Women of ABpoli: Hot Flashes - Issue #4
This Week in AB
“Anti-Alberta Inquiry: $3.5 million
Riding conspiracy theories to power: priceless
#ableg #cdnpoli https://t.co/wSZ7yzzJXd”
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Press Progress reported Wednesday that they’ve obtained a copy of the long-awaited Allan inquiry into anti-Alberta foreign-funded interest’s evil plans to landlock our oil.
“Steve Allan's inquiry into ‘anti-Alberta energy campaigns’ is poised to find that nothing done by climate activists, or the donors who funded them, ‘is in any way improper or constitutes conduct that should be in any way impugned’,” the article reads.
“These statements by Allan directly contradict the depiction of climate activists as economic saboteurs that Premier Jason Kenney, who ordered the inquiry project, has aggressively promoted since arriving in provincial politics in 2017.”
I don’t like to unfairly disparage citizen journalists who work from their kitchen tables and all, but spurious correlations are not the foundation of good analysis. They can, however, propel incompetent fools to power.
How to spoil your ballot on meaningless questions while still voting for your municipal reps
Thanks to the professional staff at Elections Alberta, we now know that questions we don’t want to waste time on (because they have no impact on matters of federal jurisdiction) will not spoil the entire ballot.
There will be three separate questions on this year’s municipal ballot: senators, equalization, and – the reason we show up to vote in municipal elections – choosing city, town, or county representatives.
Most of us know that Canadian Senators are not elected but instead appointed by the federal government. We can pay for as many pretend elections as we like, but the federal government is not bound by the results.
A blank ballot on this question could be seen as a message to the provincial government to stop wasting your time on their petty personal grievances.
Equalization is a federal program that uses a standardized formula for assisting provinces who have less revenue capacity to offer services similar to areas that enjoy more capacity. We do this at the provincial level as well.
Calgary, as an example, raises a lot of property tax revenue on behalf of the Alberta government. Some of that money goes back to Calgary in the form of provincial transfers and grants, but some of it goes to support infrastructure development in other areas that have less revenue capacity.
The equalization question has the potential to be an utter embarrassment if it did not pass, or barely passed, while simultaneously opening the eyes of the nation to the idea that Albertans are not actually a bunch of spoiled twits who think they pay more taxes because Canada hates them but rather understands that they are simply fortunate enough to make more money… though I loftily, and idealistically, digress.
The one area of the ballot where your vote actually has an impact is the ballot for local representation. Information on candidates in your area should be listed on your local town website or newspaper, now or in the near future.
Municipal elections will be held on Monday, October 18, 2021.
Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions outs recovery patient info for photo op
While I’m sure this could have happened to any over-eager political assistant, the idea that these people are actually in politics and somehow don’t spend at least 89 per cent of their time thinking about political ramifications is truly astounding.
Mike Ellis, MLA for Calgary-West was just appointed to his role last week, but he didn’t wake up the day before and say “I think I’ll be a politician today”.
Ellis was first elected to the Legislature in a 2014 by-election, just barely beating out his Wildrose opponent by 306 votes. Of course, it was a by-election and few people show up for those, but it is a reminder of why Kenney had to save Alberta from conservatives from challenging “conservatives”.
While on tour at the Medicine Hat Recovery Centre on Tuesday, Ellis had some photos taken – ostensibly to prove he was there. Unfortunately, for one patient, their information was on an employee’s computer screen at the time and was visible in the tweet.
Ellis has since deleted the tweet, after multiple screenshots were taken, which I’m sure will mollify conservative supporters who aren’t at all concerned about having personal medical information published on social media.
In a disturbing twist, the patient whose personal medical information was breached must be the one to file a complaint, allowing those who forget that the internet is forever to slink away quietly.
UCP adds more police to deal with rural crime, lobbies feds for pepper spray to fight racist violence
It’s strange, isn’t it, that when a rural man was charged with aggravated assault, pointing a firearm, and careless use of a firearm after shooting a trespasser in 2018, it became a plank in the United Conservative party’s platform to fight back against rural crime a mere month later – but after months of assaults on women in hijab, the UCP has offered one solution: ask Ottawa to legalize pepper spray.
This tidbit needs more space, time, and expertise, so, I’m reaching out to potential guests for the next episode of Women of ABpoli to parse through the similarities and differences of these responses.
How it started
2015: Alberta NDP offers incentive program to businesses for newly created full-time jobs paying $50,000/yr or more, receives pushback, scraps program. "The point we were making is businesses will hire when they need staff," Chamber of Commerce folks said, as if job creation isn’t about whether a company wants to hire staff, but some invisible outside force that makes this act necessary.
How it’s going
2021: Premier Jason Kenney slashes corporate tax rates with no meaningful measure of job creation, but implies that is the goal by calling it the “Job Creation Tax Cut”. After companies leave the province and few jobs are created, Kenney begs oil and gas companies to start spending money. Oil and gas replies: “gosh, we’d sure like to do that because we totally support Alberta,” and goes back to calculating shareholder dividends.
Why pay more? Taxes are lower in AB
Amid consistent reports (from everyone but the government) of staffing shortages causing hospital bed reductions, emergency room closures, lack of physician coverage, and program terminations, Premier Kenney says he’s not worried about nurses leaving Alberta.
“I wouldn’t agree that people would move from Alberta to receive lower pay in other provinces and pay higher taxes. That doesn’t add up,” he said at a press conference Thursday.
What doesn’t add up is thinking a low tax rate makes up for throwing nurses and other healthcare workers under the bus after a pandemic.
