousted midterm by UCP members in 2022 . Psephological perfidy seems to have a hard time getting its claws into Canadian politics.
But vigilance is definitely warranted. Sampling instead of counting petition signatures (as recently with verification of petition signatures in Alberta) or instead of counting general election votes (sampling instead of a total redo decided an infamous Etobicoke-Centre judicial “recount” in favour of the CPC candidate in 2011) could be the thin edge of a psephological wedge we shouldn’t want to set. Votes are votes, signatures are signatures, not statistics. It’s a fundament of democracy and a sacred trust that each and every single one be counted and respected.
The electoral office is sacrosanct and should be the only advisor to a government in all matters electoral (like, say, whether to hold electoral systems referendum or not), not the other way around. IMHO, any legislation affecting the office or its psephological mandate should be drafted by a non-parliamentary body composed of non-elected experts demonstrably beyond perceivable conflict of interests or reproach. Parliamentary representatives may of course vote yay or nay to the bill, but any amendment could only be approved by the electoral office. (I generally disapprove of referenda as shirking representational duty so, if a governing party resorts to this cop-out because politics is too risky, then representatives should forfeit any influence on the process—which, if psephological in nature, thence defaults to the electoral office).
The electoral office must remain absolutely pristine otherwise it will be inappropriately abused for politically partisan or purposes ulterior to the public good. That said, the Alberta electoral office should, in light of recent troubling events, conduct a thorough review and present draft legislation to remedy some pretty obvious loopholes.
There really isn’t a Q whether Alberta will separate (it simply may not by any reading of the law and Constitution), but rather whether Smith will affect any lasting damage to the trustworthiness of the electoral office in the course of her trying. Touching on another issue, FOI, we probably won’t be able to tell until her government has been defeated. Perhaps we’ll have to wait until she claims the vote was rigged against her.