Standing behind a blue coroplast sign reading “Stronger Alberta within a united Canada” – surely a big step down from the heady days of a “Sovereign Alberta within a united Canada” – Premier Danielle Smith delivered a 12-minute, two-second postprandial peroration on her late, not-so-great separation referendum yesterday evening.
In case you missed it because you were still digesting your dinner, or washing the dishes afterword, it can be summarized as follows: OK. Thanks everyone. Let’s move on!
Pay no attention to the $130 million we spent – were still spending as the premier spoke, actually – on the months-long exercise in uncertainty and bad faith intended to help the premier keep her misnamed United Conservative Party united behind her. We’ll be remaining in Canada, she explained, the Liberals in Ottawa are a changed government, and, um, and could we please just blame the referendum on Thomas Lukaszuk.
I paraphrase, of course. “The question whether Alberta should remain a province within Canada was put on the ballot because of Alberta’s citizen-initiated referendum process,” she explained, misleadingly. “Two petitions were put forward by the people and received hundreds of thousands of signatures from Albertans. Out of respect for that democratic process, that question was added to the referendum.”
This explanation has been spun beyond all recognition. Her government moved Heaven and Earth to get the secessionist Alberta Prosperity Project’s separation petition on the ballot and, when that failed thanks to a couple of court rulings, used the hard work of Mr. Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition volunteers as an excuse to put a government-drafted separation question before us instead. The notorious referendum on a referendum, that is. The goal of the Forever Canadian effort was to block a separatist referendum, as Ms. Smith well knows.
Whatever Ms. Smith expected to say tonight when she booked the airtime, surely it wasn’t this: “At the end of it all, the people of Alberta cast their votes in an open and democratic referendum, and the resulting vote from Albertans has given our government a clear mandate. Alberta will remain a province of Canada.”
Anyway, she went on, that’s not a problem because thanks to her – erm, us – the federal government has changed, even if the party in charge didn’t. “Both the federal Conservatives and federal Liberals are united in supporting Alberta and our key industries in a manner we haven’t seen in a generation.”
“Only the marginal voices in the NDP and Green Party say otherwise,” she added, a sly dig at the Opposition Alberta NDP led by former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, which appears to have edged past the UCP thanks to nonpartisan blowback from the referendum.
Tweeted Mr. Lukaszuk moments after the premier’s image disappeared from our screens: “I can’t decide whether I like the last week’s tearful Danielle Smith that coddled separatists and MAGA, or today’s Danielle who appears to have bought a federal Liberal membership and became Captain Canada. Would the real Danielle please stand up!”
Ms. Smith again: “I want to make it clear tonight that for as long as I am premier, I will honor this mandate from Albertans and will not be holding another referendum on this issue.” This was presumably meant to be reassuring – commercial media certainly saw it as the most important part of the story. But it was also a riposte to the threats by prominent separatists to move against Ms. Smith and replace her with one of their own as UCP leader.
Watch out, she seemed to be saying. You may not like me, but it could be worse!
Hand-counting of ballots was continuing as Ms. Smith spoke – a MAGA-inspired UCP policy that has slowed vote counting to a glacial pace – but she took the apparent narrow passage of most of her nine intentionally confusing policy referenda as permission to scapegoat immigrants for UCP failures and push ahead with meaningless constitutional fights with Ottawa.
“Although results are still coming in, it appears that Albertans have directed the provincial government to take greater control over immigration, so we can moderate the extraordinary population growth our province has experienced,” she said. (That is, population growth that earlier in her mandate she was demanding that Ottawa facilitate.)
Some of the votes are close enough, though, that some results could still change. However, as noted in this space in the wee hours yesterday, all the questions are likely to be rendered meaningless by the fight that is soon to erupt over Ms. Smith’s continued leadership and the desire of a large percentage of the UCP’s remaining members to openly declare it to be a separatist party.
“We will be pursuing the reforms approved by Albertans through this referendum in the coming months and years ahead,” Ms. Smith promised, although how many years that might turn out to be remains to be seen.
