In my last column I postulated that Canada now is faced with the need to address its dependency upon oil as the major source of our energy, a state that only can be described as an “addiction”.

This idea isn’t really a stretch of one’s imagination, when you consider that, first, the tar sands discovery literately turned Alberta into a “cartel” sized “distributor” of petroleum. Add to this scenario that the United States, with its huge collection of very large “dealers” (ExxonMobil, Conoco, Phillips 66, Chevron, etc.), whose markets are easily accessible and therefore easier for us to provide product “on demand”.

Finally add to this mix the reality that the province must see atleast $4 billion in oil export revenues to produce a “balanced budget” and we can reasonably examine how Alberta’s fiscal affairs are now creating massive challenges to both our sovereignty and viability as a nation.

The first reality we have to face is that the “dealers” now control the cartel. Previous royalty rates have been lowered to the point where Alberta is now nothing more than a “bargain basement distributor”. The question is, “WHY would we change the market conditions that ultimately deprives us of the profitability that Norway, as an example, has created for its own petroleum industry?”

This really isn’t a “stupid question. In more than one article contributed to our online media sources, such movement of industry is a reflection of the fact that ever since our nation was created, we’ve been nothing more than hewers of wood and drawers of water, yet still manage to create a “profitable” petroleum enterprise. Or do we?

In actuality, we probably don’t, as since most of our customers are major multinationals who do their tax returns stateside. Their taxation potential is minimal at best, especially when we massively subsidize their existence to continue to operate, such as when we ended up creating a major pipeline to the British Columbia coast in response to a request from then Premier Notley – to Justin Trudeau, no less.

Somehow, though, our “conservative” governments and their wannabe federal counterparts always seem to put up vaguely plausible “objections” such as Alberta whining that “the rest of Canada is picking all of the fruit from our oil money tree” or that Trudeau’s “replacement”, Mark Carney, is STILL a “Liberal”, so must have attained that status through eastern “resentment” of Alberta’s wealth and non-renewable riches, or through bribery or coercion.

The problem with most of our “affordability” issues is that they emanate from our neighbour to the south, where the “Orange Menace” maintains its traditional rightest approach to its own economic success by starting wars in places where oil is in plentiful supply (Iraq, Venezuela and Iran), or assisting countries being plagued by terrorism (Nigeria), or via economic intimidation such as Trump is now perpetuating upon Canada.

When combined with the awareness that in the last seventy years only two Alberta premiers, Lougheed and Notley, understand the difference between the purpose of government as opposed to the purpose of business, we are forced to listen to the voices of arrogance maintaining that only a businessperson can manage the fiscal affairs of the nation – a ludicrous pronouncement, especially considering the budgetary disaster that Brad Wall and Scott Moe have created with their $40 billion provincial debt load.

Governments are put in place to both manage the economy AND protect a nation from harm, including its security. In short, they must create a societal infrastructure that allows for a nation’s business activities to function on a scale that creates the least uncertainty. Moreover, in order to meet such needs, that government must have sufficient funds available to adjust to such crises, and therefore is forced to tax both individuals and businesses to support such needs – with the petroleum industry providing only a token amount to do the task.

For a business to survive, it must first rely upon its government providing proper transportation routes for product exportation, as well as standard infrastructural utilities. Only then can they demonstrate their individual or collective capacity to earn a reasonable living, pay their employees fair wages, manage work schedule, supply health safety nets in conjunction with governments, so that at the end of their working lives their employees may be able to enjoy the final years of life in reasonable comfort. No one will argue that these are not “reasonable” capitalistic objectives for businesses seeking profit, but when a business strategist exceeds his capacity to provide such options by pursuing the ultimate monopolistic state, invariably there becomes a breakdown in the moral integrity of that business pursuing such pathways.

For instance, while Trump scoffs at moral principles such as DEI, he fails to recognize their overall contribution to success, in particular when the “E” stands for “equity”, which not only implies a “fairness” in the application of business practice, but “value”, be it in the quality of that business that allows its customers to return for future purchase, or the amount stored by the business in its building or home assets.

