Whatever happens on Oct. 19, the United Conservative Party of Premier Danielle Smith will have left Alberta a worse place than it was before the 10 referenda scheduled to be voted on that day.
After the ballots have been counted, Alberta will be angrier, more divided, more radicalized, and not incidentally a worse place to invest money than it was before.
A “yes” vote in the separation referendum will set the stage for another, supposedly legally binding separation vote – in 2027, before a provincial election, according to the premier. So the anger, division and uncertainty will continue and intensify if that happens.
But since no one can be confident that a “no” vote will not be followed by the separatist-dominated UCP imposing another separation referendum anyway, the anger, division and uncertainty is also likely to continue no matter what transpires.
Regardless of which side actually wins the Oct. 19 separation referendum, the other side will distrust the process that led to it and furiously doubt the result – and not without sound reasons.
At the heart of this still unfolding disaster wrought by Premier Smith and her political advisors is Elections Alberta, the agency that oversees Alberta elections, by-elections and referenda. The supposedly “independent, non-partisan office of the Legislative Assembly” is in a state of near-collapse, barely capable of overseeing a normal election let alone Premier Smith’s chaotic experiment in stage-managed sham “citizen initiative” referenda.
Elections Alberta is underfunded, understaffed, and having difficulty finding sufficient election day employees. It is internally divided and beset by rapid legislative and regulatory flip-flops enacted by the UCP Government seemingly to enable the separation campaign or keep the secession pot boiling as a negotiation tactic with Ottawa. It is further burdened by the UCP’s MAGA-influenced policy that all 10 wordy and complicated ballots must be counted by hand within 48 hours.
As a result, the agency can no longer be trusted by citizens, regardless of their views on separation, to be able to run the vote in ways that electors can feel confident is fair and neutral.
In a column published the Sept. 17, Postmedia political columnist Don Braid labelled Elections Alberta “the agency that can’t count straight.” Now it’s about to be “swamped with millions of referendum votes,” he observed, in what may turn out to be the biggest election turnout in Alberta history.
“The government has a right to pose a question, but none whatever to claim this is ‘direct democracy.,’” Mr. Braid wrote in that column. “The result is a vast UCP opinion poll that will cost taxpayers up to $130 million.”
The same day, Edmonton-based author and national security scholar Patrick Lennox published a Substack column stating bluntly that Elections Alberta “is no longer serving the public, but has rather been captured by the far right UCP government and is doing its bidding regardless of the rules.”
Mr. Lennox – author of On Treason: Alberta Separatism, Foreign Interference and Canada’s Survival in a Revolutionary Age, which is scheduled to be released next week – makes a convincing case, cataloguing the series of “head-scratching snafus” that illustrate the disordered state of Elections Alberta as the referenda, now less than a month away, nears.
- Changes in Citizen Initiative laws by the government to make it easier for a separatist referendum petition to be approved, followed by more changes to make it harder for anyone else to get a petition approved.
- Changes to the law by the UCP to get around a court ruling that declared the wording of a separatist group’s petition to be unconstitutional.
- Special-ballot packages sent to voters with out-of-date information threatening $50,000 fines and two years in prison for citizens who use the ballots in accordance with current law. Whoops, just scratch that part out, says Elections Alberta. Many will not take the chance and won’t vote.
- The largest data breach in Canadian history, the notorious leak of a voters list containing the personal information of all 2.9 million Alberta registered voters.
- Defiant separatist groups that refuse to hand over financial records to the agency as required by law, and will likely to get away with it.
- Allegations from within the agency that suggest government intervention kept Corb Lund’s Water Not Coal petition from being approved.
- Resignations and firings of long-time Elections Alberta employees, some of them attacking the validity of the petition-validation process.
More recently, there has been that bizarre cabinet order that lists of electors must now list no electors, presumably to make it impossible for election scrutineers to do their jobs.
Plus, of course, there is the $4 million poured by the UCP into a taxpayer-funded advertising campaign to get voters to support the “noxious nine” referenda designed to incite division and subvert Confederation.
“It is clear that conducting this unprecedented plebiscitary experiment is so far beyond the capacity of Elections Alberta that it would be misfeasance to carry on with the vote,” Mr. Lennox wrote, citing the agency’s own admission in its previous annual report that it lacked the resources to conduct the complicated balloting properly.
