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‘We have been kicked around for the last 10 years and it’s not going to happen anymore,’ says Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
By Rick Bell
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People I run into here in Alberta are thinking about it and talking about it.
Some in quiet voices, others more openly.
Few want to contemplate the possibility for very long. It is that bad.
Their tone of voice is one of disbelief, usually followed by a prediction.
If it happens, many Albertans will blow a gasket.
The Liberals, yes, those Liberals, could win and stay in power as another minority government after a federal election expected to be called next month.
After all, these days politics can change within hours and politics has been changing. Wildly.
But not in a good way.
Liberal numbers are going up, Conservatives are largely holding.
A respected number-crunching firm now has the two main parties in a near-tie, including in Ontario, with the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives in Quebec and way ahead in Atlantic Canada.
The NDP in large numbers are jumping in bed with the Liberals as that party sees Prime Minister Justin Trudeau out the door while rolling out the welcome mat for Trudeau’s buddy Mark Carney.
In one count, the Liberals have gone up 21 points since December and even Trudeau is gaining in popularity.
Hell, it wasn’t long ago the deep-thinkers were talking about a Conservative landslide with the Liberals just hanging on for dear life.
Now it’s a race and one of the most important elections in Canada’s history.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith ran for the UCP leadership and won, in large part, because she was seen as willing to play hardball with the Liberal crowd in Ottawa.
“We have been kicked around for the last 10 years and it’s not going to happen anymore,” says the premier.
The premier says Carney, the Liberal likely to win his party’s leadership and be prime minister very soon, has been trying to shut down the oil and gas industry for years.
“He’s no friend to the oil and gas industry. We know that. Albertans know that.
“The idea we are going to allow an Ottawa politician, particularly one who just arrived back in Canada five minutes ago, to tell us how to develop our resources, it’s not on.
“Any thought we’re just going to continue on with the policies of the last 10 years, disadvantaging Alberta, disadvantaging oil and gas, I can tell you, for sure, Albertans are not going to be putting up with that.”
Then the same old question.
Where does Alberta go from here if the province is stuck against its will with the Liberals again?
What options does Alberta have if the Conservatives fail to become the government?
No elected politician in Alberta will say out loud where the journey could lead as we navigate through this most unpredictable political universe.
Loyal readers recall the fallout after the Trudeau Liberals came across the finish line first last time.
Anger surged. Talk about separatism increased and intensified. Albertan demands for a fair deal in Canada grew louder.
Political leaders in Alberta promised to work with Trudeau and his people for the good of the province and the country.
The result? Alberta was screwed again, the laundry list of grievances got longer.
In the here and now, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is giving Canadians a tour down memory lane, a route littered with the many ways the Liberals failed Canadians.
“You cannot get a change from the Liberal government by electing a Liberal government,” said Poilievre recently.
Meanwhile, there is Carney, soon to be the new Trudeau, a new conductor with the same orchestra and the same song sheet.
Out there, more than a few Canadians are willing to accuse their fellow citizens of being traitors and fascists and collaborators.
Wayne Gretzky is being accused of treason against Canada by the mob.
What is most galling about all of this is being lectured on who is and is not patriotic by those who couldn’t find the word patriotism in the dictionary a few months back and worse …
Many of these newly minted patriots supported a man to lead the country who said Canada had no core identity and whose government weakened our capacity to defend the country against any hostile forces.
And there’s more: these people are no doubt planning to vote for more of the same.
Saying it is surreal is not saying the half of it.
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