In short, Alberta’s current fiscal issues are cluttering up the front pages of our media sources because successive Conservative and UCP governments failed to understand the necessity of government being consulted prior to the establishment of any business activity. The “didn’t do that” list of inadequate and politically misdirected advice the provincial government never considered to be relevant is staggering. The list includes sloughing off the Trudeau-Lalond National Energy Program approach that would have provided both energy self-sufficiency to Canada’s petroleum developmental ideas as well as value-added industries such as refining that now make us totally dependent upon American enterprise. As well, it ignored the reality of an inevitable end to the creation of royalty wealth coming from its no-renewable source of revenue streaming, devaluing it as a contributor to budgetary wealth in excess of public need, a mistake that Norway is thankful that it never believed or followed.

All of these factors have thus contributed to Alberta’s current economic struggle that affects its ability to continue obtaining reasonable wealth from its many resources. Still, the nauseating voices of a “Take Back Alberta” campaign now force Canadians to ask the question, “Just WHAT is it that Alberta must take back that it doesn’t already control?”

Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former election candidate for the federal NDP. His column appears on Saturday.

For the benefit of anyone who didn’t read last Wednesday’s column, but wants to get to the end of this offering without wondering “What’s my point?”, I have to first introduce the mitigating factors that make it difficult to REASON during political turmoil.

When it comes to isolating factors that interfere in this process, and in particular with respect to Alberta’s “separatists” (or as I call them, “The Unhinged”), this unfortunately requires our recognition of certain chaos-creating opinionated trolls who do not add anything meaningful to the discussion process. That process must be followed in confronting Alberta’s (and Saskatchewan’s) “unhinged” attempting to tear this country apart, so let’s just get started on this purging of irrelevancies. 

Let’s start by eliminating from this discussion those whose increasingly irrelevant banners reek of Conservative campaign rhetoric mouthed during the Covid-19 pandemic, namely those who want to still believe that our nation’s ills must be placed at the feet of, first, “Justin” and the “Liberal Party”, and now PM Mark Carney. 

At the moment, their ire feeds upon the premise that somehow we once again have an “undemocratic” Liberal majority able to continue its eleven year rule through trickery and manipulation of the political system. By generating such fairy tale conspiracy theories they make themselves forever irrelevant by their lack of understanding of Canada’s political system, much less our version of democracy. It is our political parties that establish policy, while its leader must labour at seeking direction as to how that policy is carried forward as per its members’ requests.

As well, I’m excluding from this discussion any “opinion” that might come from those claiming the World Economic Forum (WEF) bears sole responsibility for our economic woes. Their conspiracy irrelevancies find foundation in the fact that our PM, Mark Carney found himself wed to this Davos-based cabal, first by his representing two nations as their nation’s bank Governor and then by his business interests, specifically Brookfield Asset Management. However, now fully ensconced as the spokesperson for our nation, Carney is in a conflict of interest because the federal government will soon be spending over $1 billion “purchasing heat pumps”, a product of one of BAM’s asset management portfolios – even though Carney has divested himself of such corporate connection.

But what is missing from the historical lexicon of the WEF is that its first memberships came from corporate America whose sole goal had nothing to do with international trade or economic power. It was purely motivated by two factors – reducing corporate tax level in principally the United States, while moving their manufacturing plants offshore to exploit Third World nations cheaply obtained labour forces. 

Unfortunately, the one group that falls for the illogic created by WEF and anti-federal government trolls is Alberta’s separatist movement like Take Back Alberta’s founder David Parker.

Just what they want to “take back” is unclear. What they’re really attempting to accomplish is to remove any influence the federal government might wish to impose on economic development within the province as is dictated by federal and international law.

Were it not for the lack of thought echoing throughout the messages being sent by a huge segment of UCP MLA’s and the premier, Parker could already have become a punchline in an online Dilbert meme. Unfortunately, Premier Smith, having signed a Memorandum of Understanding tied to federal obligations, has begun a dangerous campaign of defying Canadian constitutional law by seeking to ask voters in the upcoming election to whether or not they want to vote on a referendum. A “Yes” outcome would signify that Albertans want to “separate” from Canada, irrespective of its treaty and international law obligations. For the rest of Canada, Smith’s advocacy as to illegally advocating for a separatist-supported referendum supporting the province’s separatist movement was seen for what it truly is: Smith’s feverishly wanting to hold onto the leadership of the UCP, the majority of which constitute MLA’s requiring her to support Parker in order to retain that position. 

In an Op—Ed online piece “Danielle Smith has just made Canada a soft target”, columnist Gregory Jack lays out a likely scenario in which the Trump administration could during its upcoming negotiations respecting CUSMA, the Trump renegotiated bastardization of the North American Free Trade Agreement once agreed to during Prime Minister Mulroney’s tenure in office.

As Jack sees it, U.S. negotiators already know that there are Canadians living in Alberta and Quebec who’ve openly expressed a willingness to vacate the Canadian confederation, so why not just join the U.S.A. as its 51^st state?

During the CUSMA negotiation, the Canadian delegation must negotiate with one voice on the key components of our economy: “energy, autos, agriculture, critical minerals, steel, aluminum, finance, services, procurement, and border management.” However, Alberta’s stake in these negotiations “is central to oil, gas, petrochemicals, agricultural exports, carbon policy, pipelines, electricity, and critical minerals”; as such, then, what’s to stop the American negotiating team from offering Alberta special access to the American market in return for Canada’s concessions in other areas of negotiation, thereby increasing the tensions between the other nine province and Alberta?

We have to now recognize that Smith has truly left Carney “in between a rock and a hard place” as she tries to retain her own power base. What we as a nation must realize, however, is that she’s been put in this position by Alberta’s own role in creating the addiction Canada now suffers from in its relationship to oil resource management.

Following the discovery of the tar sand oil bonanza in central Alberta, the province started its reign in this “drug market” by becoming the cartel distributing the drug world-wide while enjoying the profits of its endeavours. The Trudeau government, in recognizing the increasing signs of addiction offered treatment in the form of the National Energy Program, but were rebuffed, only to see successive Alberta governments then begin to inject the profits into its own self-serving veins. The end result is that, with the $4 billion royalty funds it receives from its principal “drug pusher”, the United States, for all intents and purposes the province is now bankrupt, both economically and morally.

Does Carney have a way out of this mess Of course he does, but for it to be successful, he will require the full support of premiers Kinew, Ford, and ironically, our own Scott Moe. For now, however, that’s a topic that will have to be examined in next week’s column.

Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former candidate for the federal NDP.

“Some people” – OK, a few at least, may have noticed that in the last three weeks I’ve not provided the Herald with a Saturday column. Now before anyone gets the impression that I’m about to go off on some ego trip about how “important” my point of view is to the public, let’s fire hose this flaming stupidity for what it says about people in general.

First of all, our paper’s Editor, although thinking that the paper ought to appeal to all segments of political belief in Prince Albert, EVEN the notorious NDP (although I prefer to be called a “progressive) should be represented in the Op-Ed section, is also aware that my contribution is often late in its arrival, more often than not needs to be trimmed down from its occasionally Master’s thesis length, and on the “rare” occasion tries to tie way too many facts that are actually relevant to the point I’m trying to make. That means the average reader isn’t going to get the point anyway.

In other words, he’s just doing his job…

Now, I’ve been writing news articles and opinions since I was 14, so I know I’ll never be “perfect” at getting my point across; however, unlike our past ancient (I’m in my eighty’s) and sullen has-beens who once thought that their opinions really mattered, I’ve had the luxury of being a teacher for over 30 years, so I have little trouble in listening to students discuss issues that their parents won’t take the time to listen to what they have to say. 

Parents like this disgust me, not to mention political parties that won’t let teenagers formulate political resolutions until they’re at least 18 and can “vote” the way their parents currently do. From my perspective as a teacher, part of the learning process’s many ways in which it fails to “educate” is that while children first entering school intuitively understand that they are there to learn something they have yet to understand, by the time the kids reach Grade 9, they believe that they already know everything to know in order to survive (unless the parents are doing their part in reinforcing the lessons learned on any given day at school). This is why the drop-out rate from Grades 8 through 11 are at the moment so critically obscene.

Teachers should instinctively be capable of identifying parents who neglect the reinforcement mandate that is their role in order for the lessons of the day be remembered throughout life. As a mathematics teacher, a subject that actually does relate to every item in which the school staff is providing instruction, “they” (as in “me”) “have it easy”; the first time a parent tells me that “they had a hard time with math in school, too…”, I immediately know that the parent is providing an enabling tool that the child can later hide behind in attempting to rationalize that weakness. 

That’s not to say that mathematics teachers “have it easy” in being the bearers of bad tidings; virtually any Language instructor who listens to a parent rationalizing that their child has “issues” in forming an idea and describing its process should be asked as to whether the parent allows the child the occasional opportunity to add their opinion to the conversations going on at the dinner table. Or, do they not eat together on occasion. Or, does one parent have that “STFU” approach to anyone sitting at the table – including his/her partner that conflicts with their embedded for life take on things. 

Other learning weaknesses prevail as a result of the too heavy influence of religion or fact-based understanding, for example, in Biology, where you’ll hear that “I can’t take the subject; my parents think Darwinian theories are anti-Christ…”, or in History, where “It’s so BORING; all the teacher wants me to remember is a bunch of stupid dates and place where someone got killed, and we don’t even know ‘why’ that event even happened…” – an opinion I once endorsed before going to university and took a PoliSci class that explained why that war or that historical “event” happened in the first place. 

As for the much neglected and serious need for a school to have a PhysEd specialist on staff, if your kids are still playing Dodgeball in Grade 7, “instructed” by a teacher not even wearing running shoes, your school board’s budget is either in seriously rough shape, OR the individual who should be exercising the children while teaching them how to look after themselves “healthfully” is currently the Public Relations Representative now residing in what was once called the Principal’s Office. That’s the SAME individual who is always threatening to “write you up” whenever you bring the learning concerns you have with regard to a student because they believe that “it’s your job” as a teacher to empathize with the parental concerns, as opposed to “worrying about” what the child isn’t grasping in class.

Now, just before I conclude this column and you seem “lost” as to what message I’m trying to relay by describing the learning process as perceived by a parent or teacher in the previous paragraphs, let me emphatically make this point: There IS NO MESSAGE in those paragraphs; all that I’m trying to describe are the feelings and experiences I’ve gone through in life that frame the manner in which I write or formulate my opinions, so that when you finally GET to the end of the column, you can either fully think I’m whatever four-lettered word you’d like to use to describe me, OR you understand whatever point it is I’m trying to get across; the point is, you managed to read the whole piece, and that’s all I was asking you to do…

Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former election candidate for the federal NDP.

I don’t “get it”; In virtually every national poll measuring the “popularity” of each of the provincial premiers, Scott Moe runs a reasonably respectable 51per cent. My politically jaded reaction to this statistic is that I don’t know 51 voters who’d concur with this analysis, especially when compared to the universally acknowledged and well accepted 65 per cent, garnered by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew.

In some ridings, Kinew’s rating is overblown. For some voters, he is a premier who should still be in jail. In “The Reason You Walk”, Kinew has taken to the task of confronting this same accusation – his being convicted of assault, drunk driving, refusing a breathalyzer, and breaching probation in his early twenties – with a brutal honesty that no reader would ever suggest that he was “laden with excuses rationalizing his anti-social behaviour”. Now, try to compare such self-analysis with the “sins” of past behaviours performed by our premier.

Scott Moe’s “history” of TWICE executing “Quebec stops” at signed intersections that resulted in serious traffic accidents, including one person, Joanne Balog, dying in May of 1997. In his first incident in 1994 he was formally charged under DUI regulation and leaving the scene of the accident, both of which were eventually stayed, yet even in their recognizing the eery similarity of these accidents, the investigating RCMP officer did not execute a breathalyzer test as they did the first time, but only issued a ticket for driving without due care and attention. 

To be fair, Premier Moe should be allowed the reprieve that Premier Kinew received from having his transgressions pardoned. However, what truly sickens me that in giving the premier such a benefit of doubt, I still can’t understand why he hasn’t since ripped up the political playbook that former Premier Brad Wall left him, thus allowing the Saskatchewan Party to pretend that “they” are still the “true supporters” of rural folk and the many persons in Saskatchewan still employed by our petroleum extracting industries. 

I don’t really “blame” Premier Moe for harbouring such sentiments towards rural Saskatchewanians and petroleum industry workers alike, as most of the SP’s stupidities were initiated by former Devine civil servant and Premier Brad Wall. When he first became the party’s leader, he soon realized that the two NDP governments that had worked to repay Devine’s $28 billion deficit and threat to the province of bankruptcy, they’d eventually fall victim to any even minor public relation strains created by a decade of monetary restraint and not being able to offer the public newer and much needed redefined and reformed programs, especially when it came to spending monies on health services and public education platforms. In 2007 Wall then “suggesting” that rural Saskatchewan had already been hurt by the NDP for allegedly “closing over 50 hospitals”, including one in Prince Albert, and they were about to do the same thing with their local schools. This public exercise in political indoctrination held some measure of truth with voters tired of paying for Devine’s mistakes, and Wall got what he wanted – the premiership, and an opportunity to reintroduce Saskatchewan to right-wing politics that only underwhelm economic growth potential world-wide.

Since that victory, the Saskatchewan Party has done nothing save present legislation that incorporates the American right’s concept as to what is merited legislation (e.g.: the Public Service Essential Services Act, an anti-union law drafted by the Koch Brothers-funded American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)), only to be found unconstitutional by Canada’s Supreme Court, a fate that await the misguided and Alberta plagiarizing Saskatchewan First Act created by Moe’s government in 2023.

In 2016, Moe decided to “advise” his candidates to refrain from participating in public “issue-related” debates, fatuously maintaining that such forums were only exercises in cacophony of sound, prove nothing and provide even less “fact”, all while denying voters the “right” to have voters meeting candidates on their very doorsteps. That ploy worked as well, with the Saskatchewan Party winning 51 of the 61 Legislative seats, with even NDP leader Cam Broten losing his race to featherweight SP candidate David Buckingham.

In highlighting these “enlightened” procedures concocted by former Premier Wall, there’s a pattern here that sharply focused upon the distinctions in personality and political performance between Scott Moe and Wab Kinew, especially when it comes to dealing with our 17 per cent Indigenous population. Kinew simply refuses to accept that racial sentiment does not dictate how a government should approach in seeking remediation of political concerns. During the 2023 Manitoba election campaign, Kinew promised the province’s Indigenous community that a government elected with him as premier and regardless of cost tear apart the Winnipeg dump in which Marcedes Myran and Morgan Harris had “allegedly” been buried by serial killer Jeremy Skibicki – and did just that, DESPITE that approach being heavily criticized by the Winnipeg Police and then Premier Heather Stefanson’s Progressive Conservatives. 

In effect, Kinew’s solution resulted in these women being brought home to their loved ones to be properly buried and remembered for the lives they had led. Still, even though the criticism of his actions were still being whispered among Manitoba’s malcontents, he then wandered into the PC-held riding of Spruce Woods and had Manitoba repair crews radically restructure a critical section of Manitoba’s Highway 2 between Souris and Deleau, a problem that had been ignored for decades by previously elected PC governments, including Stefanson’s – a move that not only improved his popularity status, but as a healer of political ills and racial confrontation – despite him being “Indigenous”…in the CONSERVATIVE riding of Spruce Woods, despite the situation having been ignored by the previous administration headed by PC Premier Heather Stefanson. In effect, Premier Wab Kinew is now considered by people of ALL political stripes to be a healer of wounds – AND he’s “Indigenous”…

In fairness again, Wall did no favours to Scott Moe in issues relating to our 17 per cent Indigenous population. Wall also did the north, and Prince Albert in particular, when he “chose” Carleton MLA Joe Hargrave to axe the Saskatchewan Transportation Company and incorporate provincial taxes on SGI insurance policies, while ignoring the need to fulfill the promise of the city getting that second bridge, fixing the transportation infrastructure of the north and the city becoming the economic gateway directing the region’s future economic success that would be managed by true northerners, not the carpetbaggers claiming “ownership” coming from Saskatoon and elsewhere.