As Alberta journalist Jody MacPherson summarized the state of affairs at Elections Alberta succinctly on her Substack: “Alberta’s October referendum is an absolute train wreck, a dumpster fire, a dog’s breakfast, a political juggernaut, a recipe for disaster — choose your favourite expression. It’s bad.”
Ms. MacPherson wrote that on Sept. 3. Nothing has gotten any better since.
This mess leaves Alberta’s separatist minority with no confidence. Steeped in MAGA paranoia and conspiracy theories as their movement is, Premier Smith’s obvious effort to play both ends against the middle, so that she can emerge as the winner no matter what happens, leaves them convinced that despite the evidence the system is stacked against them.
There’s no comfort for the rest of us either. The UCP has obviously had its thumb on the scale to benefit the separatist campaign since the beginning of this saga. It would be naïve to assume that they’ll start to behave themselves now.
Together, this clearly ads up to a sound reason to postpone or scrap this referendum.
Mr. Lennox called on Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure to take the bull by the horns. “Elections Alberta must admit to being compromised both in terms of basic matters of HR, and facilities, and oversight and governance, but now due to this recent set of revelations, that its integrity has been compromised in a very serious way which puts our democracy at risk.”
“Elections Alberta must take a step back and admit it needs time to repair itself and its reputation, and to prepare for this unprecedented and unwanted democratic experiment it is being forced to conduct by the far right government in power,” he concluded.
The UCP, obviously, will allow no such thing.
Albertans and Canadians are going to have to live with this disaster for a long time after Oct. 19.
CORRECTION: My apology to Ms. MacPherson for spelling her first name incorrectly. It’s been fixed. DJC
What a gong show that Danielle Smith and the UCP created. A very big mess.
Anonymous it’s no secret that these Reformers have destroyed Alberta’s future by not continuing to collect our oil royalties and corporate taxes at the Lougheed levels and every lawyer, accountant, economist, banker, oilman and former MLA we have talked to agrees. Yet why have so many ignorant Albertans allowed this to happen when Alaska and Norway didn’t.
This “I only vote Conservative Attitude”has destroyed us and allowed these Reformers to hide behind the Conservative name, that’s how stupid this has become, yet we still have mindless fellow seniors hurling their sarcastic comments at us, as you know, for not being as stupid as they are and believing every lie they feed them, totally ignorant of the damage they have done and the financial mess they have put our children in. They just don’t care and that’s sickening, isn’t it?
This all sounds disconcertingly, realistically, correct and likely.
It’s really discouraging, anxiety inducing and could leave one without hope that Danielle Smith’s insanely manipulative tactics will fail; thus leaving Albertans and all Canadians in grave danger with a madman threatening to “conquer Canada economically”.
I’m trying to wrap my head around what created this destructive monster; a woman who grew up in Alberta in the best of times, as history goes.
Very good question…what created this monster? Danielle Smith is a destroyer. As for why, I don’t know. Selfishness? Recklessness? I just hope Alberta doesn’t end up like the Wildrose Party.
It is a class action lawsuit waiting to happen. This vote is not legitimate and this government is incompetant and likely criminal….what now?
I believe this group of people are criminal, first and foremost and there was never an intent to actually govern effectively, for society’s sake.
Their tactics appear to be absolutely pre-planned and they always have a next clearly dishonest move waiting for them to go to.
They truly are people that could not function in an honest career or workplace. Thus their need for power and control. This way it’s not so easy for anyone to fire them.
I dream of a class action lawsuit to stop these people. Even if for laws that abuse others… We are holding people accountable for abusing others these days, aren’t we?
The Unethical Clown Posse should have been bombarded with lawsuits going back to its inception and Tailgunner Jay’s shenanigans. Something is very fishy in Griftertown on the Bow.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
Thank you DJC for listing problems with this disastrous vote which the UCP claims is a grass roots movement when it is nothing of the kind.
This might be a bit off-topic. I was listening to The Current on cbc this morning and one of the participants in an item about American interference in Canada stated that Tamara Lich was an invited guest at an event held by the U S ambassador to Canada. If that isn’t interference in Canadian independence, I don’t know what it. That is absolutely shocking, and it demonstrates what the U S is truly about. Interference in the independence of a democratic country that, until recently, the U S considered as one of its allies. Or at least I think the U S considered Canada to be an ally. I will have to listen again to the item as I wasn’t giving it my full attention when I heard it this morning. But I will say that hearing that piece of information grabbed my attention.