Then she turned to trying to mollify the separatist cadres within her own party. “Many of you view Ottawa as having threatened your freedoms and blocked your path to prosperity, and I acknowledge the legitimate frustrations you felt, most especially during the Justin Trudeau-Liberal-NDP coalition years,” she said. “But I am convinced that the federal government is no longer targeting and trying to phase out and eliminate Alberta’s largest economic sectors as they attempted to do under the previous prime minister.” That is, the prime minister who bought Alberta a new pipeline to the West Coast.
Possible translation: It’s Trudeau’s fault! Please don’t dump me!
“She should resign,” said Calgary-based political scientist Keith D. Brownsey. “Smith is an embarrassment to the province and country. Nothing has changed.”
In its final moments, Ms. Smith’s address took a maudlin turn, lauding “our impossibly beautiful landscapes and coastlines, our sacred national anthem, our beloved national sport, our shared heritage and history” … Even Terry Fox got a mention!
At the end, it descended into pious drivel, sounding as if it might have been concocted by one of those AI data centres Ms. Smith so loves: “This is our province. This is our country. This is our home and our family. Our true north, strong and free. And together, I know we will keep Alberta and Canada forever strong and free!”
Fade to black. I didn’t make this up. Here’s the read-out.
“Impossibly beautiful landscapes”…pfft. Personally, I wish they would have taken the $130 million and paid off that Australian mining lady to get the f*** out of the Rockies.
“Impossibly beautiful landscapes”… wells and pumpjacks dot much of rural Alberta with a well almost every 1.4 square km … know that 150,000 to 300,000 of them are abandoned.
(Oil: source of great wealth, source of uncomfortable shame)
Yeah, no. We may move on, but we’re not going to forget who forced all these unnecessary referendum questions on us.
Most people are not political junkies. They do not want to vote more often than necessary. While many showed up because they realized it was important to do so, they probably thought this was half hour or forty five minutes of their life they were never getting back, as they stood in line or read all those convoluted questions. We elect governments to govern, not to ask us a laundry list of craftily worded questions.
Smith is doing her best to be a political chameleon right now, as she transforms from a separatist cheerleader into a federalist. However I am not sure her lunches are convincing many.
Every politician has a best before date and I feel our local drama queen may be approaching hers as Albertans’ patience with her theatrics and clever shenanigans is beginning to run out.
Some of us loved the antics of Lucy on the old tv show, but that was entertainment. We did not sign up to be long suffering Ricky’s to Smith’s chaotic and self absorbed Lucy. Our Premier has some spainin’ to do to everyone and it involves more than some glib statements about moving on. In an effort to get out of a jam, she abused her power and created this referendum that most Albertans really did not want.
Queen Danielle’s apparent ease with which she changes side to suit her situation is not as impressive as she thinks it is. If anything, Kenney J. thought he was capable of such Bill Clintonesque gymnastics, until he turned himself into a pretzel and got a severe stomping on by the lunatics he let into his asylum. When Smith smugly told Corb Lund she doesn’t have a referendum until she knows she’s going to get the results she wants, there was a moment where she was so confident that she believed she could put any chip on her should and dare anyone to knock it off. Well, Danielle Smith has done just that. Not only was that chip knocked off her shoulder, there was a big swing taken at her head, and that came off as well.
Seriously, getting hung up on your own petard is one thing. But getting one’s own brains blown out in the process is a stupid human trick that is impressive for its WTF absurdity. Smith not only shot herself in the face, she set herself on fire and exploded the bomb-vest as well. And for good measure, she threw herself off a cliff and into the shark infested waters, with an arrogance that causes disbelief. I always knew Danielle Smith was stupid, this from her floor-crossing antics that should have ended her public life once and for all. But this referendum stunt was next level bananas, as PMJT would have put it.
Of course, Smith will just move on and continue with her raping and pillaging of Alberta’s green and pleasant land, as though no one is the wiser. I mean this level of arrogance is mind-blowing, which only proves that Smith has managed to not only gaslight herself, she’s hooked on the fumes.
