Well, of course they're rewriting history, conservatives have learned that if they can't control the narrative, it won't say what they want, factual, logical or otherwise.
I think the other story of this election is why the NDP strategists were asleep at the switch; yes Smith and the UCP served them up opportunity after opportunity on a silver platter that they tried to transform into votes. But they also let the UCP strategists play them, for example on the issue of Notley getting called out for 'not running on her record'. The first response to that should have been:
"You and your party have been the government for the past 4 years, not me and my party. That's why we need to talk about your record, the one you're running on. It includes going to war with health care providers, decimating the education system, throwing away billions on a doomed pipeline, a farcical new primary education curriculum, freezing and reducing income supports for vulnerable people. So let's talk about how you're running on that record'.
The response to creating a massive deficit from 2015-19? 'When the price of oil collapsed, something we didn't control or want, we made the decision that we would try and protect the people of AB and the services they value like education and health care, so unfortunately we went into debt. A significant reason for that was 40 years of conservative governments had failed to diversify our economy, or adjust spending to account for a cyclical resource market. This left us us then, and now, vulnerable to fluctuations in revenue and trapped in a boom bust cycle. Forty years of careless and reckless policy was going to have a price, and we all paid it. The difference is we tried to pay it with the least amount of suffering possible. Next question'.
If an uninformed outsider like me can figure this out, why couldn't NDP strategists?
I hear ya, it's one of those things where the perfect rebuttal comes to you after the opportunity has passed, but the pressure of the heat of the moment affects everyone differently. Smith's strength was/is her smooth, unfounded self-confidence and unflappability based on position as cute, congenial head cheerleader for "the guys," the essence of the conservative juggernaut here that, to quote Trump, could go out and shoot someone in the street and still win. They didn't quite do that, but four times more people here got infected with covid than in the rest of the country, and three times more DID die. Alberta also has the highest rate of alcoholism and domestic abuse because this is the province/party of REAL men, i.e."guy guys" who drive around in their big, black trucks like they own the place, tailgating everyone in their way like they want to run right over them, because they do. And they were as apoplectic about a bunch of women being in charge here as Republicans were about a black man there, despite him only being HALF black. Outraged at the "socialists," translated into their MOTHERS bent on curtailing them and telling them what to do. It's the entire basis for "libertarianism," the juvenile male take on the world that to any objective, astute observer is uniquely stupid.
In the 2019 election the NDP focused on the smug, outrageously unscrupulous Kenney who, although a closet gay man himself who somehow got away with just being a "confirmed bachelor" in part because considerate progressives had made it socially unacceptable to "out" people like him, responded to that favour in typical conservative style (i.e. graceless even in victory) by shutting down the gay-straight alliances in schools first thing when he got power. And then smirkingly handed out ear plugs in the context of "women talking," (only lip service to this other progressive social change) despite such open disrespect being unprecedented in the legislature.
I think the NDP assumption that voters response to such outrageous behaviour would in fact be outrage was shared by the Liberals in the last federal election who just assumed people SAW how changed, deranged and dangerous the right wing had become, so would naturally want to marginalize them when it came to governance.
But with Danielle Smith's victory and bad boy extraordinaire Boilievre lurking in the wings, this has clearly been a grave miscalculation. If progressives STILL don't realize this enough to change THEIR/OUR behaviour accordingly, we're all f*ed.
That meme on facebook, "conservatives are going to kill us all?" Not so outrageous now.
Smith is an unfit leader that was declared to be unethical during the writ period.. Her leadership race for the UCP spent a lot of time trashing Jason Kenny and vaccine mandates imposed by Kenny. The conservative brand is really built on blaming Ottawa liberals for everything. The conservative brand endured despite the string of lousy leaders. Smith didn’t pull out a sun. Gerrymandered rural Alberta only hears conservative voices trashing Ottawa. So the most convincing position is to to link Notley to Trudeau and argue the 2 of them hate Alberta. That’s the winning argument.
