Women of ABpoli: Hot Flashes - So much freedom
This week in AB
Kenney caves, empowers border blockade to ask for more
This week brought out some spiciness from the political critic class, and with good reason - there are a bunch of idiots trying to overrun everything because they don't like the consequences of the choices they made.
This week we learned that people who make bad choices can't stop at just one.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is in between a rock and a hard place - his caucus - who may themselves be more emboldened by their federal cousins turfing Erin O'Toole... but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Jason Kenney has been itching to get rid of public health measures ever since he first had to enact them.
This could have been avoided had he just stayed in his lane and let his Health Minister do the dirty work but Kenney is a glory hog and - at the time - Dr. Hinshaw was getting far too much gratitude while Kenney's ego was in desperate need of strokes. With poor foresight and a general desire to suck all oxygen, joy, and so many other things from a room, Kenney became the face of everything awful.
So, when the truckers in tiaras decided to block Alberta's exports and imports on the Canadian side of the Coutts Crossing, Jason Kenney seized the opportunity to side with some right wing protestors.
However.
There's this saying - I have no idea if it's an urban myth or not - but GOVERNMENTS DON'T NEGOTIATE WITH TERRORISTS.
Protests are legal and welcome in this country but blocking highways is not a legal form of protest (neither is setting up an actual occupation but we'll get to that, too).
The UCP's rural caucus released a statement on Thursday saying that the restrictions would be gone.
Kenney then goes to Facebook Friday morning to announce the same because he didn't want to have to deal with questions from people who actually know what's going on.
WITHIN HOURS of Kenney's Facebook Live, the truckers in tiaras come back with demands that all rural UCP MLAs sit as independents and leave Kenney without a caucus...
This devolved quickly from people being embarrassed that their government jumped at the opportunity to show support for the anti-consequences convoy to getting a good laugh that Kenney's capitulation emboldened them to ask for more - something, something, don't negotiate with terrorists... I guess.
Alberta is being sued over Kenney's defamatory statements
It's kind of peak Alberta under a UCP government when we have to watch UCP MLAs throw support behind a group demanding the resignation of a sitting government - with American funds - and also find out that we're being sued by the organizations Kenney and his minions maligned in order to justify the $3 million-dollar vendetta against environmental groups.
Foreign funding - only a problem if you don't support the cause, right?
While I'm sure we could argue about whether there is any difference between funding an organization that writes mean things about fossil fuels and funding a group whose stated goal is to overthrow a government, why lose ourselves in the minutiae?
At the end of the week, members of our elected UCP have bowed to threats from protestors (fueling more demands), supported a group receiving foreign funding to overthrow the federal government, and due to their previous inability to understand right from wrong, have been served with a lawsuit.
Even so...
POP (Protect our Province) Alberta has started a social media campaign, #REPnotRIP (Restrictions Exemptions Program, not Rest in Peace).
While a number of those who agree that health measures were somewhat effective before omicron, they'll be the first to tell us that omicron evades vaccine protection.
I have to point out that, considering Alberta's hospitalization levels are extremely high with omicron (topping out at 1594 last week) and people are still dying (97 Albertans last week alone), asking Albertans to accept a government who gives up is mind-blowing.
If anything, omicron's ability to spread so quickly - and still overtake our healthcare resources, and still kill a lot of people - should be telling us to do more, not less.
I'm not a medical expert but I have learned something from the previous four waves: when we do less, Albertans have suffered.
Now I understand that some people don't like having their freedoms restricted because it might help someone else, but these rallies are demanding someone else do the heavy lifting during this pandemic.
Everyone doing a little something has meant that people who would not be able to continue working, or going to school without greater personal or familial risk, can continue to do so because everyone is doing a little something - getting vaccinated or wearing a mask.
If the government removes those small things, it will force others who don't have a choice - due to being high risk or having immediate family who are high risk - to remove themselves from society. It will also allow the virus to spread unabated.
The people rallying for their "freedoms" are saying they don't want to help out anymore - they've decided their freedom not to give a damn about others matters more than those who don't have the option not to put themselves or their family at greater risk.
Someone still has to do the work but it will be those who don't have the freedom of choice.
Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada caucus ousts leader
“So the Conservative Party is imploding? 🍿”
First, some background. In 2003, Stephen Harper, then leader of the Canadian Alliance Conservative Reform Party (aka, Canadian Reform Alliance Party, which was a mishmash of all the right wing parties) and Peter MacKay, then leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, merged the two parties.
CRAP couldn't get elected east of Manitoba and the PCs were afraid that they would never form government again if the conservatives were divided (which probably sounds familiar in the UCP hell scape).
Why did they split in the first place? Same old story - the west wants in, the PC's are liberal lite, the PCs are too much P and not enough C, opposition without the risk of having to actually govern is so much easier - you get the picture.
So, MacKay and Harper merge the parties in 2003, and while they remain in opposition in 2004, they form a minority government in 2006, and a larger minority government in 2008. In 2011, they form a majority, and lose it in 2015 to Justin Trudeau - one and done.