With the UCP AGM coming up, Smith will be distracted from by the riotous leadership review which is certain to cause her to indulge that much more in the cough syrup. And she might just do something completely ridiculous, like accept a binding resolution from the floor to declare Alberta a free-republic, just to save her hide again. Smith doesn’t have nine lives, but she’s writing cheques our bodies can’t cash.
Haven’t we had enough of her nonsense already?
“(That is, population growth that earlier in her mandate she was demanding that Ottawa facilitate.)”
As she was directed to do by the various lobbyists and advisors that influence and guide government policy and it will be the same case moving forward, that is:
“Potential shifts in immigration are especially important as Canada — and Alberta — look to build massive infrastructure projects, such as pipelines. Those projects, and others, often lean on skilled workers who come from other provinces and countries.”
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other/we-re-stronger-together-alberta-referendum-vote-sends-positive-signal-to-investors-observers-say/ar-AA2fGyZV
The neoliberal dogma of unlimited economic growth and development is the supreme value to be pursued at any cost for both the political class and those that they serve. See for example,
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/greater-sage-grouse-alberta-9.7382135
The pious drivel along with the phony emotional displays are the scripted theatrics of an actress that has a part in a larger stage show. She is not the director, but she is most certainly directed and managed.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
Danielle Smith’s hypocrisy at the highest levels. Does she hope that some political party, maybe one with are fewer separatists, will want her as leader and provide her with the power and financial perks she enjoys?
The bitter divisions will be a social and a direct financial cost to Albertans for some time. I wonder if the U S will continue to engage with this group of separatists.
“She should resign,” said Calgary-based political scientist Keith D. Brownsey. “Smith is an embarrassment to the province and country. Nothing has changed.” Truer words were never said.
I don’t trust Danielle, or the UCP. Why should I start now? These phony Conservatives and Reformers blame others for things that are of their own making.
I think it is really chicken s**t of Smith to throw Thomas Lukaszuk under the bus as she did, when all this clearly falls on her shoulders. What I found amazing is the response of folks to the little bus and the enthusiasm and common sense he brought to his campaign. Of course as Nenshi indicated in recent on air interviews, Smith and the UCP do not take responsibility for anything, so this is true to form for them. Granted he may have not checked the correct box on the form, but the Smith and the UCP had plenty of chances to stop the wasting of all of this money.
I recall during the last legislative session, the NDP had pledges for the UCP to fill out indicating they were opposed to separatism and none of them took the NDP up on that, clearly indicating they did were in favor of separating.
Thomas Lukaszuk would certainly make a much better Premier than the s**t show he have now.
I asked him to get back in the saddle; his response was “I’ve served my 15 years. Murderers get less”. Pretty sure that’s a no.
Chaos queen’s quest collapses country? Not so quick, quisling!
All I heard was: “I want you to want me. I need you to need me. I’d love you to love me. I’m beggin’ you to beg me.” It was a Cheap Trick.
LOL! Well said.
The CBC story about Ms. Smith’s talk mentions that the spiel was pre-recorded. I wonder when the talk was actually recorded. Did she record her remarks based on her party’s survey results rather than the actual results?
Based on the current results as of 9 AM Wednesday, the No side is actually leading on two of the questions, and with the exception of showing ID while voting, the Yes side’s lead on the remaining 6 questions is less than 5% above 50%. This is hardly the strong mandate Ms. Smith claims to have.
I think the two questions currently led by No voters is really interesting. The questions ask about opting out of federal programs but keeping the money, and allowing the provinces to appoint judges. Both questions are essentially asking voters to give Danielle Smith more power, and both appear to be destined to lose. It appears that even some of the anti-immigration voters are reluctant to give more power to Danielle Smith.
Danielle Smith lost Question 1 in Calgary. The vast majority of constituencies voted “No” to the “hate and scapegoat immigrants” question. A few voted “Yes”. Some of those were very close and would be automatic recounts in an election.
This is where the real story lies in the Noxious Nine. Lose Calgary, lose the next election. She has a lot of electoral boundaries to dog-leg before then. New UCP slogan: “More dogs than a puppy mill.”
City-dwelling Albertans should remind her that we weren’t fooled by her “soft separatist” questions. She has no mandate. She contrived this whole thing for political gamesmanship. As Donald used to say, “You’re fired.”
