Oh for crying out loud!
Preston Manning, 84, the superannuated Godfather of the Canadian right, has teamed up with another tiresome has-been from conservative Western Canadian politics to try to polish up Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s tarnished October separation referendum with a two-day “virtual assembly” in late September.
Mr. Manning’s sidekick in this elaborate constitutional snake-oil pitch is Gordon Campbell, a comparatively youthful 78, who was the “Liberal” (but really conservative) premier of British Columbia for a decade in the 2000s. Nowadays, however, Mr. Campbell is mostly remembered for an unfortunate police mug shot taken during a brush with the law in Hawaii in 2003 and a troubling civil suit more recently.
By contrast, the teetotalling Mr. Manning, leader of the Reform Party Opposition in Ottawa for four short years in the late 1990s, has managed to become the bad penny of Alberta politics.
That is to say, he just keeps turning up on United Conservative Party Government panels in Alberta, writing friendly “reports” for the same government, and organizing generously financed and well publicized “citizens’ assemblies” and “inquiries” on such conservative preoccupations as COVID, convoys and provincial sovereignty, not to mention authoring partisan jeremiads on a variety of paleoconservative topics for the always-accommodating National Post.
Indeed, just last year while his boat was still rocking in the wake of the federal election, Mr. Manning was musing about setting up a “Canada West Assembly” to talk about how to respond to the election of another Liberal government, this time led by Prime Minister Mark Carney. Options would include “various independent-oriented proposals,” he told a National Post reporter.
So here we go again with the “Alberta and the West Assembly” – which is said to be a project of Mr. Manning’s eponymous Manning Foundation for Democratic Education. According to the event’s website, the online dog-and-pony show next month is intended to publicly “examine and debate the major options affecting Alberta’s and Western Canada’s future within the Canadian federation.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, after plowing through about 3,300 words of turgid drivel under the heading “A Brief Introduction,” these begin to sound a lot like the long list of grievances Mr. Manning has regularly repeated since failing to grab the brass ring during his fleeting tenure as Opposition leader in Parliament.
Reading this twaddle, one comes away with the impression the point of this performance will be to shine up the UCP separation referendum that almost no one in Alberta asked for and find a way to make the Conservative Party of Canada relevant again as it withers in the bright glow of an unexpectedly popular Liberal in the Prime Minister’s Office.
The list of “concerned and thoughtful persons” who will serve as delegates to the “virtual assembly” include a number of familiar names associated with Mr. Manning’s hobbyhorses over the years. Some are known to be sympathetic with his dyspeptic view of federal politics. One suspects the less familiar ones will turn out to hold the same opinions.
Many of the words in the not-so-brief introduction grind Mr. Manning’s axe on the reasons for “western dissatisfaction with the status quo,” including the “ignorance, indifference, and even outright hostility on the part of the media, academic, and political elites of central and eastern Canada toward the legitimate concerns and aspirations of Canada West.” (Eyerolls all ’round, including some right here in Wild Rose Country.)
Premier Danielle Smith will put in an appearance at the two-day virtual bean fest, the site promises, to speak for the Remain side. (Regular readers of this blog will see the problem with that strategy.)
Several separatist grandees will also be coming. Federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, also labelled a Remain advocate, has been invited. No word on why we hear so little in defence of Canada from his large cohort of Alberta Members of Parliament.
Invitations were also extended to pro-Canadian groups but, by the sound of it, most of them told Mr. Manning to pump sand.
“Preston Manning built his career on ‘Western alienation,’” former Progressive Conservative Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk told me yesterday. “He harnessed West’s dislike of Ottawa to build his Reform Party, which was supposed to run candidates only in the West like the PQ runs candidates only in Quebec, but the lure of wanting to be a prime minister made him pretend to be a federalist.”
“Now, he wants to sell himself as an honest broker in the unity debate, even though right out of the gate he insists that everyone should vote ‘Yes’ on the nine divisive referendum questions,” said Mr. Lukaszuk, who was the proponent of the successful Forever Canadian petition drive.
