Alberta is about to create a federal constitutional challenge, and find out that they are, despite the conservatives’ collective pipe dream, part of Canada.
I can already hear the chorus of “this is a gross overreach of federal power” and “Trudeau is a dictator” whines coming from the usual culprits. And the base gets riled up even further…
It’s starting to become ever more tempting to, at some point, actually give them that freedom they so desperately want and defederate Alberta from Canada. I give them about as long as California was actually independent for before they come begging to be let back in, after they come to the realization that they are a land-locked nation that depends on its neighbors and existing trade relationships and agreements to sell any of their precious oil to the world.
Be careful what you wish for wild roses, you just might get it.
separation would require a referendum, which would have 0% chance of passing. nobody wants this, beside some whackos. this is all posturing by the UCP, both to their base and to the federal government.
I know seperation is not popular enough to actually make it happen, but what I don;t understand is why this point gets brought up so much by the UCP if it isn’t popular enough to actually happen. If a politician/party is constantly harping about something I don’t actually support, why would I vote for them? It makes no sense.
The only reason it “requires” a referendum is because Quebec went for that option in 1980, there’s nothing anywhere setting the separation process in stone, so technically a referendum isn’t necessary.
You whippersnappers and not understanding the social credit party!! Why, in my day…
Sure, we’re a conservative province in Canada, but in the US we’d still be to the left. We, overall, like having free healthcare and access to abortion. I swear the rest of Canada thinks we’re illiterate sometimes. Bro, I saw what happened in Ontario, get off your high horse.
Alberta has the record for the longest time with the same party in power, it was a conservative party from 1971 to 2015 and they beat the previous record that they previously held that was another conservative party from 1935 to 1971.
Alberta’s NDP is conservative compared to the NDP everywhere else!
Alberta and America have both changed a lot in the past decades. The rural areas would probably still be (light?) red, but most of the population is in Calgary and Edmonton, and they’re not going to go for no-joke Republicans that think the election was faked by a global cabal of pedophiles.
The Alberta NDP is a bit like the Liberals in other places, I’d say.
I’d argue that SoCred wasn’t conservative. It was anti-capitalist, for one thing; although it wasn’t really socialist either, but kind of it’s own thing.
We don’t have a prime minister. Our premier won by just 1300 (well-placed, it’d be more if they were outside of Calgary) votes in a province of 4 million. I rest my case.
That’s a lot more than 1300 votes. Maybe your province leans towards the far right more than you want to admit, 52.63% of the popular vote going to a COVID denier that called those who got vaccinated Nazis and lied about having first Nation ancestry, that doesn’t look good to me…
No, I was pretty involved, so I’m sure about this. I was told 1309, to be exact, distributed across the close Calgary ridings.
In rural areas, it wasn’t even close, so that drives up the UCP numbers quite a bit. People are crazy loyal to anything labeled “conservative” out in the boonies, it’s not even a question of policy (which is why they’d vote Republican). Still, if you look at the popular vote numbers, 52.6% isn’t exactly a landslide. The NDP were a hair from winning.
As for the far right, that stuff is brewing up in conservative parties all over the Western world. I seem to remember leaving bodies in dumps being the centerpoint of the Manitoba campaign, and the leading party federally is full of MPs that supported the trucker convoy. That’s not an excuse, but I think it’s a stretch to say that because people narrowly voted Danielle Smith in, they’d be okay not having government healthcare, which I can’t imagine a Republican candidate would abide.
You’re mixing the way first past the post works with popular votes (which is the important part of this discussion), that’s two separate things and you should know it if you were involved as you mentioned. One shows the opinion of the population as a whole, the other shows the opinion of the majority of separate districts.
The NDP wasn’t even close to the conservatives, they were 8.6% behind in popular support. 1300 is the difference required to switch enough districts to the NDP so they would have won, it still would have meant that they would have taken power with less than 45% of the total vote and with the second position going to a party with 8% more popular support than them.
