Has Danielle Smith just relegated the United Conservative Party to the Boneyard of Broken Alberta Political Brands?
This is not yet clear, but it’s sure starting to look as if it could happen.
Thanks to Ms. Smith’s stupid and divisive separation referendum election last Monday, which from the government’s perspective more or less flopped, the premier appears to have alienated much of the three quarters of Alberta voters who wanted no part of separation and plenty of the perpetually disaffected crowd who did want to separate as well.
As we saw yesterday, pro- and anti-Smith secessionist factions have already fallen to squabbling over the carcass of the Alberta Prosperity Project, one of the most prominent fund-raising and campaign organizations on the separatist side. Since that battle is taking place on social media, it is far from clear which side will emerge victorious. It probably doesn’t matter.
Worse from the perspective of her United Conservative Party, that portion of separatist hard-liners sticking with Ms. Smith for now isn’t helping either. “I encourage Alberta independence advocates to recognize the importance of maintaining conservative unity and working with the UCP to prevent an NDP government from taking office,” separatist leader Keith Wilson pleaded with his followers on social media Thursday. “Such an outcome would risk setting back the progress we have made and delay another referendum for many years.”
So if you want to delay another referendum for many years, dear readers, vote for the NDP!
If the separation referendum and its noxious nine sub-referenda achieved nothing else, their defeat or tepid passage and the resulting fallout for Ms. Smith and the UCP illustrates the profound risks for politicians in a representative democracy who try to use direct democracy schemes to achieve goals that require broad consensus.
Ms. Smith, who has enough brass for a cheap Russian samovar, has always believed she can talk her way out of any blunder. And often she can. Still, the fact that at least one of her loyal MLAs thought it wise a few days before the vote to ensure his constituency association “passed a unanimous motion declaring our unwavering confidence and continuing strong support for Premier Danielle Smith” is not the endorsement Mike Ellis thought it was.
Ms. Smith, meet Baron Cameron of Brexit and Chipping Norton. No one likes him very much nowadays. Alas, thanks to Tubby Black a generation ago, there will be no baronetcy for you.
Readers with long memories will recall how back in December 2014, Ms. Smith attempted to get her entire Opposition Wildrose Party Caucus to join the venerable Progressive Conservative dynasty then led by the late premier Jim Prentice. On Dec. 17, nine of them crossed the floor and five stayed behind.
When that gambit went over with supporters of both parties like the proverbial lead balloon, it started both the Wildrose Party and the PCs on a path to the political extinction that came to an end with the creation of the UCP by Jason Kenney and his comrades in July 2017.
To have destroyed two conservative political brands in one career is a remarkable achievement. To ruin a third might be a world record!
To be fair, the PC brand might still have some life left in it were it not for UCP legislation making it illegal for any other political party to call itself “conservative.” Legal wrangling continues over the use of the name by Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie’s Progressive Tory Party.
Other broken Alberta political brands include the Alberta Liberals (the walking dead), the Alberta Party (now the legal body that serves as host to the Progressive Tories), Social Credit (now possessed by an entity called Pro-Life Alberta) and my personal favourite, the United Farmers of Alberta, a political party that achieved new brand life as a chain of gas stations.
Meanwhile, back in the present, the fall sitting of the Alberta Legislature commences on Tuesday and will run till Dec. 3. Look for plenty of “culture war garbage,” in the words of the NDP Opposition, and not much of substance. “We’ll fight any attempt to rig or gerrymander electoral boundaries because we believe that voters should choose their politicians,” NDP House Leader Christina Gray vowed.
As for the referendum vote, only one poll remained uncounted just before midnight. With more than two million Albertans voting, 1,544,819 Albertans voted to remain in Canada and 513,885 voted to hold a binding referendum later, although what motivated them is unclear at this point since the seppie side pushed several arguments for the vote. As a result, the true secessionist vote is likely much smaller.