Question 2: 23 of 26 Calgary constituencies voted “No”. Edmonton constituencies unanimously voted “No”.
And so on.
I believe we should get the narrative out that only 7 percent of the registered Alberta voters want to separate. There are 3.148 million registered voters in Alberta. 492 thousand voted option 2. Let’s assume that half (246 thousand) of these option 2 voters voted option 2 because Smith told them to send a message. The remaining seppies, 246 thousand divided by the number of registered voters of 3.148 million equals 7 percent. I truncate.
We should push these numbers above because as sure as God didn’t make little green apples the seppies will be screaming that 1 in 4 Albertans want to separate, which of course is an outright lie and no one will ever challenge that lie in public.
As Winston Churchill famously said, “This is the end of the beginning”.
There is also “lies, damned lies, and then there’s statistics” – Mark Twain, if memory serves.
Produce, fuel and mortgage interest costs are not included in the determination of inflation rates in Canada. Fuel costs are not coming down, groceries are not, and interest rates are about to be hiked. Food bank use in Alberta is rapidly climbing, with 1/3 of users employed. Elbows up!
I was especially disgusted by her appropriation of Terry Fox. No moral boundaries to be seen here (not to mention appallingly bad taste). Everything is grist for her spin mill! At the same time, I was forced to be impressed by how slippery she is. Glibness raised to an art form!
And frankly I doubt the party will dump her. Her ability to “confabulate” is too valuable to them Plus my biggest concern at this point is that while the lake-0f-fire fundamentalists in her party will be upset, the neoliberal economics crowd will be quite happy with her new-found friendship with the Banker –excuse me–Prime Minister!
Projections show that all four constitutional questions (6 to 9) are headed for defeat. Many of the mail-in ballots on the constitutional questions have yet to be counted so current results provide a misleading picture. The most important of these is the defeat of the question that would allow Alberta to opt out of federal programs with full compensation. The UCP could push the federal government for this without a constitutional amendment so yeah. The narrow approval of the anti-temporary resident questions is disappointing. Given the loaded nature of these questions, this is hardly a ringing endorsement of the UCP’s recent conversion to a MAGA agenda on immigration.
I think that two got “no” but all four are close to half and half. I heard bits of the press conference at noon today, she still talks about having a mandate but also about caution. She seems to have picked Avi Lewis for an enemy and blames the NDP for working with Liberals federally in the past.
Sounds like she might try to purge separatists from the UCP; maybe Mitch Sylvestre at least will lose his UCP position?
I wonder if she will fire Rob Anderson and Bruce McAllister. I don’t know who else she relies on. That would be a sign of real change.
As of this evening, with 97 per cent of the vote counted, all four “constitutional” questions were NO. DJC
They are still counting tonight though close to finishing and all four constitutional questions are “no” now.
As despicable as the UCP’s attempted manipulation of this referendum was (which, being non-binding, was little more than an opinion survey), it should be said that it resulted in spontaneous popular political participation not seen before. This can’t be anything but good. Sure, the professional politicians got involved, but only as a reaction to the people’s initiative. Hats off in particular to Tom Lukaszuk who gave the people a voice with his organizing skills. But make no mistake: for once the real protagonist of the story was the people. Everybody else, including Danielle Smith, was just trying to keep up.
The NDP knocked on many doors, I bet they will have many door knocking volunteers for the next election.
Hats off to Tom Lukaszyk and to other organizers, Stephen Carter, Avnish Nanda, Brad LaFortune of Public Interest Alberta, the First Nations who stood up to protect their treaty rights, and probably many more.
It would have been enlightening had there been one more question on the ballot, to wit, “Do you support the Government of Alberta to better protect its citizens by having the Canadian constitution enforce laws dealing with acts of treason or treason-like actions with removal of such offenders from Canada?”
Rob: One could have a lot of fun just putting out a news release saying someone was about to start collecting signatures for such a referendum. DJC
Now that would put the cat amongst the pigeons wouldn’t it?
