Women of ABpoli Hot Flashes: Lots of fools this April
This Week in AB
Party politics continues to make headlines
The press availability dropped last Sunday. Brian Jean spokesperson and political strategist Vitor Marciano, along with Take Back Alberta's David Parker, allege that a large number of Albertans have been signed up as members by Jason Kenney's leadership review team under false pretenses ahead of Kenney's leadership review.
The review was initially to take place in-person in Red Deer, before the UCP board scrapped the idea and decided to use mail-in ballots. The board expanded the Special General Meeting from one day to 30, and will now take place between April 9 and May 11, 2022, and the results will be announced on May 18.
Marciano and Parker allege that bulk names and identification were obtained by Kenney's team from companies who maintain driver information, and a copy of their licence without the knowledge of the individuals involved. The allegations have yet to be proven but Marciano and Parker said that details have been provided to Elections Alberta.
Danielle Smith returns
“Danielle Smith is proof cancel culture isn’t real.”
Danielle Smith has announced she will challenge the UCP nomination in Livingston-MacLeod in the lead up to the next election.
Roger Reid handily won the riding in 2019 with more than 70 per cent of the vote.
Smith, who is a former Wildrose representative of the Highwood riding, lost the nomination to represent the Progressive Conservatives in 2015 after she crossed the floor from the Wildrose Party, of which she was leader, to the governing PC's.
At the time, Smith said she made the move with the intent of uniting conservatives under Jim Prentice's leadership. It was clear from the fiasco that Wildrosers did not take being left out of grassroots consultation lightly.
Hence, the motivation on the ground that brought the party back to life within a bare few months before the 2015 election and the acknowledgement that the Wildrose membership would have to be completely manipulated into believing the UCP was a "merger of equals", until it was super obvious that Kenney and Co. had no intention of letting that actually happen.
Thanks to the 2018 boundary redistribution, High River is now part of the Livingston-MacLeod riding and Smith won't have to face organizers and members in Highwood that, I would bet, still hold a grudge over that whole attempt to kill the Wildrose. Coincidentally, that ended up becoming a reality anyway with a united party under Jason Kenney - really nailed that coffin shut - but I digress.
Smith has also come out in opposition to the mail-in ballots, saying the Party should hold polling stations around the province so that the integrity of in-person voting can be maintained.
They all know Jason Kenney and his supporters can't be trusted and I just can't find enough evidence to disagree.
Speaking of which, there's yet another plot twist
“Is politics really this cloak and dagger, or is it just the UCP? 🔪”
If you recall the public airing of dirty laundry by the federal Greens right before an election last year, or the day Erin O'Toole was hung out to dry, or Andrew Scheer, or the Mulroney takedown of Joe Clark... well, let's just say politics is really this cloak and dagger and we only get some of that inside baseball.
The UCP leadership review is a vote and as such, there is a Returning Officer. The board has appointed a new returning officer because the original person could not (would not?) extend the time required under the now-completely revamped process.
Some have cast aspersions on the suitability of the new Returning Officer, Richard Orman, who is a former Progressive Conservative Cabinet Minister, and was part of a group of long-time conservatives who decided in 2016 that the best way forward was to form a new conservative party.
In an interview just a week before the 2016 PC convention that saw Jason Kenney inundate the existing PC Youth membership with four busloads of young conservatives who got to meet Stephen Harper, Orman says they called themselves the "February 19 committee".
The Committee arranged for a space for 500 conservatives to meet and decide on the most important question of the day: do we support the PC party, the Wildrose, or start a third party? Orman says the attendees agreed that they needed to form a new party.
I'm not saying Orman and a number of Klein-era conservative movers and shakers had anything to do with getting Kenney and Harper to the 2016 convention, but the list of former who's whos who endorsed Kenney as (lol) PC leader includes Rick Orman and a number of Klein-era Cabinet Ministers and political party leaders.
However, that was the past.
Today, Rick Orman is a registered lobbyist on behalf of Surmount Energy, where he became acting Chief Executive Officer in April of 2021.
Sure, being in Kenney's corner doesn't automatically get you a gig as a lobbyist (cough, *cough*, *COUGH*), but apparently it doesn't hurt.
Orman said he thought the the criticism was unfair, telling the Calgary Herald's Don Braid that his "loyalty to the party supersedes everything else. And so does (his) personal reputation.”
Using one's personal reputation to support someone who has been accused of benefitting from dirty politics (especially if those include criminal acts) can certainly give people pause, however.
Kenney's poll numbers still in the bottom third
Ahead of the leadership review vote, Angus Reid released a poll showing Kenney's approval ratings are still dismal at 30 per cent.