The government’s five confusingly written immigration referenda all passed by narrow margins and its four constitutional questions all failed, leaving the government with very little to show for its $130-million vote and its propaganda campaign to sway voters to its side for the nine referenda.
Yes, Smith and crew have little to show for all those referendum questions, on which so much was spent, including political capital.
First of all, remain in Canada won by a large amount, leaving us to wonder why we were forced to vote on it at all. Secondly, Smith seems to have narrowly lost on all the constitution questions which will restrict her ability to pick fights with Ottawa to keep the separatist part of her party happy.
She did get close yes results on the immigration questions, but seemed uncharacteristically restrained in response to that. Smith may realize pushing to hard on these will get her in trouble with the other part of her party, the business friendly side, which is already annoyed with her pushing the separatism referendum too hard.
Smith has threatened to boot out separatists in the UCP if they continue to talk about it, which some may not, but some will. So there could be a show down if she tries that and if it comes to this, they probably have the numbers to boot her instead.
Of course Smith could try the Kenney tactic to fight to stay UCP leader, pull out every trick to narrowly get a majority only to find politically that doesn’t cut it. Also time is running out before the next election and the big referendum distraction has already taken away time for the UCP to prepare that.
No doubt Smith was hoping for somewhat different referendum results, but as history shows her political judgement doesn’t always work well when it comes to the big things despite all her smooth talk. There are some things it is hard to explain one’s way out of and Smith may have found them again.
Danielle Smith is the ghost of Alberta political parties past, present and future.
Make it four. I would not vote for recycled Wildrose-Progressive Conservative-UCP MLAs rebranded as the Progressive Tory Party. The whole bunch is past its best-by date. How many times will Albertans fall for the same old rotten bananas? Toss them in the compost bin of Alberta politics history. Elect a fruit fly! Wait, we tried that already with Danielle Smith and it wasn’t great. Maybe we should stop looking in trash cans for our next government.
You forgot the Calgary School Board debacle of 1999. Not quite the level of a political party but it was training for bigger better disasters to follow
Tks! Imagine if main stream media had political critics too? The battle to shame the Wicked Witch of the West continues. Albertans have endured danielle-imposed nightmare & she & her carpetbaggers must resign.
Having ruined Alberta and nearly broken it apart from Canada should be included on Smith’s resume.
It looks like the tattered remains of the UCP march on. In my view the real Conservatives now have the moniker Progressive Tory Party and it may very well do a good job of splitting the UCP as the battle continues over control. If you add the UCP votes and PTP in the last Shaw by-election, combined they would have beat the NDP. Seems to me real conservative voters are being yanked around by Kenney and Smith, trying to make something out of nothing. This whole UCP thing of trying to combine different political philosophies under one happy tent is not something that really works. Like in business if you have two partners that do not bring the same philosophy t o the table, eventually things fall apart. To me it looks like the little cracks are now growing to become bigger fractures. I see from this the winners will be Pete Guthrie and the NDP.
In Saskatchewan, North Dakota, and several other US jurisdictions, the threshold for approval in referendums and plebiscites is 60 percent. By that standard, Smith’s gambit was a complete failure.
More than 2 million of Alberta’s 3 million eligible voters cast ballots. That was the highest turnout ever in absolute numbers, topping the 1.9 million in 2019. The final turnout percentage isn’t known yet, but it could be the highest since Alberta’s two dynasty-creating “change” elections in 1935 (82 percent) and 1971 (72 percent).
The peril for Smith, and the hope for the rest of us, is that new networks of connections and affiliations have been created, and low-interest citizens must now realize that their vote matters. It’s perfect timing with 12 months (or less) before the next general election.
Nenshi and the NDP, wisely I think, did a lot of organizing and door-knocking without becoming the sole leaders of the Remain side and turning it into a right-left partisan battle. They’ve been handed a megaphone to be heard loudly when the Legislature resumes.