Living in Ottawa during the 1995 Québec referendum, I recall seeing the hoarding on a downtown construction site with “REFERENDUMB!” spray-painted on it. The more things change…
Apologies: this was during the 1992 Charlottetown Accord. I hope I did not offend anyone vis-a-vis Québec’s aspirations either then or now. W.
Our Premier Smith continues to do her best to be MAGA Marlaina. As one person said, chaos does follow in her wake, so she’s got that part down already along with constantly trying to use or create division for her own political advantage. She is not just a pale imitation of something else, but a true copy.
The referendums of course are divisive in themselves, but the chaos could make it worse. Lack of staff and all the ballots to be counted, not to mention the inability to properly scrutinize who votes may make for a very long night reminiscent of some US elections with some confusion.
Also, if this then turns into a neverendum, which may be Smith’s goal to try appease her separatist supporters and continue to distract from her poor performance, it could start to be economically damaging. In particular head offices and companies with operations elsewhere may start to quietly or not quietly shift things around to more stable places.
We have seen this movie before. While it is arguable the threat of separatism worked politically for Quebec, although I would say it was more their size, location and strategic voting, it was definitly not an economic success.
I suppose it is easy for a provincial government that is not that competent or doing a very good job to argue it just needs more powers or sovereignty to do better, but perhaps their lack of competence is the real problem. I hope Alberta will not be too damaged by this referendum process but MAGA Marlaina is again doing her best. Lest we forget, she destroyed two political parties the last time she had a great idea. It’s concerning she is rolling the dice yet again with her typical glib over self confidence.
Why bother with any complaints, exhortations or protests. Rural Albertans, soon to be set in concrete by gerrymandering, will ensure that we live in chaos and poverty forever. Just accept that this province is done for and get on with moving to another province or picking up the pieces of a life shattered by Smith’s hubris.
Well I guess I’ve read enough comments like this now that I have to finally say something. There’s no doubt that rural Albertans in general vote the way that they do and that the province-wide vote is more or less divided between urban and rural dwellers. Fine. But if I read the results of the last provincial election correctly on the Elections Alberta website, 12 of 26 ridings in Calgary elected the UCP. So I have to ask – why do almost 50% of Calgary voters get a pass when people look to assign blame for the mess that we’re in now? From my point of view as an Albertan who lives in a rural environment and has never and will never support the UCP, it seems that if Calgary voted the way that Edmonton does we wouldn’t be where we are now. As I see it, the root of the problem isn’t where a person lives it’s how a person decides to cast their vote. Blaming rural dwellers might be easy and convenient but many Calgary voters need to look in the mirror before they do. Living in glass houses and all that.
When you want the lowdown on foreign interference in Canada, always go to a Five Eyes spook. It’s just good, pragmatic, centrist common sense. That business in Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria demonstrated that we should trust the CIA and MI6 and CSIS and the ASIO and not conspiracy theorists! On that note, last I checked in 2017, Li’l Magus’ government was still using gag orders on the Canadian survivors of the CIA MK Ultra experiments in Montreal from the Eisenhower/Kennedy era. Elbows up!
I spoke too soon. “Victims of CIA-linked Montreal brainwashing experiments cleared to sue in class action”. It barely took sixty years. Thanks Five Eyes! https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mk-ultra-depatterning-lawsuit-montreal-experiments-cia-1.7598486
This…., whatever you want to call it, a mess, a disaster, fucked, this all lands squarely on Smith and the UPC. If the NDP win next year, they’ll be neck deep in a fractured province, that makes Humpty Dumpty look like a children’s puzzle. We need to restore funding for Elections Alberta and also, restore their independence from political interference. I also think, the feds needs to start looking at ways, laws to deal with people, groups and foreign interference, in regards to our sovereignty and unity. We now have a new federal party coming out of Medicine Hat, focusing on Alberta’s right to separate, just like Quebec. Just what we need, a federal party trying to divide us more than we already are. Alberta is a pressure cooker and eventually, it’s going to blow and no-one, except organized crime is going to want to be here.