If your three kids want to go see movie A and you and your wife want to go see movie B and you tell them “Well, we’re paying so we’re going to see Movie B” it doesn’t mean your family was leaning towards seeing Movie B, it means the parents had disproportionate power to decide which movie the family was going to see.
That’s what happens with first past the post, have 45 districts voting at 100% for Party A, 55 districts each individually voting at 35% for party A and 65% for party B, party B is now in power with 35.75% of the popular vote and 55 seats, party A has 45 seats and 64.25% of the popular vote.
Alberta leans conservative, the popular vote is the proof of that.
Yes, Alberta leans conservative. I of course can’t prove it, but I expect if suddenly in an environment with a centerline much further to the right, it would lean left. That’s all I’m saying.
Smith would be in the Republican party if we were in the US and she would be one of the MAGA COVID deniers libertarian wackos and she got over 50% of the vote, I think you need to start facing reality…
I’m presenting statistical facts, no need to live where you are to interpret those and guess what, we are able to find articles about Smith, it’s not 1923 anymore even if 52% of Albertan electors would like it to be!
No, French is my first language and I just assumed that since we use the same title for both positions at the provincial and federal level in French it was the same in English.
I’m sure you would never ever make a mistake when speaking your second language and would hope that people would just consider your have no credibility on any subject if you ever did, I mean, that sounds completely fair, right?
What’s funny is that while you’re arguing about me making a mistake about her title you’re ignoring the fact that I pointed out, Smith got more than 50% of the popular vote in a very recent election and she’s much closer to the current Republicans than from the historic progressive conservatives of both Canada’s and Alberta’s past.
There you go… you made an assumption from ignorance which makes your message suspect at best. What else are you willing to assume? How Danielle Smith of you.
What’s funny is that while you’re arguing about me making a mistake about her title you’re ignoring the fact that I pointed out, Smith got more than 50% of the popular vote in a very recent election and she’s much closer to the current Republicans than from the historic progressive conservatives of both Canada’s and Alberta’s past.
You think that’s funny? What exactly is funny about that? Or do you mean something other than ‘funny’ because you know, ‘ESL is my excuse ‘du jour’?’
I’m looking forward to your next excuse for your poor behaviour.
No, I absolutely meant funny, you’re trying to derail the discussion by insulting me for something that is simply an honest mistake. What’s funny to me is that the only person that looks like a Smith supporter here is you because it seems like you don’t want to talk about the situation of politics in Alberta so you would rather try to discredit me instead.
They aren’t even close to perfect because an **EV puts out 2x more CO2 during the manufacturing process and it takes A LOT of driving to make up the difference**. Still better than nothing but EV’s will not work for me as I barely drive and ‘driving more’ isn’t a solution, it’s more of a problem.
“Nothing I said is a lie” he said right after being shown a quote of him lying.
Yeah… So I’ll just send you off to the block list now because clearly you’re just unable to admit you might have been wrong and having a discussion with people like you just makes everyone a bit more stupid.
Smith said the province tried to work collaboratively with the federal government to make the province’s electricity grid net zero by 2050
“The feds didn’t capitulate to our demands so we’re taking the province of Alberta hostage”
“We will not put our operators at risk of going to jail if they do not achieve the unachievable,”
It’s unachievable, Danielle, because your ignorant ass put a moratorium on renewable energy projects. And why does she feel the need to feign sympathy for the dinosaurs at the top whose refusal to act is the reason we’re here in the first place? If they can’t conduct business in accordance with the law, they can gtfo of the way and make room for those who can.
“…he’s a maverick. He doesn’t seem to care about the law, doesn’t care about the Constitution. I do.”
Says the person who personally donated $60k to a seditious organization.
As far as I’m concerned, these excuses are nothing but selfish and asinine. They only serve to vindicate and encourage the bad behaviour of those who ought to be taking responsibility. How exactly “It’s too expensive” is a serious take when we all just spent 4 consecutive months living inside a cloud of wildfire smoke is beyond me. Fuck off.
Add comment