Women of ABpoli Hot Flashes: Slow burn
This Week in AB
Freedom: Alberta's latest one-way street
Canadian Law Twitter was abuzz from the moment Danielle Smith's Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act was made public.
I have personally tried not to light my hair on fire on the potentially egregious nature of the Act until the text was actually available, and I'm still holding back somewhat because, like the Turn Off the Taps legislation, we probably won't know if it is unconstitutional until the government tries to use it.
That's where my (and more knowledgeable people's) charitability ends.
Martin Olszynski, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary wrote "(if) they wanted to tightly bind the s. 4 powers to the s. 3 resolution, they could have.
Instead we have 'measures' identified in the resolution and then a host of powers limited only by what Cabinet deems 'necessary or advisable' to carry out those measures."
A deliberate choice to omit such a check on Cabinet would have the tiki torch-bearers marching on the Legislature if the NDP attempted such privilege for themselves. If you refuse to acknowledge that limitations on freedom are necessary to provide the most people with the most freedom, the hypocrisy can only be expected.
Eric Adams, a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta and constitutional law expert wrote "to accept an opt-in and opt-out vision of federalism marked by expanding and unaccountable exercises of executive power, and to resign ourselves to perpetual federal-provincial conflicts, is to embrace a dysfunctional federalism riven by court cases, mutual accusations of bad faith, and political and economic inefficiency and instability."
The ASWaUC (sounds like "as whack" to me) Act is such a toxic mix that Smith said it should be used very sparingly, with consent of a majority of the Legislature, who will supposedly be able to vote their conscience in response.
How can one even "vote their conscience" in a completely performative action?
Even if the provincial government decides they won't commit resources to enforce a federal law, the law still applies.
I fully expect this to become a self-sorting hat in the near future.
The province, and therefore the premier, do have control over a number of organizations, however. Provincial legislation affects a range of services that actually do affect Albertans, including: municipal governments and police forces, post-secondary institutions, K-12 school boards, regional health authorities, and any other publicly-funded organizations.
As I said earlier, if we want to talk about government overreach, Danielle Smith's arms are getting pretty long.
Still have a vaccine mandate at your business? Alberta's governing caucus is calling
The fortunate thing about having Danielle Smith as Premier of Alberta is that it'll keep people like me busy.
The unfortunate thing is that I'm an Albertan and the leader of my province can overshadow any good decision by following it up with a wink and a nod to the alt-science crowd.
We knew Smith was anti-mandate. We knew she was anti-experts-in-their-field. Some of us knew it would not be beneficial to hand her the premiership without a fight but I digress.
In an effort to protect the freedom to risk the public health of all, Smith originally said she was looking to add vaccination choice as a protected class against discrimination -- right up there with uninformed political takes, I'm guessing.
It's possible someone informed the Premier of Alberta that one can, in fact, be subject to consequences based on choices they make which is different than subjecting people to consequences for things they have no ability to change, like their skin colour.
Instead, the Premier decided she and her ministers will phone up individual companies and ask them to rethink their business policies. She also pulled out the "if you want funding you'll reconsider" card (which the President of the Arctic Winter Games disputes).
Just another day of Smith vs Smith.
Jason Kenney resigns, effective immediately
Kenney resigned on November 29 amid little fan-fare or surprise, aside from his concern about a continuing polarization that he capitalized upon, and continuously inflamed, himself.
Back in 2018, I considered how Kenney's strategy might play out for him. As Michelle pointed out, it went as well as I'd expected.
Danielle Smith could learn something from the gamble Kenney lost but from what I've seen this far, I expect her to flame out even more spectacularly than he.
Speaking of sucking and blowing...
As it turns out, "sucking and blowing" (a reference to hypocrisy) is accepted parliamentary language. Who would have thought?
Being a rather dedicated political observer, it's a wonder my eyes haven't been stuck permanently rolling back in their sockets due to the "non-stop hysteria" of our political representatives.
Some days are more manageable than others.
On this particular day, however, when the UCP tabled five copies of the Leap Manifesto, a policy proposed --but not accepted-- at the federal NDP convention held in Edmonton in 2015, former UCP leadership contenders turned ministers say the Sovereignty Act is totes not a problem now that it has a "new and improved" label, and a government member suggested the NDP change their name to "National Socialist Party" because Notley gave an answer to a question that wasn't asked, the magnitude of sucking and blowing should be enough to form tornadoes.
Question period has always been a theatre of creative political acting but it can be awfully tiresome to hear the bad faith questions and snarky responses (and I say this as someone who holds snarky responses in the highest possible regard).
As Jen Gerson from The Line put it "a little crazy is fine for a pundit -- not a premier".
Canada
A foreign agent registry sounds like a good plan
In an age when no one really has to set foot in the country in order to attempt to influence politics, it still seems like a good idea to at least ask if a foreign agent is attempting to lobby our own government.
The move follows the creation of similar registries in both the U.K. and Australia and lags incredibly behind the U.S., whose policy has been in place since 1938.
As always, it affects only those who are willing to disclose their intentions but the formality could allow sanctions on anyone caught without declaring their intent.
It still leaves the problem of how to deal with "patriots" who lean more favourably toward foreign governments than their own but, sure, baby steps.
Phase one of Canada dental benefit now open
Using that tweet facetiously, of course.
Children under 12 and low income seniors are now eligible to register for dental benefits, retroactive to October 1, 2022.
'Discouraged' parents may still want to access up to $650 for dental costs. Maybe. I'm certainly no financial wizard.