I’m remembering how headquarters fled Montreal in the 70s and 80s, and wondering if we’ll see similar vacancies in Calgary.
If Alberta separates, yes. However, if instead of becoming a republic Alberta joins the United States as a territory or, less likely, a state … also yes. The only way to keep O&G HQs in Calgary is to remain in Canada. Otherwise, they all go to Houston, and why not? DJC
I wonder if oil companies have decided that they would rather the US swallowed Alberta because maybe sub-surface land rights would be owned by private citizens instead of mostly by the Government of Alberta. Easier to cheat and pollute?
Many of us who follow politics closely find the rise of the right hard to stomach. We see the harm its policies can cause, and sometimes our frustration turns to contempt: “How can people believe this?” But contempt will not persuade anyone. We need our neighbours to help elect a better government, because all of us live with the result.
We have to make the case for changing course. Maga style politics in Alberta could do the same damage we have seen south of the border. And we must ask why the resources beneath our feet have not brought security to every Albertan. Our province is rich, yet too many people struggle while governments give corporate interests more attention than the citizens they serve.
We will not win people over by calling them foolish. We have to show them what is possible, and invite them to demand it with us. Currently too many people are blaming the scapegoats instead of the kleptocrats.
I requested a mail in ballot September 14. Today, September 23rd, I checked the status of may application and learned it has been received but has not been approved. I wonder if I will receive a mail in ballot in time to vote.
My application was submitted on Aug. 28.
To date, nothing.
From Jody MacPherson in link above:
Now for some good news. If you read through the September 1 media release, you will discover a very important message near the end (don’t get me started on the inverted pyramid rule for news).
“Importantly, if a special ballot vote does not reach Elections Alberta by mail by the deadline, electors can still vote in person on October 19. The voting register is updated to reflect when a special ballot is received to ensure electors cannot vote more than once.” (Elections Alberta)
My wife and I applied for a special ballot near the end of August. As of last week her application had been approved and mailed while mine had not been approved. I called Elections Alberta about this on Saturday and spoke with a very friendly and helpful woman who asked for my name, address, D.O.B. and application confirmation number. She then immediately approved the application and told me that the package should be mailed to me this week. It took only 5 or 10 minutes. At the end she said ‘I don’t know why this wasn’t approved. Maybe we’re running a little behind or something.’
From the Elections Alberta website: Speak to a Special Ballot Service Agent by calling 1.877.672.1365
Requested mine on Aug 23, got it 2 weeks later, returned it Sept 8th, Elections Alberta received it Sept 15th.
So that’s a 3 week timeline. No guarantee everyone will see same.
“Alberta will be angrier, more divided, more radicalized, . . . the anger, division and uncertainty is also likely to continue no matter what transpires.”
That is a deliberate political strategy designed to manipulate and control the political environment by further dividing, disorienting, confusing, and exhausting the public.
If a political class is intent upon a set of goals such as institutional manipulation, operating without meaningful restraint, eliminating dissent, democratic distortion, a calculated erosion of transparency, ethics, and accountability, or using the power of government officials and their networks as a means for illegitimate private gain, [See for example,
https://paulstewartii.substack.com/p/changing-the-rules-mid-investigation
https://substack.com/@brandingninja/note/c-303047557 ]
then a highly distracted, overwhelmed, and apathetic public/opposition is a necessity as it weakens and possibly eliminates vigilance and oversight.
I will repeat what I have previously mentioned:
The Doug Ford government is both a good example and a good case study:
https://breachmedia.ca/the-rise-and-potential-fall-of-doug-ford/
Two Smiths: Premier and Captain of the Titanic. Same results.
Where is the lieutenant governor to intervene on this disaster?Knowing all too well that this referendum is illegal in the first place
When the Lords and Ladies look out of their towers, they want to see a people divided and fighting each other. If the people realize that the battle is up versus down, the towers fall.
It looks like Dingy Smith is achieving her goal to tear Alberta and Canada apart, and create enough confusion so people do not focus on her big failures, like schools health care and so on. This all with that irritating cheesy smirk on her face.
Resignations and firings of long-time Elections Alberta employees, some of them attacking the validity of the petition-validation process.
I think that there may be a missing word in there – did the fired or resigning EA employees attack the validity of the petition-validating process after their exits, or were they shown the door (or left on their own) because they drew attention to this problem.