However, the biggest wild card in our politics right now is the massive network and database created by Thomas Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian campaign. They represent the largest bloc of moderate centrists since the glory days of the PCs under Peter Lougheed. The next year will be a tug of war between Nenshi and Smith to woo the centre without alienating their core supporters. Blow the opportunity, and Lukaszuk might be the next premier.
I asked him to get back in the saddle. His response was he’s served his 15 years, which he stated is more than murderers get. I took it as a no.
Don’t forget that Lukaszuk was once a part of the inner circle of the PC’s, which was the Cult of Klein The Swine. His rebirth as Captain Canada, though commendable, still doesn’t make full amends for the sins of his past. Obviously with the current political climate it makes one pine for better days but I don’t know if I could fully trust him knowing where his past allegiances were.
Lol I also told him I probably wouldn’t vote for him and he would need to start his own party. He did agree to the own party part.
Small correction: It’s South Dakota, not North, where 60 percent is the referendum threshold.
It’s not a bug, it is a feature. The same gang can escape all responsibilitiy with a simple name change. It has worked many times in prairie Canada.
I haven’t taken the time to do a deep dive into the riding-by-riding breakdown of the results of all nine of the “Noxious Nine” questions, but as an example, here is a breakdown for Question 2, on restricting newcomers’ access to provincial health, education and social services.
As you can see, there is a stark urban-rural split, with the smaller cities largely voting along rural lines, with a couple of exceptions.
Qu. 2 re Immigration:
* Calgary – 20 of 26 ridings voted majority ‘No’
* Edmonton – all 20 ridings voted majority ‘No’
* Smaller cities:
* Fort McMurray: majority ‘Yes’
* Grande Prairie: majority ‘Yes’
* Lethbridge: majority ‘No’
* Medicine Hat: majority ‘Yes’, but these are both split urban-rural ridings
* Red Deer: majority ‘Yes’
* St Albert: majority ‘No’
* Truly rural: only Banff-Kananaskis voted majority ‘No’
I expect some of this may come back to haunt them come the next election.
Jerry: The fewer immigrants someone knows know, sadly, the more likely they are to be vulnerable to hateful claims about immigrants. Most immigrants to Canada tend to move to cities. That explains this phenomenon reasonably well, I should think. DJC
I dunno DJC, it might be overly optimistic of you to prepare the obituaries of both the UCP and Fraulein Schmidt. As I wrote the other day, the memories of Albertans are embarrassingly short. All it will take is a slight tempering of their messaging and time (say, til the next election which is quite a ways off) and Presto, all is forgiven. Nothing surprises me in this province any more.
To be clear, Firth, I think the chances she will survive are quite good. If she does, though, it will be at the cost (if there is cost) of continuing to operate the UCP as a covert separatist party. DJC
Has Scott Hennig and his “non-partisan” Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation weighed in on this monumental waste of taxpayer dollars?
CX: Yes and no. On the separation referendum, the CTF appears to have been silent, at least back to June 2026. The great “tax watchdog” appears to have felt no recent need to bark at the $130 million to $150 million wasted on this exercise. Perhaps I’ll write Scott a letter and ask him why. Since the CTF publishes a whiny news release almost daily, that was a lot of web pages to go through, and my limit this morning was six months. Perhaps there was something before June. Regardless, there was one exception. In that period, the CTF published three releases, in which the news hook was the referendum, calling for abolition of the Senate.
https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/saying-%E2%80%98no%E2%80%9D-to-abolishing-the-senate-makes-no-sense
https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/nenshi-needs-to-be-clear-on-abolishing-the-senate
https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/time-to-abolish-the-senate
DJC
David, how appropriate to speak of graveyards. She still has a few skeletons in her closet.
I believe there was a May 2003 column for the Calgary Herald in which she questioned if smoking was harmful to health. She allegedly (gotta add that word these days) wrote, “The evidence shows moderate cigarette consumption can reduce traditional risks of disease by 75 percent or more.” (I assume she means little things like cancer.)