Slight digression - Harper became politically active during Trudeau senior's time because he (like most of Alberta) blamed Trudeau for the global oil glut since it came on the heels of PET's proposal for the National Energy Program.
So, this loss was something spectacular, indeed - a personal affront to Harper and his loyalists (if that helps shed some light on Alberta's situation).
In the 2017 leadership race, it was an absolute nail-biter to the very end with all votes running down to Andrew Scheer, of the socially conservative faction, and Maxime Bernier, of the libertarian faction.
For context, I was (and still am) on board with Scott Gilmore's "New Conservatives" proposal in 2017 - bring back the PCs and ensure that the swing voters have somewhere to land... but I digress again.
Andrew Scheer, the plucky former receptionist who finished his bachelor's degree after he was first elected to Parliament, but before he became the Speaker of the House, was now the leader of the CPC.
Scheer came from the Reform-Alliance faction and was very quickly put on the defensive for his antiquated religious conservatism.
In 2019, despite gaining votes in Alberta and Saskatchewan, the party failed to gain seats (since they usually have AB and SK sewn up tight and there's a limited number of seats available even if you increase your vote share).
Scheer was turfed by the more centrist members easily enough when political insiders dropped the fact that Conservative donors paid for Scheer's kids' private school tuition and another leadership race was triggered.
In 2020, there was decidedly less interest in becoming the leader of the party - from 14 who made it to the ballot in 2017 to just four.
That year, we saw how Erin O'Toole advocated for the religious conservative leftovers, thanks to almost everything being online due to the unexpected arrival of the pandemic, we, actually, got to see everything.
OToole: strategic votes for an electable socon sympathizer
Dr. Leslyn Lewis had a particularly impressive showing on the prairies and in Quebec, after sucking up Derek Sloan's votes in the second round, but it wasn't enough to take out the "liberal" Peter MacKay. After the runoff in the final round, members chose O'Toole for his socially conservative enough positions.
However, in the 2021 general election, O'Toole had this crazy idea that he would actually try to win the election and ditched the more reform-favoured policies in an attempt to appeal to a majority of Canadians and (gasp!) form government.
Now, maybe it was because Canadians just didn't relate to O'Toole, or maybe they didn't trust the party, or maybe the reform policies (with the exception of former Reform leader Preston Manning's carbon tax) would have won the CPC the election.
We'll never know.
CPC caucus members, however, were not impressed. The party lost seats, and, like a shot to the heart, three of the seats that went to the Liberals... were from Alberta.
On Monday, the news broke that caucus had enough signatures (20 per cent of caucus - 35 members) to force a leadership review. O'Toole would have faced a review in 2023 from the membership anyway, but if you have the power to tell 153,000 party members that your vote matters more than theirs, why wait?
Wednesday morning, caucus went into the meeting for a leadership review, held by secret ballot, and lost 73-45 - a much higher number than expected.
“Stepped over the body and up to the microphone in 0.001 seconds https://t.co/raOYkDPSAx”
John Williamson, MP for New Brunswick Southwest, was the first to announce he was putting his name forward for interim leader. Per CPC rules, whomever is elected as interim leader cannot launch a candidacy for leadership.
The MP from Portage-Lisgar (Manitoba) Candice Bergen was elected as interim leader.
Immediately photos of Bergen in a MAGA (Make America Great Again, Trump slogan 2016) hat made the rounds - because of course Bergen is a MAGA supporter - and then the email (can we not meld the 2016 presidential race together, please?)... and it's probably just the beginning.
I love leadership races but they are exhausting - not usually before they begin; at least in my experience.
The only person to throw their hat into the race so far, which won't actually start for at least a month or so, is Ottawa-Carleton MP Pierre Pollievre.
Truth be told, I've mostly ignored Pollievre because he reminds of Theoren Fleury when Fleury was a Calgary Flame: he's worth keeping around to force penalties from the other team, but you don't make that guy the leader.
Obviously, I will be keeping up with the leadership race but I'm thinking there might be more than one conservative leadership race before the next federal election. Just a feeling.
Ottawa occupation
If you haven't been glued to social media all week(end) - watching and listening to the Convoy occupation - I commend you for creating those boundaries.
Since the last newsletter (that I now see should have been updated halfway through the week) the occupation has: tormented residents by blaring their horns all night; forced the resignation of a senator from the Conservative caucus over CPC support; erected semi-permanent structures where food, fuel, and saunas were placed; partied; had a class action lawsuit proposed and; have caused the city to declare a state of emergency.
In Quebec, vehicles have been towed and truckers who did stay over respected the noise bylaws as they were told they would be ticketed otherwise.
While the CPC offers both support but, (as per Bergen's email) not too much support, Canada's Prime Minister has thus far refused to acknowledge the occupation in any way.
There are some interesting perspectives from supporters and detractors. The big picture, however, is that Canada's capital is under siege by a small group of people who are very out of touch with reality as the rest of us know it.
Final thought:
“Black History does not equal Black Trauma. There’s JOY in our stories. Highlight that stuff too.”