Good column, David. But I think that it’s worth considering that the UCP, and particularly Danielle Smith, considers all of Alberta’s imminent woes as an externality. As far as these people are concerned, the buffet’s always open, and if the rest of us are paying for it, well, that’s the whole idea.
Alberta’s oil boom coincided with the worldwide, post-WWII boom. For a quarter century oil helped lift the remote province out of 3-1/2 decades of Socred parochialism, and introduced a new kind of conservatism called “Progressive” which defeated the elder kind in 1971 on the rubric that a generous 20% royalty of oil-value ought to accrue in a dedicated public savings fund intended to help the province transition to a more diverse economy when the oil ran out, which it eventually did.
The transition was instead to Athabasca where bitumen is surface-mined from a sandy deposit and trucked to distillation plant. Some of the bitumen is refined into a gasoline-like solvent used to dilute the ultra-heavy distillate so it will flow through a pipe as “dilbit.” Production is a high up-front capital investment feasibly dependent on high volume to squeeze marginal profit from the lowest grade of petroleum (next to asphalt). The city of Fort McMurray sprang up beside the deposit, the world’s third-largest reservoir of petroleum known. Pipelines carry dilbit to Texas refineries (Canada supplies the USA with 60% of its petroleum imports) as well as to the West Coast export facilities and refineries in Sarnia, Ontario. Production has nearly doubled over the past decade.
Thus Alberta’s economy became more dominated by, and more dependent on Big Petroleum, instead of more diversified and less dependent as the creator of the Heritage Fund envisioned. The Fund was depleted by his successors’ pilfering for their own political projects and by their constant lowering of royalties to appease the dominant industry. Today, politicians can hardly lower royalties and taxes more without effectively asking Albertans to pay industry to take their resource away. But absolving industry of cleaning up their orphaned wellheads and tailings-ponds is a $100 billion to $200 billion token of DanielleSmith’s esteem Big-B is happy to accept. Do we wonder what largess could top that?
Yet the industry is quite profitable. Next to caffeine, automotive petrol is the most pervasive human addiction in the world—and 132 million more of us are born every year. Why does industry need more from the Alberta government? First of all, it knows the whole world —and at least one Sasquatch—is watching the drama of climate change in which the petro-industry is cast as villain. Big Oil has long required the Alberta government to officially deny climate change but despite the current news-media climate of fake news and baldfaced political lying, denial is a hard sell to citizens of any stripe when they’re evacuating homes they might never see again because of wildfires. Maple MAGA can conspiracy theorize all it wants but it remains that in many places now one simply cannot buy house insurance due to increased risk of environmental catastrophe caused by climate change (underwriters just cite actuarial fact—their actual job).
Is the addiction strong enough to blunt the ascent of alternative energy sources which attend, hand-in-hand, the environmental movement Big Oil identifies as its archenemy? Safe to assume the UCP got its marching orders from Big Bitumen when implementing polices to beggar wind~ and solar-electric technologies. Visitors from BC are flummoxed that they can’t find anyplace to charge their EVs. Big-B surely grumbled when Carney swung Chinese tariff relief on Canadian canola in return for Canada allowing a few tens of thousands of Chinese EVs into Canada. Big-B is doubtlessly envious of tRump’s total USA ban (and ridiculous vilification of windmills) but mindful not to offend Canadian prairie canola farmers. Indeed, now that separation has taken centre stage, Big-B is well advised to be very careful whatever it says.
Although “peak oil” is nearing (or perhaps here already), Big-B’s desire to double production is so counterintuitive as to betray its own addiction, or perhaps simply greed that transition to alternative energy would ‘waste’ an estimated 200 years of buggy-whip—uh—I mean, bitumen production and strand equipment profitable production hitherto (thanks to generous Albertans) has already paid for many times over. Although Alberta governments defer to Big-B as if it could possibly pick up its bat and ball and leave— hints of its real fear suggest it can’t.