In October 2012, as leader of the Opposition Wildrose Party, Smith allegedly said those in poverty should be fed beef tainted with E.coli so the unsellable product didn’t go to waste. “We all know meat can be safely eaten if cooked properly,” Smith tweeted.
So, when it comes to trick or treat, there are no treats at her door. Instead we had a $130 million trick played on us. Your choice of picture of Daniellezebub is highly suitable for All Hallows Eve. Her spectre is much more frightening than the blow-up ghost in my neighbour’s yard.
Is there any political struggle in Alberta other than the culture war? The Neoliberal Deception Program is by no means engaged in the Class War when it confronts the Grifter-yokels. As friendly fascism molts and the bona fide “exterminate the enemies” scorpion emerges, immigrants will make ideal scapegoats. The massive bubble of immigration pumped into the Canadian system serves to pad the failed productivity of the Richest Third World Country on Earth, keeps the real estate bubble from exploding for a little while longer, and affords the cowboy hat/Brownshirts in Derpbertistan and elsewhere a ripe and ready target-rich environment. Even the most mealy-mouthed of progs is hard-pressed to rationalize mass immigration into a de-industrializing semi-industrialized economy. It certainly wasn’t the Left crying out for more people to share in Race to the Bottom austerity. Speaking of which, here’s your delectable Elbows Up moment for the day: “Parks Canada is ending its 55-year search-and-rescue dog program in Banff National Park as the federal agency also prepares to reduce its workforce by about 500 full-time-equivalent positions nationwide amid government budget cuts. The decision comes as 2,917 Parks Canada employees are set to receive notices that their positions may be affected by workforce adjustments, part of a nationwide review intended to align the agency’s operations with available funding.” Meanwhile, the Carny Banker is loading Canadians onto the Midnight Express in Istanbul after shoring up Brookfield’s relations with the slave-holding, dynastic, Canadian values-sharing United Arab Emirates, which may not exist a month from now when the Iranians get through with them. Here’s what the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives said about that quirky little “deal”: “Canada’s new UAE trade and investment deal is bad news Canada is acting as a middleman, not a middle power—serving as a conduit for profits from human rights abuses and fossil fuels”. Must be Russian bots.
Smith and her UPC playmates only care about their base, not about the average Albertan. Her policies, are all about supporting her base, from LBGQ paranoia, to forcing educators to teach only what her base wants. As far as those questions on immigration, that was short sighted and ignorant. In Canada we have the right to travel, or move to any destination we want. So is she and her base suggesting, that we need to show papers when we travel? Or maybe if someone looks like an immigrant, only they’ll have to show travel papers. I challenge the UPC and their base to walk down a street and attempt to identify who is a citizen and who is not. Her base has already mentioned, that they will stay within her party, I can only hope, that karma bites Smith and her base in the arse and the UPC goes to the political grave yard.
Racial profiling should be easy now that driver’s licences have citizenship markers. Canadian citizens get a maple leaf and “CAN”. Non-citizens get nothing but their vehicles thoroughly checked for illegal window tinting, cracked windshields, missing lights, etc. She’ll have to check the annals of history for more identifiable markers for pedestrians. I’m sure there’s something.
On a much lighter note, for me one of the positive outcomes of the referendum is that media, bloggers and posters are using photos of a witchy and haggard looking Smith. She has a great smile and I have always believed that her smile fooled people into believing she was credible despite the nonsense she was spewing.
The Klan Nine From Outerspace immigration questions got voted down because they’re fascist scape-goating of the Other, but the question of the massive increase in population through immigration remains. Approximately 1/3 of households in Calgary have incomes below the level of a $55000 per year living wage. The number of working poor has doubled in Calgary since 2021. 31% of households in Calgary report food insecurity. Does that sound like a white-hot booming economy screaming to add 6% to the population through immigration in a single year? 31% of the population are immigrants, in these kinds of income-deflationary conditions. Please progs, explain.