“It appears that the Oct. 19 referendum is not only intended to preserve Danielle Smith’s UCP leadership, but it also serves as an opportunity for many separatists to sell themselves as federalists,” he concluded. Needless to say, he won’t be taking part in Mr. Manning’s “assembly.”
It also sounds as if Prime Minister Mark Carney will likely find something more pressing in his calendar on Sept. 19 and 20.
Remember, Mr. Manning is nowadays the Conservative political éminence who can’t quite stay in the grise and who can still be found on the Internet advising Ms. Smith in 2021 on how to blackmail Canada into doing Alberta’s bidding by threatening to become the 51st state.
Cheekily wearing his Order of Canada pin, Mr. Manning tells the soon-to-be premier that “fear of the United States can be a factor in federal provincial relations” in a video created by the Canada Strong & Free Network, as the Manning centre has been rebranded.
That’s because they want our oil, he explains. “Is there some way that fear of the United States can be used as a lever to get some of the things that the West needs to have addressed?” His answer, obviously, is Yup.
Did this advice lead directly to the UCP Government’s effort to create a constitutional crisis with the October referendum? It’s hard to believe otherwise.
According to the “Alberta and the West” website – which despite Mr. Campbell’s involvement is unlikely to generate much interest outside Alberta – “the Assembly is not intended to promote any one of the options under consideration, but rather to ensure that differing perspectives receive a fair and respectful hearing and to help participants and the broader public become better informed about the choices facing Alberta and the West.”
If you believe that, I can probably come up with a list of major infrastructure projects here in Canada West you may be interested in purchasing.
Alberta under the Smith government, Alberta has become a bad soap opera. We need a serious government to get Alberta back to an even keel.
There would be no talk of Alberta separation if there were no oil and gas reserves to exploit and profit from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXXFN3PZ5jM
Manning is simply another false prophet demonstrating that empty, seductive, and deceitful rhetoric is both meaningless and treacherous. For example,
“There are different ways of reconciling the economy with the environment, some of them on the supply side and some of them on the demand side. Few groups in society talk about constraining demands. Conservatives can play a big role in reconciling these interests. The words “conservative” and “conservation” come from the same root. Living within your means – something that fiscal conservatives believe in – is actually an ecological concept. You can’t take more out of a natural system than goes back into it.”
+1 for Cypress Hill!!! Bravo!
Preston’s father is rolling is his grave.
Preto’s father ensured the lil guy would remain a festering boil on the anus of Canada in perpetuity.
Why, did the Rapture finally get underway?
Murphy: You made me laugh out loud. I had the same question of Don, but also faith in my regular commenters. DJC
Because what? ( Preston’s father rolling in his grave).
As for Preston, he’s never been successful at anything. Obviously his father left him rich enough to play tiddly winks all his life. I , for one, could not tolerate listening to him , at all.
What’s Ted Morton up to these days? He sounded remarkably like Corb Lund back in the day defending the Eastern Slopes. Too woke for him now we’ve got tuques and stickers?
In more cheery news, Mikayla put on a splendid pancake breakfast this sunny summer morning in the newly minted, fresh and lovely O-day’min park. Funds were raised I hear from the sale of FYFP t-shirts.
I imagine that Danielle Smith’s contribution to Alberta Festivus will sound something like this:
https://youtu.be/BN1WwnEDWAM?si=YcAnYwc5jLxd-yGL
May the aluminum pole be shiny.
Oh NO this loser again.
Put him in a package with the American Ambassador and send them back to a National Park in the us.
There were 30 thou signatures to get rid of this American clown but it is up to 179 thousand.