More than increasing concern about climate change (which can no longer be plausibly denied) or technological paradigm shifts away from petro-fuels, Big-B fears government most. It might taken fright when Lougheed set up the Heritage Fund royalty system, but that was back when easy conventional oil could practically be pumped from the well straight into the wallet, affording among other things a big political shift that didn’t divide the partisan right. But the much higher capital investment needed in dilbit production and its high-volume, low-margin feasibility makes Big-B much more sensitive. Long after Lougheed and easy oil were gone, Premier Stelmach tried to revive the Heritage Fund by putting the royalty rate back up. It’s hard not to suppose Big-B didn’t like it and had something to do with the subsequent bifurcation of the partisan right into ProgCon and Wildrose parties, the latter being conspicuously defensive of Big-B.
When Danielle Smith failed to lead her WR party to victory in the 2012 election as forecast, was she instructed to get closer to the levers of power by crossing the floor—with several of her shadow cabinet, no less—to the governing ProgCons? Big-B was wary of the ProgCons after Stelmach ‘went rogue.’ Probably more so after Jim Prentice became its leader, the former HarperCon environment minister who’d left the CPC presumably because Harper wasn’t environmental enough. Wariness must have turned to shock when an electorate which kept the ProgCons in power for 44 straight years (and the right-wing Socreds for 36 years before that) elected the normally four-seat, nominally socialist NDP to a strong majority in 2015.
The NDP government worked so hard to appease Big-B that it was likened to Lougheed’s Red-Tory ProgCons. Except the federally-funded TMX pipeline to the West Coast which Big-B had been caterwauling to have ever since the courts shitcanned Harper’s Northern Gateway had apparently touched a particularly sensitive part of Big-B’s anatomy like a cattle-prod, and that was the Pacific pipeline quid pro quo that Alberta impose a carbon tax. Every right-wing politician in Whoville cried “foul” to obscure Big-B’s yelping.
The Dippers didn’t do anything the other provinces did’t have to do under federal law, and it got something in return other province’s didn’t get: a brand new pipeline to the existing export facility on the West Coast. But having been stymied by the BC NDP (which asked the courts to stop pipelines but eventually lost the case), since SCoC ordered “meaningful consultation” protocols with treaty-less BC First Nations that ultimately frustrated Northern Gateway, in addition to Stemach’s ‘betrayal,’ and now carbon tax by the feds themselves, ‘Government,’ ‘Trudeau,’ ‘Ottawa,’ ‘First Nations,’ ‘Liberals,’ and ‘Canada’ all became keywords in building a myth of enmity between Big-B and government: it was surrounded on all sides by hostile governments, Canadian governments all.
How many times have Big-B execs wished the tar sands were in the USA instead of “woke” Canada. Unfortunately for the NDP, “keep-it-in-the-ground” rhetoric from its affiliates elsewhere in Canada probably undermined its good governance and re-election prospects (which got some Dippers so pissed they wanted to disassociate from the federalized NDP altogether). The new UCP government decided to go to the foreign environmentalist bogeyman one more time with its “War Room” inquiry—which was perhaps one time too many considering it only came up with a Disney cartoon Sasquatch. Big-B was satisfied that Covid and anti-vaxxers kept it out of the line of enfilading fire between the UCP and the ROC.
It’s almost impossible not to see Big Bitumen as the main beneficiary, one with influence and substance, of Alberta secession —if, that is, it were legally possible. But as long’s it’s operating under Canadian jurisdiction it cannot participate in the separation controversy in any way politic. Its proxies are the UCP and a gaggle of professed seppies who combined fall far short of a majority of Alberta voters. Have they been instructed to minimize the bitumen-as-victim hyperbole and allege that this bogeyman called “Canada” is taking away their “freedom” and persecuting their “religion” instead? The rhetorical change is conspicuous.
As the tedious unravelling of the legal and constitutional aspects of the Alberta separatist movement proceeds apace, Canadians should know by now the SCoC ruled a quarter century ago (after the last Quebec Referendum) that no province may unilaterally secede. Alberta separation is political performance of a threat to secede that cannot be made good. But in the interest of keeping it up, the last thing the seppies want is a decisive referendum “no” to secession, ergo the UCP is using what tools it has to ensure that doesn’t happen, namely by screwing up the electoral authority so it cannot conduct the upcoming referenda in any verifiable way, and so seppies can claim the threat is still alive—or at least that nobody can prove it isn’t. Yes, it is devolving to this rather puerile result. One suspects if the seppies ever have to go into hiding all they’ll do is cover their eyes and shout, “You can’t see me! Nya-Nya!!”
