It’s a line from The Big Short; when the people running the system are covering for their mistake and nothing makes sense, Jamie Shipley (Finn Witrock) says, with a combination of understated incredulousness and resignation, “it’s like two plus two equals fish.” Welcome to Alberta politics.
This week in AB
CBC dropped a bombshell last week based on information from sources that a staffer in the Premier’s office had allegedly sent multiple emails to Crown prosecutors in charge of cases related to the 2022 Coutts border-blockade debacle.
Those emails (allegedly) challenged the prosecution’s characterization of the protests, as well as questioned the charges themselves. Essentially, attempting to obstruct justice.
Alberta’s UCP is old hat at that by now, after the disgraceful conduct of Edmonton-South West MLA, former Justice Minister Kaycee Madu, who Smith appointed Deputy Premier after winning the UCP’s leadership contest in October last year.
The boon for conservative strategists is that neither of the authors of the CBC article saw the emails in question.
Smith said she would ask the “independent” public service to review the allegations of interference from her office on the “independent” Crown.
Yet, if interference can potentially be exercised on one “independent” body by the Premier’s Office, how does she expect anyone to reasonably believe interference cannot be exercised on another?
Even Jason Kenney realized he had no political capital to spend on that but Kenney wanted to be successful — Smith knows she only has to scrape by with the bare minimum to retain power.
The review, completed between January 20 and 22, found “no evidence” of emails between staff in the Premier’s office and Crown prosecutors. Smith said that’s good enough for her.
The NDP disagreed.
Kimberley Goddard, Assistant Deputy Minister of the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service said her department cooperated fully with the investigation and it would be “wrong” to suggest the ACPS acted unethically or inappropriately, according to the Edmonton Journal.
The CBC is standing by their work.
And with that, a province where “defund the CBC” is chanted as often as “fuck Trudeau” in certain circles, we will head to the polls in four months as staunchly divided over “the truth” as we have been for years.
Don’t forget to add “emails” to your Election 2023 BINGO cards.
Smith rewards long-time mentor with a quarter million dollars and a last stab at cultural relevance
Preston Manning, father of Reform, namesake of the Manning Centre to teach kids how to spin for the cause, and long-time sculptor of Danielle Smith’s cookie-cutter Republican-esque political views has graciously accepted personal compensation of $253,000 from the Smith government’s $2 million dollar handout to act as chair of the panel to review Alberta’s COVID-19 response.
Manning already authored a “fictional, futuristic” report back in May of 2022 in which he tries his hand at creating a version of then-recent events that make the right’s rainbow and unicorn fart version of the future possible.
One could even consider Smith’s offering of $253,000 that used to belong to Albertans as an advance for the publishing rights.
In this fever-dream tale, Manning styles a rose-coloured hell-scape in which Freedom Convoy organizers and supporters will start a new political party that appeal so greatly to the masses for their sacrifice of rational thought that they will be (democratically) elected to take over Parliament.
The party will even be so enticing as to enchant disillusioned Liberal and NDP Members of Parliament into their welcoming arms.
The commission itself, hoped Manning, would focus on provincial failures which could be attributed to provincial leaders being so terrified of not receiving federal dollars that they mimicked federal restrictions as closely as possible in order to capture the Prime Minister’s favour. Since most of the provinces are under conservative leadership, the failure totes had to belong to someone else.
There would always be a national focus, Manning pontificated, because the brave folks who joined the freedom convoy to oppose provincial mandates made the effort to plop themselves onto a public street in Ottawa and blame Trudeau; a non-sequitur as near and dear to the centre of Canada’s conservative heartland as Manning himself.
Manning, who also launched a real life national citizen’s inquiry last year, said in December that they were “looking for expert testimony, particularly from experts whose alternative medical narratives or alternative scientific narratives were ignored or even censored during the time of the pandemic”.
As I said recently, if nine out of 10 medical and scientific experts tell a patient with cancer their best chance at survival is chemotherapy and the tenth says they just need to eat more broccoli, few people would be willing to hand over a quarter of a million dollars to a political hack who has a personal obsession with the broccoli theory.
Another UCP MLA loses friendly board
Take Back Alberta, the self-styled agent of change seeking to revert to the “good old days” when a Bible had greater weight than a constitution, claimed victory in the take over of Jason Nixon’s constinuency association (CA) board in Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre last week.
Nixon was previously granted the gift of Jason Kenney’s UCP executive’s loyalty in denying a challenger, Tim Hoven, to the UCP nomination in the riding.
Thanks to the unbridled desire for power by a fringe faction Jason Kenney relied upon in his quest to create the “united” party, all available board positions within the UCP executive went to Take Back Alberta-approved candidates in October of 2022; a plan they released earlier that month.
Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA Devin Dreeshen’s board is next up on Take Back Alberta’s hit list which will pit them against a tight group of political heavyweights that already exist in the area — who the TBA would likely refer to as “gatekeepers”.
Chestermere-Strathmore MLA Leela Aheer lost her board in the second test of Take Back Alberta’s strength in August. The first test was pummeling Jason Kenney’s support in his March leadership review, which Kenney won, but not by enough for his ego; instead, he left Alberta to the mercy of “kooks” and “lunatics” and disappeared.
To sum, waving a carrot in the face of people who feel left behind by a changing world and are desperate to stop the ride is dangerous for those who do it and for those who are forced to live under them once they take over; or take it back — your choice.
I digress…
Fabulous as always!