While Danielle Smith was telling normal Albertans that it was time to join together as one big happy family and move on, she had a different message for UCP members. In a video circulated to members only, she told them to pretend to be pro-Canadian or F@#$ Off! She told them to join another party if they aren’t happy with being part of a ‘Strong Alberta within a United Canada.’ Hmmm, that differs a lot from what party president Rob Smith (no relation) was saying just last week about everyone being welcome in the big tent and no plans for any purges of separatist members. Is there anyone actually in charge of the UCP or are they all just winging it?
https://globalnews.ca/news/12110834/danielle-smith-alberta-referendum-news-conference/
Smith told reporters Wednesday she’s accepted the results of the referendum and expects her party members to do the same.
“I’m asking people to do some self-reflection and, if they are able to accept the results and the mandate that Albertans gave us through a free and democratic process, then we can have a reset,” she said.
“Those who cannot, they have opportunities through other political parties.”
Looks to me she is going to attempt a seperatist purge in the chaos party. She wants to keep her job. Maybe she actually paid attention to Rachel Notley’s response to the attempted ”kudatah” on the ABNDP
Gerald: I don’t think so. My latest post explains how I see it. DJC
Is Alberta the way it is because Smith is Premier or is Smith Premier because of the way Alberta is?
They pulled out every single dirty trick and psychological manipulation of the alberta population and they still only got 25%. Including a friggin UFC event in Edmonton the week of the vote, and the worlds richest man, and the president of the United States both supporting it.
So 25% ;Being from alberta, I’m not exactly shocked by that, or by the narrow success of the “anti immigration” question. There’s a lot of low information emotional voters in alberta, I don’t mean that in a mean way either, largely people are checked out. Nine questions is a lot of spaghetti to throw to see if one sticks, I’m not surprised the mix of confusion and some significant bigotry in certain communities won the day.
Similarly many of the “leave voters” did not actually want to LEAVE Canada they voted to “send a message” to Ottawa, about something. Being that it was non binding I can understand the cavalier attitude , however I think a lot of them would have done the same thing either way, these are low information voters.
To borrow a phrase from the quisling traitor who calls herself the premier : look. Whether or not the questions pass the 50% threshold, they’re still meaningless. It’s still non binding, and you still need cooperation from both the feds and all the other provinces who have made it clear they are not iterested in Alberta’s pity party at all.
So kick rocks and call an election Danielle we are completely sick of your nonsense.
Wow, Danielle must be pretty relieved. Only two UCP ridings are baying for her…resignation. So far.
Pretty cocky of her to tell the seppies (who put her butt into the premier’s chair) to “join another party.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/premier-news-conference-wednesday-calgary-9.7390066
“’The United Conservative Party is not an independence party,’ Smith said.” Not now, it isn’t! But who, exactly, threw open the door for the seppies in the first place? The same person who rigged the rules in their favour, wasn’t it? We loyal Canadians won’t forget. (Neither will we forget the CorruptCare Scandal, though that’s for another, not-very-far-off day.)
And it’s bloody rich for Smith to say—after the fact—that the constitutional changes she proposed are, just perhaps, not “worth the effort”! She knew going in that it’d be almost impossible to get six more provinces, PLUS the federal government, to agree to any of this.
In fact, her whole agenda has been to implement Barry Cooper’s Free Alberta Fantasy, from Day 1 in the Premier’s office. And the immigration questions are more of the same: dog whistles for the Maple MAGA culture warriors.
I wonder how many people would have voted “yes” to the blame-the-immigrants questions if they’d been easy to read?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-referendum-questions-carla-hudson-kam-9.7374875
The fight isn’t over. This was the first round. We’ll see if the seppies manage to yank the Premier’s chair out from under Smith. (Where’s David Parker? He bragged about punting Jason Kenney. Will he do it to his “friend” Danielle, too? Or is he still hiding from Elections Alberta over the voting-list scandal?)
No, friends, this will drag on like the Quebec separatist movement. Unless…hey! Maybe Donald Trump will offer ‘em asylum in the Yew A$$ of Aay. That’d learn ‘em!
I always believed that everyone has a limit on embarrassment Well not this disgusting premier.