Join the petition
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7531
Preston Manning is a career politician, who has a very large pension, and he will not go away. He has farfetched ideas about many things. In the 1960s, when his dad Ernest Manning was premier of Alberta, Preston Manning thought that Peter Lougheed’s Alberta PCs should merge with the Social Credit Party. Peter Lougheed shunned the idea. In 2014, Preston Manning had a similar idea and coaxed (then) Wildrose leader, Danielle Smith and her party members to cross the floor and become part of the Alberta PCs, led by (the late) Jim Prentice. That went over like a lead balloon, and voters in Danielle Smith’s constituency of Okotoks High River never forgave her, and dumped her in favor of another Conservative candidate, Carrie Fisher, during the 2015 provincial election in Alberta. Danielle Smith forgot about that, and rewarded Preston Manning with a princely sum of over $250,000 plus administration costs of $2 million to come up with a Covid-19 pandemic report that was full of holes. Preston Manning, due to old age, leaked that report, which was likely written in advance, to other politicians that UCP didn’t want them to have. It was likely a mostly version of his earlier Covid-19 pandemic report.
What’s more is that the Reform Party never got elected, because they were so bad. Peter Lougheed even opposed the Reform Party, because he saw the similarities to the Social Credit Party in Alberta which he worked so hard on to eradicate. Social Credit Party MLAs couldn’t even challenge Peter Lougheed, because they knew what he was doing was right.
The UCP also paid Preston Manning and other grifters, masquerading as Conservatives, who knows what amount for their Fair Deal Panel, which was absolutely rubbish. The attendees there attacked Ottawa and the Liberals, as well as Rachel Notley and the NDP. Neither they, nor Preston Manning, and the others who hosted the UCP’s slanted Fair Deal Panel, would acknowledge that if these pseudo Conservatives and Reformers in Alberta didn’t mess with the proper oil royalty rates and tax rates of Peter Lougheed, which left us of around $725 billion, didn’t burden Albertans with an orphan well clean-up cost of $320 billion, didn’t waste money on other pricey boondoogles, looked after our public services, and did leave infrastructure in a roughshod shape, we wouldn’t be in this horrible mess. The excuse remains that the money was siphoned away to Ottawa, or to eastern Canada, which isn’t true. When we see the oil wealth of Alaska and Norway, it’s a shame how Alberta ended up with so little.
Gordon Campbell seemed to be following Ralph Klein’s bad example with alcohol. These political has beens need to step aside.
Funny how Preston Manning keeps popping up seemingly out of nowhere. He had his try at it a long time ago without success, seriously should give up and disappear in the dust like most smart politicians. His Reform ideas haven’t taken hold long ago and don’t appear to be any more appealing now than they did then.
It would be really interesting if someone would interview Preston Manning’s children and grandchildren to see if they believe Canada has it’s boot on Alberta’s throat or if they roll their eyes when he starts to spew. Let’s see if the rot has spread through the generations in that family. After all, old Preston is not going to last forever. Someone will pick up the ball and run with it, post Preston. We should be ready.
In a more civilized country, the likes of Manning would have been severely dealt with a long time ago. Canada’s tendency for politeness will be its undoing.
Yes, both Manning and Smith seem to be separatists trying to wrap themselves up in Federalist clothing.
Manning has made quite a cottage industry in trying to manufacture consent over the years and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down despite his age. Perhaps it is because he has found a great source of funds in more recent years, not the grassroots, but the UCP government of Alberta. Smith on the other hand has someone she can tie into her agenda who has more credibility with more traditional conservatives than her.
I suspect their hope is the long and somewhat confusing list of referendum questions will discourage some of those who are not motivated separatists so they may get a few yes results and a decent percentage on the separatism question.
However, perhaps they sense the separatist movement is waning some, partly due to the current PM who sounds reasonable and understanding of Alberta. So perhaps this assembly is an attempt to try boost things for the separatists by manufacturing whatever outrage they can.
At this point Manning should do the honorable thing and return his Order of Canada, but I suspect it boosts his ego as much as Smith’s repeated calls for him to lead this, that or the next UCP initiative. After being out of politics for decades, he is really not that relevant anymore, but he must enjoy the appearance of it being otherwise.