Klein’s win in 1993 is because of Preston Manning. In the 80’s Alberta Conservatives could not blame Ottawa for Alberta’s problems because Conservative Mulroney was in power. 100% of Alberta MPs were in power in a conservative government. Yet, Manning rose with the slogan “The West wants in”. The west was in. When The Reform Party came in it gave the opportunity for Alberta conservatives to blame Ottawa even though there was a conservative government. This gave provincial conservatives the scapegoat it needed. The same thing happened after 20 years of Harper rule. 20 years is too long gor Alberta conservatives yo survive and not be able to scapegoat Ottawa. What happened? Prentice lost. He had no one yo scapegoat. Now that Trudeau is in he gets blamed for everything. Provincial mark mandates… Trudeau’s fault. Worldwide Price of oil drops… Trudeau’s fault. Equalization is based on the Harper formula…Trudeau’s fault.
Alberta conservatives are very predictable. Blame Ottawa for everything.
Trudeau is basically Schrödinger's politician. Simultaneously too dumb to run a government but smart enough to control the world price of oil, run the WEF, collapse Alberta's economy, and cause a pandemic to start in China.
What I find striking for those who wanted, or said they wanted, to base the election on a business decision. How do you choose a party that’s effectively had 6 CEO’s over the past nine years. That’s smacks of instability.
Lorne Gunter has absolutely no credibility at all. What he writes, belongs in the rubbish heap. He is just a representative of the UCP, and is one of their spokespersons. If he is comparing Danielle Smith to Ralph Klein, that reinforces him having no credibility. I remember when he was also covering up what Ralph Klein did wrong. Before he was employed with The Sun (which is now under the Postmedia umbrella), Lorne Gunter was a columnist with the Edmonton Journal. Once, Lorne Gunter wrote a column about Adscam, under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, who were Liberal Prime Ministers. The cost was something around $100 million. He was saying how bad it was, and raking the two federal Liberal politicians over the coals. A person wrote a letter to the editor, to the Edmonton Journal and said that what the federal government does for scandals is bush league in comparison to what Ralph Klein did. He mentioned two of Ralph Klein's scandals that were worse than Adscam. One was Miller West Pulp, which was $180 million, and the other one he brought up was West Edmonton Mall, and he said it was $480 million. He said that Lorne Gunter should be concerned about the bigger scandals that happened under Ralph Klein in Alberta. Ralph Klein did more than those. This particular letter writer brought up in another letter a stern criticism of some women who were praising Ralph Klein. He mentioned the A.I.S.H affair, which Ralph Klein and other members of his party were making fun of the severely handicapped, accompanied by laughter. That scandal happened to be $100 million. The BSE bailout disaster set us back over $400 million. Alpac, happened to be a major scandal, that was funded by Ralph Klein pilfering the sacred Heritage Savings Trust Fund, established by Peter Lougheed. Swan Hills was also quite costly, and the cost has magnified to far beyond the original cost, which was around $550 million, or thereabouts. Electricity deregulation and the shady PPA mess that is associated with it, has set us back more than $40 billion. Orphan well rectification is pegged at $300 billion. Our public schools and universities had funding slashed. Schools were left in a bad state of repair, while pink slips were handed to a very large number of teachers. Public healthcare also had funding very severely slashed, seeing hospitals get blown up to bits, other hospitals closed, and other hospitals needing severe maintenance. Roads and highways had their maintenance slashed, and Ed Stelmach had to contend with a cost of at least $40 billion to look after this, and the matter still hasn't been resolved. In addition, Peter Lougheed's oil royalty rate regime was reduced to such a low amount that well over half a trillion dollars was lost in the process. With Ralph Klein's tax structure, at least $150 was gone. With other government services, and institutions, these were privatized, and created so many problems. Bad drivers increased after driver training was privatized. Identity theft increased after registries were privatized. This is the person who Danielle Smith wants to emulate. Ralph Klein and Danielle also have a similar trait of not being able to tell the truth. They also do scandals which cost us a fortune. Albertans now have to ante up the money for the hockey arena for Calgary. The provincial police force, which is going to create a police state for Alberta, is another $1 billion. The rural municipal leaders don't want it, and Danielle Smith has lied and said they support it. $20 billion is being chucked away for orphan well rectification, which the oil companies should have been made to pay for. The cunning energy rebate for our power bills, happens to be a loan. We will have to pay that back. The provincial election was a joke, because all the lies that Danielle Smith was rolling off her tongue, were never challenged. It will be a horrible four years under Danielle and the UCP.
Thanks, Lisa Young. As mainstream media quickly accepts the UCP version of campaign, they ignore the Trumpian content brought to you by UCP. Let’s remember Smith told many falsehoods with remarkable calm in that debate, starting with the so- called vindication by the ethics commissioner - when the exact opposite was true - she was found in violation of conflict of interest. Many others. Yes, Notley missed opportunity to use her record etc. But the bar was low for Smith and high fir Notley. And identity politics is a strong bond in Calgary.
Shelia Pratt: The provincial election debate was not that long. It would be impossible to counter all the lies that Danielle Smith was saying, given the short amount of time that was given to respond. 45 seconds was the response time. It was easy to see that Danielle Smith was lying. She got away with it.
A lot of us are not only in despair but also quietly panicked at FOUR MORE YEARS when time has never felt more pressing. But I for one plan to focus on the power of our two largest cities, both with progressive mayors, the federal Liberals' coming cap on emissions, keeping the fact in mind that more money worldwide went to renewables this last year than fossil fuels, a first. The thing about living by the market means you can also die by it of course, so between that and what will very possibly be a summer from hell, these inept, arrogant libertarian fools will not fare any better than they did with the pandemic.
Also, if the Unruly Convoy Party had a shallow talent pool BEFORE, they're now going to have to cobble together some semblance of "governance" with what amounts to a mud puddle. Personally I'd like to see the Take Back Alberta try to seize their moment by full-on serving up their "lake of fire" religious crap in the current social climate i.e. bring on that culture war and let's see how the mean-spirited bigots stack up toe-to-toe in 2023. And Steven Guilbeault won't be so easy to handle either...
Make the rift into the unbridgeable chasm that it actually IS, one so deep that we progressives can start pushing THEM backwards into it where they belong since they deliberately created it.
Because US and THEM is now official despite the ineffectual media's thoughtless bothsidesism.
Hello, Alberta Politics newsletter. I just discovered this. First time I have posted a comment. I liked this article. I also liked Edmonton guy's comment.
However, patent unfitness for office seems to be a requirement for conservative elected leaders in western countries now.
If the lord of this Alberta Politics Forbids this, I won't bother commenting. I think public discussion would be better if commentators amplified each others stuff more.
But as for this piece I dropped this morning, my basic theme is that our present institutions are not working. This is shown by fiascos like the Alberta Election. There is a world wide movement away form the status quo and toward better ways of doing democracy. It has not got to Canada yet. It will take a real long time to filter into Alberta.
You know the saying that "democracy is the worst system of government apart from all the others?" That's true; I mean it's not like we haven't been AT this long enough to have a basis of comparison. And as part and parcel of this system, movements of one kind or another come and go, "world-wide" or otherwise; the overarching context of capitalism naturally creates dynamism and flux. But to simply say our institutions are not "working" smacks of anarchy because 'twas ever thus when it comes to US, i.e. people.
They have "evolved" along with us to varying degrees, but a couple of real keepers have emerged in the scientific method and the rule of law, both ideals that are simply us at our rational best, focused as they are on the only thing that is ACTUALLY sacred to our eggshell lives, which is the truth. Is it not starting to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's ALL we really have? Look at the growing chaos of our "post-truth" society, cynically engineered by greedy men with truly otherworldly egos. And part of the weakening of it has been social media with its simplistic memes of recent generations where everyone has their OWN truth, which is a typically ahistorical and unprecedentedly self-involved take on the world. But truth is simply not THAT relative, unless you lack context.
Yes, indeed. Truth is pretty much what it is. People develop this “own truth” thing because they do not know anything and are obsessed with themselves.
I have also heard the “democracy is the worst system except for all the others” trope over and over. This comes from not knowing what an actual democracy is. We are not in one. There are very few in the world. There have been very few in history.
Democracies are a threat to “all these other forms” and are usually stamped out, from outside and from within. So we do not have much experience at running a democracy in a modern state. A real democracy would be an experiment.
Well, of course they're rewriting history, conservatives have learned that if they can't control the narrative, it won't say what they want, factual, logical or otherwise.
I think the other story of this election is why the NDP strategists were asleep at the switch; yes Smith and the UCP served them up opportunity after opportunity on a silver platter that they tried to transform into votes. But they also let the UCP strategists play them, for example on the issue of Notley getting called out for 'not running on her record'. The first response to that should have been:
"You and your party have been the government for the past 4 years, not me and my party. That's why we need to talk about your record, the one you're running on. It includes going to war with health care providers, decimating the education system, throwing away billions on a doomed pipeline, a farcical new primary education curriculum, freezing and reducing income supports for vulnerable people. So let's talk about how you're running on that record'.
The response to creating a massive deficit from 2015-19? 'When the price of oil collapsed, something we didn't control or want, we made the decision that we would try and protect the people of AB and the services they value like education and health care, so unfortunately we went into debt. A significant reason for that was 40 years of conservative governments had failed to diversify our economy, or adjust spending to account for a cyclical resource market. This left us us then, and now, vulnerable to fluctuations in revenue and trapped in a boom bust cycle. Forty years of careless and reckless policy was going to have a price, and we all paid it. The difference is we tried to pay it with the least amount of suffering possible. Next question'.
If an uninformed outsider like me can figure this out, why couldn't NDP strategists?
I hear ya, it's one of those things where the perfect rebuttal comes to you after the opportunity has passed, but the pressure of the heat of the moment affects everyone differently. Smith's strength was/is her smooth, unfounded self-confidence and unflappability based on position as cute, congenial head cheerleader for "the guys," the essence of the conservative juggernaut here that, to quote Trump, could go out and shoot someone in the street and still win. They didn't quite do that, but four times more people here got infected with covid than in the rest of the country, and three times more DID die. Alberta also has the highest rate of alcoholism and domestic abuse because this is the province/party of REAL men, i.e."guy guys" who drive around in their big, black trucks like they own the place, tailgating everyone in their way like they want to run right over them, because they do. And they were as apoplectic about a bunch of women being in charge here as Republicans were about a black man there, despite him only being HALF black. Outraged at the "socialists," translated into their MOTHERS bent on curtailing them and telling them what to do. It's the entire basis for "libertarianism," the juvenile male take on the world that to any objective, astute observer is uniquely stupid.
In the 2019 election the NDP focused on the smug, outrageously unscrupulous Kenney who, although a closet gay man himself who somehow got away with just being a "confirmed bachelor" in part because considerate progressives had made it socially unacceptable to "out" people like him, responded to that favour in typical conservative style (i.e. graceless even in victory) by shutting down the gay-straight alliances in schools first thing when he got power. And then smirkingly handed out ear plugs in the context of "women talking," (only lip service to this other progressive social change) despite such open disrespect being unprecedented in the legislature.
I think the NDP assumption that voters response to such outrageous behaviour would in fact be outrage was shared by the Liberals in the last federal election who just assumed people SAW how changed, deranged and dangerous the right wing had become, so would naturally want to marginalize them when it came to governance.
But with Danielle Smith's victory and bad boy extraordinaire Boilievre lurking in the wings, this has clearly been a grave miscalculation. If progressives STILL don't realize this enough to change THEIR/OUR behaviour accordingly, we're all f*ed.
That meme on facebook, "conservatives are going to kill us all?" Not so outrageous now.
Smith is an unfit leader that was declared to be unethical during the writ period.. Her leadership race for the UCP spent a lot of time trashing Jason Kenny and vaccine mandates imposed by Kenny. The conservative brand is really built on blaming Ottawa liberals for everything. The conservative brand endured despite the string of lousy leaders. Smith didn’t pull out a sun. Gerrymandered rural Alberta only hears conservative voices trashing Ottawa. So the most convincing position is to to link Notley to Trudeau and argue the 2 of them hate Alberta. That’s the winning argument.
Klein’s win in 1993 is because of Preston Manning. In the 80’s Alberta Conservatives could not blame Ottawa for Alberta’s problems because Conservative Mulroney was in power. 100% of Alberta MPs were in power in a conservative government. Yet, Manning rose with the slogan “The West wants in”. The west was in. When The Reform Party came in it gave the opportunity for Alberta conservatives to blame Ottawa even though there was a conservative government. This gave provincial conservatives the scapegoat it needed. The same thing happened after 20 years of Harper rule. 20 years is too long gor Alberta conservatives yo survive and not be able to scapegoat Ottawa. What happened? Prentice lost. He had no one yo scapegoat. Now that Trudeau is in he gets blamed for everything. Provincial mark mandates… Trudeau’s fault. Worldwide Price of oil drops… Trudeau’s fault. Equalization is based on the Harper formula…Trudeau’s fault.
Alberta conservatives are very predictable. Blame Ottawa for everything.
Trudeau is basically Schrödinger's politician. Simultaneously too dumb to run a government but smart enough to control the world price of oil, run the WEF, collapse Alberta's economy, and cause a pandemic to start in China.
Typos… those 20 should be 10.
What I find striking for those who wanted, or said they wanted, to base the election on a business decision. How do you choose a party that’s effectively had 6 CEO’s over the past nine years. That’s smacks of instability.
Lorne Gunter has absolutely no credibility at all. What he writes, belongs in the rubbish heap. He is just a representative of the UCP, and is one of their spokespersons. If he is comparing Danielle Smith to Ralph Klein, that reinforces him having no credibility. I remember when he was also covering up what Ralph Klein did wrong. Before he was employed with The Sun (which is now under the Postmedia umbrella), Lorne Gunter was a columnist with the Edmonton Journal. Once, Lorne Gunter wrote a column about Adscam, under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, who were Liberal Prime Ministers. The cost was something around $100 million. He was saying how bad it was, and raking the two federal Liberal politicians over the coals. A person wrote a letter to the editor, to the Edmonton Journal and said that what the federal government does for scandals is bush league in comparison to what Ralph Klein did. He mentioned two of Ralph Klein's scandals that were worse than Adscam. One was Miller West Pulp, which was $180 million, and the other one he brought up was West Edmonton Mall, and he said it was $480 million. He said that Lorne Gunter should be concerned about the bigger scandals that happened under Ralph Klein in Alberta. Ralph Klein did more than those. This particular letter writer brought up in another letter a stern criticism of some women who were praising Ralph Klein. He mentioned the A.I.S.H affair, which Ralph Klein and other members of his party were making fun of the severely handicapped, accompanied by laughter. That scandal happened to be $100 million. The BSE bailout disaster set us back over $400 million. Alpac, happened to be a major scandal, that was funded by Ralph Klein pilfering the sacred Heritage Savings Trust Fund, established by Peter Lougheed. Swan Hills was also quite costly, and the cost has magnified to far beyond the original cost, which was around $550 million, or thereabouts. Electricity deregulation and the shady PPA mess that is associated with it, has set us back more than $40 billion. Orphan well rectification is pegged at $300 billion. Our public schools and universities had funding slashed. Schools were left in a bad state of repair, while pink slips were handed to a very large number of teachers. Public healthcare also had funding very severely slashed, seeing hospitals get blown up to bits, other hospitals closed, and other hospitals needing severe maintenance. Roads and highways had their maintenance slashed, and Ed Stelmach had to contend with a cost of at least $40 billion to look after this, and the matter still hasn't been resolved. In addition, Peter Lougheed's oil royalty rate regime was reduced to such a low amount that well over half a trillion dollars was lost in the process. With Ralph Klein's tax structure, at least $150 was gone. With other government services, and institutions, these were privatized, and created so many problems. Bad drivers increased after driver training was privatized. Identity theft increased after registries were privatized. This is the person who Danielle Smith wants to emulate. Ralph Klein and Danielle also have a similar trait of not being able to tell the truth. They also do scandals which cost us a fortune. Albertans now have to ante up the money for the hockey arena for Calgary. The provincial police force, which is going to create a police state for Alberta, is another $1 billion. The rural municipal leaders don't want it, and Danielle Smith has lied and said they support it. $20 billion is being chucked away for orphan well rectification, which the oil companies should have been made to pay for. The cunning energy rebate for our power bills, happens to be a loan. We will have to pay that back. The provincial election was a joke, because all the lies that Danielle Smith was rolling off her tongue, were never challenged. It will be a horrible four years under Danielle and the UCP.
Thanks, Lisa Young. As mainstream media quickly accepts the UCP version of campaign, they ignore the Trumpian content brought to you by UCP. Let’s remember Smith told many falsehoods with remarkable calm in that debate, starting with the so- called vindication by the ethics commissioner - when the exact opposite was true - she was found in violation of conflict of interest. Many others. Yes, Notley missed opportunity to use her record etc. But the bar was low for Smith and high fir Notley. And identity politics is a strong bond in Calgary.
Shelia Pratt: The provincial election debate was not that long. It would be impossible to counter all the lies that Danielle Smith was saying, given the short amount of time that was given to respond. 45 seconds was the response time. It was easy to see that Danielle Smith was lying. She got away with it.
A lot of us are not only in despair but also quietly panicked at FOUR MORE YEARS when time has never felt more pressing. But I for one plan to focus on the power of our two largest cities, both with progressive mayors, the federal Liberals' coming cap on emissions, keeping the fact in mind that more money worldwide went to renewables this last year than fossil fuels, a first. The thing about living by the market means you can also die by it of course, so between that and what will very possibly be a summer from hell, these inept, arrogant libertarian fools will not fare any better than they did with the pandemic.
Also, if the Unruly Convoy Party had a shallow talent pool BEFORE, they're now going to have to cobble together some semblance of "governance" with what amounts to a mud puddle. Personally I'd like to see the Take Back Alberta try to seize their moment by full-on serving up their "lake of fire" religious crap in the current social climate i.e. bring on that culture war and let's see how the mean-spirited bigots stack up toe-to-toe in 2023. And Steven Guilbeault won't be so easy to handle either...
Make the rift into the unbridgeable chasm that it actually IS, one so deep that we progressives can start pushing THEM backwards into it where they belong since they deliberately created it.
Because US and THEM is now official despite the ineffectual media's thoughtless bothsidesism.
Hello, Alberta Politics newsletter. I just discovered this. First time I have posted a comment. I liked this article. I also liked Edmonton guy's comment.
However, patent unfitness for office seems to be a requirement for conservative elected leaders in western countries now.
I have my own blog. When I have something which I think augments what someone did on their blog, I usually put in a link to it, like this. https://adultsincharge.blog/2023/06/04/ends-and-odds/ There.
If the lord of this Alberta Politics Forbids this, I won't bother commenting. I think public discussion would be better if commentators amplified each others stuff more.
But as for this piece I dropped this morning, my basic theme is that our present institutions are not working. This is shown by fiascos like the Alberta Election. There is a world wide movement away form the status quo and toward better ways of doing democracy. It has not got to Canada yet. It will take a real long time to filter into Alberta.
You know the saying that "democracy is the worst system of government apart from all the others?" That's true; I mean it's not like we haven't been AT this long enough to have a basis of comparison. And as part and parcel of this system, movements of one kind or another come and go, "world-wide" or otherwise; the overarching context of capitalism naturally creates dynamism and flux. But to simply say our institutions are not "working" smacks of anarchy because 'twas ever thus when it comes to US, i.e. people.
They have "evolved" along with us to varying degrees, but a couple of real keepers have emerged in the scientific method and the rule of law, both ideals that are simply us at our rational best, focused as they are on the only thing that is ACTUALLY sacred to our eggshell lives, which is the truth. Is it not starting to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's ALL we really have? Look at the growing chaos of our "post-truth" society, cynically engineered by greedy men with truly otherworldly egos. And part of the weakening of it has been social media with its simplistic memes of recent generations where everyone has their OWN truth, which is a typically ahistorical and unprecedentedly self-involved take on the world. But truth is simply not THAT relative, unless you lack context.
Yes, indeed. Truth is pretty much what it is. People develop this “own truth” thing because they do not know anything and are obsessed with themselves.
I have also heard the “democracy is the worst system except for all the others” trope over and over. This comes from not knowing what an actual democracy is. We are not in one. There are very few in the world. There have been very few in history.
Democracies are a threat to “all these other forms” and are usually stamped out, from outside and from within. So we do not have much experience at running a democracy in a modern state. A real democracy would be an experiment.
I have written something relating to this as well. Find here. https://adultsincharge.blog/2023/02/05/the-past-and-future-of-democracy/
I will someday soon write some more explaining in detail what I wrote above. Also, looking into what an actual democracy would look like.