Women of ABpoli: Hot Flashes - Issue #20
This Week in AB
Not today, Satan
It almost seems as if history actually does repeat itself.
In the lead up to the UCP leadership vote in 2017 - which seems like a lifetime ago - Brian Jean was considered to be "the one" to beat Rachel Notley's NDP, whereas a Kenney leadership suggested an actual fight.
We all know how that turned out, but I will add, however, that even in my rural circles, people didn't like Kenney - they just understood that they had to vote for the UCP or suffer under four more years of NDP's unexpectedly - yet incredibly outrageous - moderate governance.
In a recent Leger poll, conducted before Finance Minister Travis Toews announced that oil revenue had returned on November 30 - this is Alberta, it's important - Brian Jean was considered to be more popular than Kenney by three points, who was more popular than Danielle Smith by four points. OOF.
Shockingly - I kid; I called that one - Danielle Smith, the former Wildrose leader who threw her party under a bus without so much as a "how do you do?", is less popular than Jason Kenney.
They're all less popular than "not UCP" however, with that choice garnering 51 per cent of the vote from 1,000 Albertans in a "non-probability" sample. Always read the fine print and remember that polls are a snapshot in time.
Speaking of unpopular opinions...
Should we allow UCP staffers who are paid to mess with non-UCP loyalists to get under our skin, or not?
Kathleen and I were on the "nay" side of that in our most recent episode for subscribers, Hungry like the wolf, and others were as well. I get it - we don't really like defence lawyers who find loopholes in the law, or procedure, or process, and let guilty people off the hook, either - but everyone deserves representation.
When you're government, you get to choose who will provide it, under what circumstance, and when.
The good news is that it exists - the bad news...
The bad news is that the test is not covered by Alberta healthcare.
I'd just like to point out that if you cut public funding to publicly-funded universities and demand they find alternate funding streams, it's gonna be selling research to the highest bidder, you useless elected twits.
Spoiler: making Albertans pay for access to the benefits of publicly-funded research doesn't benefit Albertans, which is literally the government's only damned job.
The Alberta government wants your feedback (so they say)
“The UCP budget survey is like a bad game if "would-you-rather". https://t.co/l5MDZv9ofD”
The new Budget 2022 survey starts with questions to help the government tailor its messaging around the economy. It's multiple choice, so you have the option of deciding which answer they want you to have is closest to what you'd actually choose.
The ranked items are especially fun because you get to rank options like "maintaining Alberta's overall tax advantage" as if maybe after two and a half years of UCP's wishing and hoping, Albertans haven't noticed that there isn't a stampede of businesses moving to the province.
Speaking of (not) moving to the province...
In its desperation to get Alberta back to the days of Klein, the UCP has ushered in one of the less pleasant reminders of the 1990's - when a lack of funding plagued services. Rural areas, and Lethbridge, are feeling the pinch most, and it's probably not hit rock bottom yet.
There are topics where I have a lot of difficulty finding a tweet about something. This is one of those topics and I don't necessarily blame the amount of people saying "so? How many Canadians would move to (Ontario/Quebec)?"
There was also a lot of attention to the word "only", and yes, it sticks out in a way that says "this should sound worse than it is". Editors of openly biased media publications do this - our public broadcaster should not.
If an Alberta Liberal Party holds an AGM and media isn't invited to attend, did it make any noise at all?
A little birdie told me that sometimes, it is not unintentional that media is not invited. That's all I've got.
Canada
Are we still pretending we don't know what racism looks like?
“Canada demonstrates its anti-blackness once again https://t.co/g7jI89U6pe”
It's been disturbing to see the travel bans applied only to African countries, even after the Omicron variant was discovered almost everywhere else. Despite the work done to identify and raise the alarm of a new rapidly spreading variant (that shows early signs of maybe not being fatal - fingers crossed), Canada will not accept PCR tests from nine African countries, requiring passengers to obtain tests from a third country.
Batters' average not great since challenging O'Toole
It's a whole thing - some Batters supporters will keep the petition going, Batters won't comment on the punishment, just cheap politics.
The new great divide: voting age
Early anecdotal evidence suggest conservatives feel 16-year-olds are much too young to vote. This devolved fairly quickly into them also being too young to drive, have a say in decisions that affect their health, or consent to making out with people their own age. Some conservatives are also worried that young people, with their hopes for the future and lingering wistfulness about equity and social justice, would vote for progressive parties.
Sounds like those people didn't grow up in rural.
JOBS
Jobs, jobs, everywhere, there's jobs - it's neither the government's fault, nor to their credit. Thanks for joining my GET-talk.
Merica
There is an expectation that Justice Brent Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett will finally get to do the job they were asked to do: overturn Roe v. Wade and remove reproductive rights from American women - only if you're poor - if you're wealthy, nothing is out of reach, including access to medical procedures in other states or countries.
Final thought...
“It's Cyber Monday so I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. I'll let you know.”
Cover photo credit: @abpressrelease