The UCP exists as the construct of two broken people.
Jason Kenney founded the UCP mainly for reasons that were established in an article about him.
https://thewalrus.ca/true-blue/ reveals Jason Kenney as an arch-conservative activist, who longed to be PM since he was thirteen. Yes, Kenney was an enthusiastic reader of Alberta Report magazine and ardent fan of paleo conservative religious idiot Ted (Still Dead) Byfield. But Kenney was considered too conservative and weird for Stephen Harper’s CPC, so he was rejected for leadership. Being unmarried and a committed bachelor, Kenney wasn’t going to find any friends in the usual conservative social circles, so he decided to head for Alberta and founded an conservative political movement in his own image. To accomplish this, Kenney let the lunatics into his asylum and created a political party that was dedicated to the most extraordinary nonsense imaginable, in the hope that the CPC would welcome him back as their leader. But his base turned on him, and Kenney was ousted from the UCP.
Queen Danielle enters the mix because, as an O&G lobbyist, she is a promoter of R-Star, that grift that seeks public funding for well clean up. Legend has it Smith resolved to oust Kenney after he threw her out of his office when she tried to sell him R-Star. Kenney rightly recognized the whole project as political suicide. But this also gave cause for him to be ousted. Kenney’s support for COVID-19 restrictions was the catalyst to oust him from the leadership, paving the way for Smith’s premiership. Since Smith’s arrival, everything has been about R-Star, under the guise of endless distractions and gaslighting. If Smith isn’t fighting PMJT, she’s fighting Ottawa, all the while cozying up to the Mango Mussolini in America. Smith’s wanna-Republican glad handing and Trump worship appeals to the rural psychos in Alberta. Make no mistake, she wants to remake Alberta in the image of Alabama, because Texas has way more personality.
Now that Smith will never lead the republic of everyone’s nightmares, she left to live under Carney’s thumb, likely in the hope that he offers her an appointment to the Senate. All Smith wants is to get the out of Alberta’s vast hellscape she and Kenney created.
Another solid column DJC, but more importantly, is the photo of St. Albert Roman Catholic Cemetary? Was at a service there recently and it looks somewhat similar?
Didn’t see any headstones engraved with: UCP July 2017-Oct. 2027 (assuming that is when the next election is held)…….
Middle Dave: The photo was NOT taken in the St. Albert Roman Catholic Cemetery. Indeed, it was not taken in St. Albert. DJC
I was going to guess that it was Pioneer Square in your old hometown but now I don’t think so, too much daylight and it’s not as rustic as this one I recall. Isn’t there is a small boneyard on the other side of the Anglican cathedral there?
It sure looks familiar but there are so many cemeteries that look like this…
Mickey: This is very astute observation, but very far removed from the graveyard in question. I will tell you that when I stood in that graveyard, I though, “this sure reminds me of Pioneer Square in Victoria.” DJC
It looks to be of the same or similar vintage as the Old Burial Ground in downtown Halifax, but that site isn’t as generously treed as the one in the photo.
Jerry: You’re the closest. Yet. Still not quite there, though. DJC
It is a good question if Premier Ditzy has run the scow you see pee on to the rocks. I think there are three clues a political party is going down. Contributions to party coffers collapse- that hasn’t happened yet. Second, voters start to give you negative attention in public. Think Christy Clarke and average voter Linda confronting her on issues, and it was truly an impulse moment. Third point, your trustworthiness is seen as negligible. On this point it is quite likely Smith has told so many half truths, lies, and exaggerations that she is creating the end for the UCP. No cleanser can remove the corruption from this party and government at this point. It has reached a point similar to the Conservative Grant Devine government in Saskatchewan. Long gone that party, but not forgotten for the endless chicanery.
As always, great photo choice.
Is this Cemetery Highgate Cemetery in London, or the Burnaby Civic Cemetery, final resting place of Bible Bill Aberhart ?