Always entertaining to see lib/prog fairy tales colliding with grifter/yokel fairy tales. Covid was the single most significant geopolitical and socio-economic phenomenon on earth since the end of the Cold War, and possibly since the end of the Big One. It stands to reason that some people might have a bit of a preoccupation with the crisis. The derpy Grift-o-kon tale of Marc Lalonde and Big Magus stealing their Cadillacs, turning their sons gay, impregnating their daughters and making them all learn French at gunpoint stems directly from liberals and their imperialist fun and games. Across the Bretton Woods epoch the Superfriend European and American colonial powers threw a few crumbs the way of their great unwashed, but corporate power never missed a day’s work after 1945, and the job was eliminating any worker gains from the first half of the century. During this golden era of democracy, the US overthrew Guatemala and Iran in outright coups. They did the same in Congo, although with a bit of static from the pesky French, to cement finance capital’s control of African resources. The brave men of the Canadian military helped track down the rascally Patrice Lumumba so that he could be shot and his body disolved in acid. The CF likewise helped train up the bold men of Ghana’s military who overthrew Nkrumah while he was out of the country. There followed a variety of coups in places like Indonesia, and not to mention Iraq, where Saddam, as a good CIA asset, hunted down communists from a list provided by the Americans. Also South Korea, Greece, Costa Rice, Albania, Syria, Burma, Egypt, Australia and, well, you get the picture. Because that was, and remains, what it’s all about. That is our largest trading partner, and our most significant military and intelligence ally. By the time LBJ had let the US corporations loot the US in pursuit of their mass murder scheme in Southeast Asia, with Canada bravely holding the line in Europe while uncle Sam was spraying Agent Orange and lighting little girls up with napalm, finance was ready to throw off the shackles of gubmint and really let ‘er rip through the Seventies. The Happy Time in what was then known as “Alberta”. Letting the dollar float free on the ocean of the world’s oil supply allowed the US to finance their 90-country chain of military bases, and happily frolick in the sky-rocketing oil prices that followed the response to Operation Nickel Grass, where the US provided the plucky little band of communal orange growers in Palestine with M-60 tanks, F-4 and A-4 combat aircraft, not to mention TOW missiles, in their existenstential struggle with the perpetually wicked Arabs. From 1972 on, when the US re-oriented their strategy of dealing with the Evil Empire of universal education, housing and healthcare and gave up on subsidizing former sharecroppers and coalminers to focus on shifting all the wealth in the economy to the Koch brothers and their fellow rightful rulers, liberals and progs were happy as clams. The destruction of the oil price by the Saudi puppets of the US in the eighties in order to break the Evil Empire’s capacity to raise foreign exchange went hand-in-hand with the Great rake-off that occurred when the monterarists smashed everyone with interest rate hikes, and the hardship experienced by average people, who didn’t own any property in the Caymans anyhow, was a small price to pay. Never once in those roller-coast days from 1972-1991 did liberals/progs suggest that perhaps total ownership of the economy by people like George Soros was anything other than a beautiful thing. Soros is a great example of prog nonsense colliding with MAGA fantasies. John Major’s government, odious as it was, represented the democratic will of the people of the UK. (how that will came to be is another question). His government’s policy was to protect the pound. Soros, because he is such a great guy, attacked the pound, broke the government policy, and walked with a billion dollars. This is an example of a great prog businessman. Obviously, while as usual, remaining generally ignorant of the facts, the Great Unwashed began to perceive Soros as perhaps a bit shady. Which is patently unfair, and likely antisemitic, because we all had an opportunitiy to make a billion dollars from assaulting a national currency, if we had just shown the entrepreneurial initiative to do so. Anyhow, at the end of the day, liberal/progs shored up corporate rule, with those rulers having the wherewithal to inculcate the various population sub-groups with the most absurd notions of why they have less and less economic power as the speculative financial class accrues more at an an increasing rate, and now we have a mass of bewildered progs who accepted Stephan Bancel as a global saviour, thanks to Drumpf’s Warp Speed, and a bunch of MAGA’s who support corporate rule because one day, they too will be billionaires if they can just get a higher rate on their hot-shot trucking business between Nisku and Lloyd.