While access to the full membership may assist Kenney in squeaking through the review itself with 50+1 per cent approval, those within the Party have suggested as many as 13 MLAs are willing to walk if he doesn't step down.
They wouldn't be joining the NDP, assuredly, and they could sit as independents, but they only get research funds if they have official party status in the Legislature.
For that, they would need to coalesce under a banner, probably of an existing Party. That leaves three options UCP MLAs would be unlikely to take (Greens, Alberta Party, and Liberals), or, the Alberta Independence Party and the Wildrose Independence Party of Alberta.
Two sides of the same coin but one comes with name recognition.
Alberta NDP rattling left and right
“The federal Liberals' climate plan is too progressive for Alberta's NDP. https://t.co/gNY3qLLNlE”
Politics is more conservative in Alberta, no matter what the sign says.
When the NDP was elected in 2015, too many Albertans expected the sky to fall. The NDP were going to "unionize everything", put "politics in the classroom", and replace the traditional family unit. They were going to cave to "union bosses" and shut down oil and gas. The chicken littles still talk about it today.
There are other Albertans who expected an NDP government would improve protections for the most vulnerable and generally implement purist NDP policies that are easy to create and stand by while in opposition but not as easy to implement when you have to consider the effect on everyone during a major recession.
What they did do was cause both sides to light their hair on fire because the expectations fell very short of reality.
That reality was the NDP maintained the status quo in a remarkably progressive conservative kind of way. This further angered the right and brought more criticism from the left - especially with regard to how the NDs became fierce, vocal supporters of the oil and gas industry.
Partisan conservatives like to rewrite history. Acknowledging they were wrong about something so quintessential to their narrative that "the NDP hates oil and gas" pretty much has to be rewritten - the facts just don't support the chicken littles.
One such partisan said that Notley "gave a persuasive argument" against the Trudeau climate target, even though they "worked well" together on carbon tax, coal phase out, and securing the TMX purchase. Which is true.
What is also true is that, as Alberta Premier, Rachel Notley said back in 2016 that her support for the federal carbon pricing scheme was conditional on helping get Alberta more pipelines built, planned the 2017 cross-Canada tour to build support for Alberta's market access, as well as publicly withdrew support for the federal climate plan after TMX failed to get approval again in 2018.
These actions during the NDPs term were foreign to both longtime supporters and opposition.
When the polls are in your favour, and both the left and right are calling you out, it appears the time is right for the NDP to remind Albertans that they are the government in waiting.
WTF?
MLA from Central-Peace-Notley Todd Loewen got under Environment Minister Jason Nixon's skin in the House last week when he tabled items to demonstrate that Nixon was attempting to mislead the Members.
It's considered "unparliamentary language" to accuse a Member of lying (which I fully disagree with considering how many lies are tossed out there, but it is a rule, nonetheless).
In response, Nixon yelled out that Loewen "called (him) a fucking liar", and was sanctioned by the Speaker.
Nixon then calmed himself and used parliamentary language, including the word "misinformation" which gave Loewen the opportunity to correct the record and respond with a deadpan "the House leader is incorrect".
I recommend watching this short video.
Speaking of videos and Todd Loewen
Todd Loewen is apparently a funny guy.
In addition to the above, Loewen also tweeted a short video of himself pumping gas. Why?
Because apparently Kenney invited media to watch him pump gas on Friday - except he couldn't quite manage to get the nozzle back out.
Hilarity ensued.
AHOY! It's the sixth wave
“Well…this is Airdrie’s waste water today…”
Since we're only getting updates once each week from the Alberta government, it's probably not a bad idea to look for people who are willing to talk about what's going on with COVID in our province.
Last week, Alberta still had 964 people in hospital with COVID, and of those who still qualify for PCR testing, the positivity rate went from 21.7 per cent to 27.1 per cent.
COVID is not gone, our government just decided to stop gathering and disseminating information that would help us assess the risk.
“personal risk assessment? in this economy?”
Canada
The (CPC leadership) games have begun
Someone had the wherewithal to enter false donation pledges into Jean Charest's website using an old membership list.
The "whodunit" was hidden by creating a false IP address that showed the pledges came from Ukraine.
Ms. Paradis discovered the issue when she received a "thank you for your pledge" email when she hadn't made one. She has connections within the Party and was able to speak directly to a campaign manager and get details.
Why would anyone bother to do this?
Most likely it comes down to fundraising efforts.
$50,000 is due by April 19th. If the campaign is counting on money that isn't coming, they could miss the deadline.
It could also turn members off of a candidate who brazenly sent an unsolicited email that made an expectation of a donation.
The rest of the total $300,000 ($200,000 entrance fee and $100,000 compliance fee) is due by 5:00pm on April 29.
Final thoughts: