Having just gone through one of the most ridiculous yet too important not to have voted election cycles in Canadian history, we should finally sitting back in our reclining chairs waiting for Mark Carney to go to work and deal with the real problem facing our democratic system today – U.S. President Donald Trump declaring economic war upon Canada and threatening through economic means to turn us into “the 51st state”. Unfortunately for us, the Conservatives have prolonged this election cycle by having convinced re-elected MP Damien Kurek to self-immolate, thereby allowing Pierre Poilievre to rise as a Phoenix from his ashes by running in the supposedly “safe seat” of Battle River – Crowfoot in his place.
It’s not that Poilievre will have anything new to offer Team Canada other than his negativity during negotiations with Trump, but for some reason or other he’s being spared the standard Conservative ritual of the Party devouring a losing leader’s corpse. The way most Canadians look at his defeat (other than him continuing to add to his retirement pension, a perk that Kurek won’t be able to enjoy), he went from 25 points up in the polls to four down.
HOWEVER, Poilievre DID win enough seats to prevent Carney from reaching 172 seats, so to Conservatives unwilling to realize that no Conservative leader ideologically tied to Stephen Harper or Preston Manning will ever again become Prime Minister, that’s a “win” of sorts. Still, that’s not going to keep the long knives sheathed for too long when the Party appoints another career politician who’s never held any other job than be an MP, former leader and Harper 2.0 clone Andrew Scheer, to become interim leader until after the Battle River – Crowfoot byelection is held, and THEN, assuming of course that Poilievre wins, leaves him out in the open to fend off the howitzer blasts coming on almost an hourly schedule from Alberta’s bombast queen of political uncertainty, Premier Danielle Smith.
Ever since Mark Carney was appointed interim leader of the Liberal Party, Smith has been constantly attempting to cut the legs out from under Team Canada by doing everything in her power to get Poor Pierre elected as PM: asking Trump to lay off the tariff threats to be levied against Canada until “he” is elected, touring Washington with our own jellyfish premier, Scott Moe, sitting in on meetings with Congressional leaders the potential “damage” a trade war would create were Canada and the U.S. go head-to-head, schmoozing the MAGA elite in Florida with conservative mouth breather Ben Shapiro, while in Canada throwing curve balls, sliders and other assorted “pitches” at the PM to stir up the “separatist” sentiment of gullible Albertans and Saskatchewanians who’ve been conned by American Big Oil lobbyists to believe that the United States “is the greatest country on Earth” – begging the question, “Why, then, does Trump want us so badly that he’s creating this economic hurricane?”
In many ways, Smith reminds me of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in her role as the “Miss Dress-Up” of the MAGA political action community. Noem has a clothes closet having appropriately matching “theme” outfits for every border appearance, often with the outfit picture replacing the scant word offerings prepared for her in advance of such visits. As the former Governor of South Dakota, she has already annoyed Canadians with her recent support for Canada becoming the 51st state by tip-toeing out the back door of the Haskell Free Library and Opera House in Derby Line, Vermont that sits on the Canada / U.S., each time saying “51st state” stepping on Canadian soil.
In a complementary sense, Smith is the wordsmith applying caption to the Noem scene, the former governor capturing the battle ground and the problems that make it stand out like a sore thumb in the minds of voters, with Smith offering context with solutions that are minimal at best, only to further aggravate an already aggrieved populace to believe that any continuation with the policies of current governments are a guarantee to the failure of these agencies to quell such grievance.
For Smith’s tactics to work in Alberta, it is essential that Carney must immediately replace Justin Trudeau as the bête noire and Poilievre’s therapeutic rage salvos continue unabated. The problem, however, is that while the Hate Agenda might once have had Poilievre 25 points up on the Liberal Party before Carney came to the rescue, should Carney’s efforts to control Trump’s most profane tendencies lead to a more positive outlook in our nation’s future, in what direction will the Conservatives again see their fortunes heading?
I see Poilievre desperately wanting to be a “positive” addition to Carney’s Team Canada. This means that sooner, rather than later, he’s going to see that pursuing the threat of annexation or separation become, as The Line Editor’s Jen Gerson sees it, allows “a minority to hijack our political discourse…so that we can “live in a landlocked Hermit Kingdom of five million people”, separated from family and “unable to live or work anywhere else” by trying to “force the federal government to run a pipeline to Kitimat”.
In 2007, Lorne Calvert TOLD then PM Stephen Harper that Canada’s equalization formula would not annoy western Canadians as much were he to amend it to include wealth being generated by Quebec’s hydroelectric power, while recognizing that oil resource harvesting is a NON-RENEWABLE commodity.” Harper, of course did nothing. Similarly, Albertans listened far too much to American oil lobbyists calling the NEP a “socialist nightmare” taking control of Alberta’s resources. Each year Alberta has a $4 billion deficit to overcome before royalties save the day, but a pipeline built to Atlantic Canada wouldn’t be completed before oil stocks finally tanked.
So, we have to ask ourselves, is Smith really “serious” about “threatening” Canadians with separation referenda, or is she just pushing the more extreme sentiments of her party’s far right wing?
It’s getting increasingly boring to even watch as these events unfold, but well worth knowing that the end result can only be the UCP imploding in embarrassment and scandal upon its failure.