Manning, like Smith, is not a separatist but a sovereignist. That’s what the other nine questions and that’s what allows them to say quite truthfully they are Remainers. The difference is subtle, but crucial. Lukaszuk understands it very well.
First, sub-national governments in any federation are sovereign within their jurisdiction. Mr. Manning has indicated that he understands this. Second, Danielle Smith’s definition of provincial sovereignty (and presumably Mr. Manning’s) would make Alberta a kind of super-province, able to infringe on federal jurisdiction and the jurisdiction of other provinces at will. As I have said many times, Canada cannot survive Alberta’s definition of sovereignty. No federation could. The United States – which is much closer to this constitutionally than Canada – damn nearly didn’t. Sovereignty as defined by the UCP can be described as friendship with benefits, a system in which Alberta (although not necessarily Albertans) get the benefits and all other Canadians get regularly screwed and are supposed to be thankful for the screwing. DJC
Not Gordon Campbell. How many times does a person have to be described as ‘disgraced’ before they’re shuffled off into irrelevance?
On another topic, a check of the Elections Alberta website reveals that Question #10 (aka, the essay question on separation) is non-binding on the government. Questions #1 through #5 (aka, the let’s bash immigrants because we’re not immigrants although we really are questions) are non-binding. Questions #6 through #9 (aka, amending the Constitution or To Dream the Impossible Dream questions) are binding on the government, but they’re never going anywhere because they require the cooperation of other provinces and Ottawa. So, Albertans are being asked to shell out more than a hundred million dollars on a vote that’s basically an opinion poll in order to save Danielle Smith’s job as premier. Cool. Another BTW, I’m still keeping a list of businesses owned or staffed by separatists. Not seeing another nickel of my money. If separatists think there will be no consequences to them for putting us all through this misery and wasting our tax dollars, they’re wrong.
How much is he getting this time?
Everything about Manning’s efforts, and those of his intellectual fellow travellers, reflects a fundamental lack of respect for democracy. The rest of Canada refused to elect a Conservative government led by the odiously repellent Pierre Poilièvre, so once again they are throwing a temper tantrum and threatening to take Alberta out of Canada.
Does anyone seriously think that any of this would be happening if PP had won last year’s federal election? Of course not. Sure, the separatists out on the fringe would still be hanging about, but that’s where they’d be: on the fringe. They wouldn’t be getting any oxygen at all.
Remember, the only reason the federal Conservatives did as well as they did, getting 41.3% of the popular vote and 144 seats, was because of their lock on Alberta and Saskatchewan. Take those two provinces out of the equation, and they did much more poorly in The Rest of Canada*:
– Liberals: 46.4% & 167 seats
– Conservatives: 37.5% & 97 seats
– New Democrats: 6.3% & 6 seats
– Other: 9.8% & 22 seats
As for today, if you go to a polling aggregator like P J Fournier’s 338Canada, the Liberals under Mark Carney are actually higher at 45% & 219 seats, and the Cons lower at 33% & 87 seats, than both were in April 2025’s election. The NDP under Avi Lewis are also up, to 11% and 14 seats. So the Cons have not been able to increase their appeal to Canadian voters, and are even losing ground here in Alberta.
https://338canada.com/federal.htm
*The Rest of Canada, sometimes abbreviated as TROC, is a formulation often used to refer to Canada outside Québec, especially in conversations around Québec separatism. But with separatism currently at very low levels of popularity in that province, I have repurposed this to refer to the two biggest political outliers amongst Canadian provinces.
“ignorance, indifference, and even outright hostility on the part of the media, academic, and political elites of central and eastern Canada toward the legitimate concerns and aspirations of Canada West.”
Not to be pedantic, but if your enemy is ‘outright hostile’, then by definition it can’t also be ‘indifferent’. Just sayin’.
Why can’t Preston Manning fade away. He is a no talent product of patronage and nepotism. Enough of the man