FA: An interesting combination of choices, but, no, it’s neither the final resting place of Karl Marx nor of Bible Bill Aberhart. However, is is about the same distance from both places, give or take about 500 kilometres. DJC
The UCP are definitely going to meet their political demise. That’s a given. Meanwhile in British Columbia, the voters didn’t learn their lesson and didn’t see how bad the UCP were here. David Eby took a gamble that he shouldn’t have taken. Look at what they have now.
Anonymous I hope my B.C.relatives haven’t made a huge mistake and elected another stupid Reform Party. They were so disgusted with Eby for wasting more taxpayers money on an election they didn’t need they kicked him out and I agree with you Albertans will kick Smith out if the Rural Albertans will let us. I still can’t believe how stupid they’ve been with their blind support of the word Conservative.
I lived in rural Alberta for 24 years in 10 different communities, and never once thought they were that stupid.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
I will put in my two cents worth (maybe it’s worth a little more with inflation). My guess is that Danielle Smith will stay on as she will promise to keep the separatism under wraps until the next election. She will promise more schools, P3s of course since these will funnel money to her favourites but much of the population will not realize the the high cost of them, better health care, which will impossible for ordinary people to obtain because expensive private health insurance will be out of reach, and all the other reasonable things we would wish for. She will continue to persuade voters that she is gaining something as she fights continuously with Ottawa, except on pipelines and oil and gas subsidies which she will claim are insufficient. Then, as soon as election is over and she, probably, has a very thin majority, she will continue to implement all the things we don’t want. And the rural population will be in even more dire straits than previously.
As far as I can see, Danielle Smith seems to be interested in becoming richer as an elected politician and maybe she is addicted to power as some people have suggested, who knows.
As for grave yards, the one in your photo looks cool and peaceful. My choice would be Parque Nacional Natural Chingaza in Colombia, but of course it is not allowed. One access point to Chingaza is about a 2 hour drive from Bogota. There is a hiking trail and part of it is uphill above the clouds so you can look down through breaks in the clouds into the valleys, and finally you walk downhill to a sunken glacial lake. Since it’s about 11,000 feet above sea level, you need to be acclimatized to the altitude. I think that access is more restricted now with the number of people per trail being controlled and maybe you need a guide, too, or at least that’s what the internet seems to suggest.
Christina: Not Colombia, I’m afraid. It is in the Americas, though, western hemispherically speaking. DJC
Boston?
David: No, but I’ll give you this – it’s much closer to Boston than it is to St. Albert. DJC
https://results.elections.ab.ca/8400
Surprise, surprise, surprise. Seven district votes were reported as zero (0) and nullified. These districts are Calgary-Bow, Calgary-Mointain View, Calgary-Varsity, Brooks-Medicine Hats, Cypress-Medicine Hat, Lacombe-Ponoka, and Livingstone-Macleod. Total number of polls are 506. What happened?
Peter: This is what Elections Alberta says about that: “The unofficial count is complete. Procedural errors in some electoral division (ED) voting locations combined all voting areas into one set of ballot boxes and cannot be separated by voting area. The combined results for all voting areas in affected voting locations are reported in a single voting area for the location. Other voting areas affected are displayed as 0.” Trporting not endorsing, but this deos suggest that a;; ballots were counted DJC
In fact, this isn’t all that surprising. I sat in on a polling location on the Grande Prairie constituency — ED 63 — on R-Day, as a scrutineer for the NDP.
This location had three polls. This particular location was in fact Polls 1-3. The 30 ballot boxes were arranged in three rows of 10, labelled as 1, 2, or 3.
However, the Polling Station Supervisor initially told her team, and the electors that showed up after the polls opened, that it didn’t really matter which poll they dropped their completed ballots into, because they were all going to the same place to be counted, and because this was not an election with actual candidates.
Later on, she received clarified direction from the Returning Officer (I presume: he wore no visible ID and we weren’t introduced), and electors were then directed to drop their ballots in the row of ballot boxes corresponding to their individual poll numbers. They then reorganized the layout of the room — an elementary school gym — to better reflect that flow.