I’m sorry to say, my Alberta friends, that as much as the great majority of you would like to put this issue to bed once and for all and will dutifully and patriotically demonstrate that, a small but highly vocal cyst of petulant parasites will enjoy the booby prize. Or, as Jacques Parizeau once threatened the ROC: a never-ending trip to the dentist.
It’s Jody (with a Y) MacPherson.
Yikes! It’s been fixed. Apologies to Ms. MacPherson. DJC
What investment was going to come to Alberta in the absence of the secession scam? The province’s economy consists of oil and gas, the real estate fraud, and construction. The rest is incidental to supporting those sectors. It remains sadly amusing to see progs referring to the pronouncements of the Clinton-era economists who advocate comparative advantage. What advantage does the economy of Derpberta present to a globalized speculative finance scheme? Comparative advantage meant destroying the political power of labour by sending manufacturing and the R and D upon which it depends, off to China, and temporarily alleviating the pressure on standards of living by importing the goods produced in capitalist China. The difference between the Chinese set-up and the US empire, in which we are all supplicants, is the current supremacy of the Chinese state to its oligarchy. The oligarchy owns the state in the US empire. Which is why this derpy fairy tale in which Canada and Europe and anybody else owned by the Americans are breaking free, or experiencing some kind of rupture, is infantile on its face. The same ownership remains. The “security expert” Lennox, referred to in the article is quite a fellow indeed. He wrote a piece in the Walrus in which he claimed that the 2025 US National Security paper advocates the operation of various groups “broadly aligned with our principles and strategy”. The US strategy is to download the cost of its wars against Russia, Iran and China to its vassals. Lennox fails to mention that the whole point of the paper is to outline how the US will compete with those states: “…the United States will organize a burden-sharing network, with our government as convener and supporter. This approach ensures that burdens are shared and that all such efforts benefit from broader legitimacy. The model will be targeted partnerships that use economic tools to align incentives, share burdens with like-minded allies, and insist on reforms that anchor long-term stability. This strategic clarity will allow the United States to counter hostile and subversive influences efficiently while avoiding the overextension and diffuse focus that undermined past efforts.” This is why the Carny Banker pledged even greater Canadian support for the US war on Russia. Despite the inane characterizations of both Russia and the Ukraine in this conflict, it is a US proxy war and it is run out of the Lucius D. Clay Kaserne in Weisbaden Germany, and this includes managing the NATO forces that have allegedly been abandoned by the US. The Derpberta secession chicanery is essentially an example of the implentation of the processes used in Europe by the US and NATO with the Strategy of Tension. Right-wing kooks run by the US and Britain committed terrorist atrocities like blowing up the Bologna train station and kidnapping and murdering Aldo Moro. These acts were blamed on the Reds, and then, years later, were proven in court to be the actions of NATO assets acting to scare the population into abandoning any sort of socialist political aspirations and embracing the bankers’ rule. The status quo is so far right now that the Carny Banker is the status quo that we are to accept, only this time the boogeyman is on the far right. Again, the US is not an ally of Russia, the US oversees every single Ukrainian strike on Russia. The Ukraine is a proxy of the US, just like Israel and Saudi Arabia and Canada. Coming soon to a theatre near you will be the deployment of the Phillipines as yet another proxy. So yes, the separatist scam will continue to exude bile for a long time to come, serving to drive everyone else into the waiting arms of Blackrock, Chevron and Palantir.
Edmonton and Calgary – please start the ball rolling of declaring yourselves independent of Alberta. I’m not kidding…this is war.
@djc
I have to agree, this just the first neverendum.
The interesting question, however, is who will be calling the next hooraw, and what type of shenanigans will it be?
1) the seperafools do indeed lose by 7 to 3 margin:
a) Smith is ousted, a la Kenney, at AGM in November. New leader, a seperatist, plays fast and loose, calls referendum.
b) Smith barely survives review, but plays fast and loose to mollify her seperatists, calls referendum.
c) No coup d’etat at AGM, but Smith pulls a Ford/Eby early election call, trying to shake loose her separatist party members. Turns into a referendum on her.
Any way you cut it, I think we are headed for another vote on something, by spring.
Gerald: I would bet on (c). I would rule nothing out, no matter how outrageous. DJC