In Canada
Greens didn’t have a non-confidence vote
It was posted five minutes after I sent last week’s newsletter out and I discovered I cannot edit once published (just like the twitters). No pressure.
What we know this week is: the leader took the party to court over the non-confidence vote, the party is appealing the decision, and while this looks like the worst thing a party could be going through right before an election call, I can’t think of a time over the past two elections when the Greens had this much space in the news.
I mean, the “dumpster fire party” thing worked out pretty well for the UCP...
Party that permitted man with DUI draws the line on Boudoir photos
And no, this isn’t the Saskatchewan Party – in addition to an earlier DUI, Premier Scott Moe also killed someone’s mother, for which he received a traffic ticket.
Today, we’re talking about the Nova Scotia Liberal Party. I personally appreciated the blunt, sensical pandemic leadership of Premier Ian Rankin. Rankin, I was less appreciative to learn, was charged twice with driving under the influence (DUI) ten years or so ago but that didn’t affect his candidacy.
It seems the line in the Nova Scotia Liberal Party is not so high as a man putting the public at risk (you know it’s probably more than the two times he got caught) but rather whether you’re a woman who, while your business was shut down during the pandemic, created subscription accounts and posted Boudoir photos to them.
In a country that claims to uphold entrepreneurship and the free market in the highest esteem, the real indecency is that we have the gall to say, “oh geez, but not that way”.
Rankin says he has reached out to the former candidate, Robyn Ingraham, after reading her second statement, which was not written by the Nova Scotia Liberal Party blaming mental health issues for her decision to step down.
Laundry List - GoA Press Releases
Spin cycle
5 MILLION DOSES! Since last week we’ve moved from 74.2 to 75 per cent with their first shot, while eligible Albertans with two doses have moved from 55.9 to 61.3 per cent. Even so, the government has launched the first mobile vaccination unit. Rural-ites are rumoured to be ecstatic they will no longer be forced to make an extra stop at the pharmacy when they’re in town for groceries.
THE FEDS AREN’T SUPPORTING OIL AND GAS. Did you know that, in tandem with the provincial government’s desperation to diversify Alberta’s economy, the federal government is interested in how they can support that diversification? Well, reading Energy Minister Sonya Savage’s ‘Ode to Party Donors with Oil Money’ won’t enlighten anyone, so, try this instead.
Not everything the NDP did needed to be ripped up, stomped on, burned, and reintroduced as a UCP stroke of brilliance, it seems. Youth mental health hubs, first piloted in 2017, will continue to receive funding and possibly expand to more rural areas where children’s mental health became a top priority for those protesting public health measures.
Albertans will be paying up to $150 million to bring broadband to remote areas of the province. Privately-owned internet providers will then charge us an additional $90-$120 per month for access to the publicly-funded infrastructure.
Delicates
Associate Minister of Multiculturalism and Immigration Muhammad Yaseen would like to wish everyone celebrating a “Happy Eid al-Adha”. The Minister of Culture mailed in his sentiments and delivery is expected within 3-5 business days.
Calling all orthopedic clinics with spare operating capacity: the government of Alberta has released more Requests for Proposal to deliver publicly-funded surgeries in Calgary and Edmonton. Costs will be lower due to “negotiations” that have yet to happen but the outcome of which is already certain – apparently.
Promise made, promise kept. Agricultural Minister Devin Dreeshen said he would ask for more money from the feds to help farmers - and he did. As an aside, would you benefit from a 60 per cent subsidy on your insurance premiums? Would you opt-in for better insurance if it was made available after the damage was done? Don’t mind me - I’m just pointing out the horrors of public insurance coverage that just can’t compare to the free and competitive market the rest of us get.
Jason Kenney announced that applications for $182 million to provide training to Albertans have been received. This training, he says, will put 14,000 Albertans to work - or recoup as many jobs lost in April and May of this year – it is the spin cycle, after all.
Rinse and repeat
Safe consumption sites save lives, give people access to support services they might not otherwise seek out, and are meant to act as a bridge from addiction to recovery. Closing the bridge and expecting people to make their way to recovery anyway takes us back to when it wasn’t working in the first place. Anyhow, UCP announces 50 new recovery beds in Lethbridge.
It’s possible that Doug Schweitzer’s notes got lost in the move, and that’s why the second Justice Minister in two years, Kaycee Madu has launched another round of Rural Crime information gathering townhalls - or maybe it’s to help campaign for the UCP-affiliated municipal candidates. Keeps us guessing, that’s for sure.
Grande Prairie’s new hospital is almost complete, including the addition of 11 operating rooms. This is obviously old news anew but if they’re talking about it, then I suppose I must as well.
The government of Alberta has reached a renewed childcare agreement. As some of you may have heard, the federal government announced additional funding in Budget 2021 to help all Canadian provinces realize $10/day childcare. However, the UCP decided to extend an agreement from 2017, instead. As you were.
Last load
The government has launched the Residential School Mental Health Support Grant Program which will provide up to $2.8 million ($50K per grant) to provide supports and services. The government also provided $4.9 million to AHS’ Indigenous Wellness Core.
Investigation into death of 37-year-old man “following contact with CPS” continues…
Muscular Dystrophy Canada is donating $366K to Alberta Precision Laboratories to pilot a new screening test for spinal muscular atrophy in newborns.
Investigation into death of 25-year-old man after CPS officer-involved shooting concludes.
14 housing units to be created for Blackfoot women relocating to Lethbridge from Piikani, Siksika, or Kainai reserves.
Last Laugh
Jeff Bezos took a ride in a custom-made rocket that looks exactly like a penis. I will never tire of dildo Bezos puns, my friends; never, ever, ever.