The result of the mixup would have been that it would somewhat complicate the count of those three polls, but otherwise not materially affect the result. As it turned out, there were 550 [Question 10] aggregate votes cast in those three polls; 325, or 59%, were to ‘Remain’.
We have to recognize that Elections Alberta scrambled to hire enough election workers, and some may have been hired late enough that their training may have been somewhat perfunctory. For instance, I overheard this poll supervisor tell a staff member that she did not know she would be in that role until very late in the game.
So the fact there was some confusion in some polling stations around the province is not at all shocking.
P.S. On United Farmers, they’re not just “a chain of gas stations “. They’re also agricultural supply and equipment retailers and hardware stores. The one in Grande Prairie is pretty big, roughly the size of a typical Home Hardware or Canadian Tire.
Based on her interview with Kathleen Petty, she is now trying to pretend she was working for anti-vaxxers and religious bigots, not for separatists. That is, she is pretending they are not the same people.
But how many separatists have claimed they came to their separatism because of the covid restrictions? How many because their bigoted views are not popular in Canada anymore? They are the same group of people, Smith’s base.
Separatists say they were told to join the UCP because Smith was a secret separatist. I believe this because she lies so much it’s entirely in character for her.
Perhaps this cemetery, in Gatineau.
Protestant Burial Ground, Old Chelsea
It seems to be associated with Meech Lake.
Alas, no. You’re moving a little closer, though. DJC
The subject is so absurd that the discussion turned to the location of the cemetery.
Better than talking about this person that should be silent for the rest of her pathetic life
Oh, you grumpy old thing! DJC
My guess at the photo would be it kind of looks to me that it might be Mount Pleasant cemetery.
Old Albertan: As I said to Simon Renouf a moment ago, you are getting warmer, but you are not quite there. Consider the additional clue I left Former Albertan on Sunday, and you may be able to home in on the Canadian location. DJC
Given your clue, the answer could very well be: Hólavallagarður Cemetery in Reykjavik, Iceland?
I tired to use your clues but the calculations I did a little while ago were not correct. The cemetery might be somewhere in Greenland.
About the same distance, let’s say, give or take 500 k, but not necessarily in a straight line. DJC
Mark Carney is leading Canada straight into a depression. Canada has lost a combined 110,000 jobs over a two-month stretch, following a drop of 42,000 jobs in August and a sharper decline of 68,300 jobs. These consecutive losses have completely wiped out all of Canada’s employment gains for the year. , U.S. tariffs have already amounted to over $7 billion on Canadian-built vehicles and parts alone, heavily straining cross-border trade. To help businesses survive the initial shock, Ottawa has had to roll out a $7.5 billion support package. Ouch!!! While widespread manufacturing plant closures have not yet materialized at a systemic, national reporting scale, the sector is under severe strain. Manufacturing dropped 12,700 positions in September, and businesses are only beginning to adjust their structural footprints as they brace for a looming threat of a broader 50% tariff on all Canadian automotive and parts exports.
Meanwhile the U.S. is thriving! Trillions are pouring into that nation. There are new manufacturing plants being built and employment is up!
So what does little banty rooster Mark Carney do? He tells everyone to go, “Elbows up!”
Elbows up??? That’s a position you maintain when getting sodomized!!!
Thank you for the quiz, David. I’ll play. The abundance of dandelions indicates a Canadian locale. I’m going to try Mount Pleasant cemetary in Toronto. S.
Simon: You are getting warmer, but you are not quite there. Consider the additional clue I left Former Albertan on Sunday, and you may be able to home in on the Canadian location. DJC
This is quite a fun puzzle, and as a lover of puzzles perhaps another try? Last try…. Titanic Cemetery in Halifax? We were there a couple of summers ago and does kind of look similar.
You’re very close, OA. One province away. DJC