Moe’s “gift” to our city consists of an expansion to Highway 55, now jokingly referred to as the “Scott Moe Expressway” allowing him to get from the airport to Shellbrook in record time, while allowing our current neutered SP MLA’s to wax eloquently about a “heliport” that will soon grace the revitalized Union Hospital, but in actuality reminding us that such a commodity is necessary. His government has done nothing with the north’s transportation infrastructure and its chronic medical facility shortage and that even if patients are brought in from these remote locales, the service also must consider re-transporting these same patients because, unlike BC or Manitoba, even we don’t have sufficient medical staff to take advantage of our modernized operating theatres and send them to Saskatoon or Edmonton.

Being “popular” does not imply “being competent” in providing government services we need to improve our economic standing – leadership does. Right now, Scott Moe is failing in reaching that goal.

When you logged into any social networking platform in the past week, you would have never known that these next few weeks constitute one of the greatest sporting rituals practised by Canadian jocks, gamblers, and patriots: the start of the NBA play-offs. Our team from the Centre of the Universe – the Raptors—might not go deep, but I like their 3 – 0 record against Cleveland, whom they will match up in the first round starting this weekend. Oh, sure, there’s another sporting marathon also starting up this weekend, something called the Stanley Cup play-offs featuring mostly American teams staffed by mostly Canadian players, but with only three teams involved that can be labeled as “truly Canadian”, at least in PM Mark Carney’s mind: Montreal, Edmonton and some place called “Ottawa”, which in certain portions of our nation’s western hinterlands is a curse word, even though there’s not a single politician lacing up skates for the team.

While I write almost exclusively about politics and the “players” in the sport, what intrigues me most about Canadian professional sports teams over the last five years and makes me proud to consider myself as being of this nation is that both the Raptors AND the Blue Jays, stocked with mostly American-born talent, are avidly followed by Canadian sports fans, AND the respective players on both of these teams truly respect that devotion and play harder because of it. What’s even more interesting, though, is that when it comes to preferring which one of the three teams Canadians (or Canadiens) would like to see win the Stanley Cup this year, an Angus Reid poll released on Thursday shows that almost 60% of those being polled claim that we as a nation could care less – just so long as one of them finally bring the Cup back to the nation to which it truly belongs – and what’s more, easterners will get behind Edmonton if Montreal or Ottawa wash out, and westerners will switch allegiance to the eastern team still in the hunt if Conner McDavid’s Superman act hits some kryptonite along the way.

So, when you finally go online yourself, wouldn’t you expect this same pride being displayed as it relates to our political process, where no one cares what language is on the cereal box and only taste governs who devours it? 

Are you naïve…

Most of my political friends didn’t even bother to stay awake Monday night to find out who’d won the three federal by-elections, two in Toronto and one in Montreal. Even my friends pretending to be reincarnations of Kenny Rogers bypassed their urge to bet on the outcome, knowing the pay-out when they won wouldn’t buy them a coffee in the morning, and definitely not one were they a Starbucks aficionado. But on the political right, the outcome produced an outpouring of rage.

To our increasingly whacked-out but fortunately shrinking members of the right’s political extremities, the result was as though Justin Trudeau was still our Prime Minister, and now he was going to have a “majority” in Parliament, even though it was actually Mark Carney assuming the role of PM. Imagine, then, their dismay in knowing that starting in September of 2022 and carrying on even up to the end of January 2025 the Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre’s leadership had led the Liberals in polling results by as many as 30 points. However, not only did our more reasonable public grow weary of Poilievre’s harshness and support for causes such as the Carbon Convoy leadership team, but in 2025 literally kicked the Conservatives to the curb after Carney took over the leadership role of the Liberal Party.

To these frenzied clowns, Carney is no different than “Justin”: he lies, he cheats, he steals, he bribes the weak in the Opposition wings, he doesn’t understand economics, and “he hasn’t done a damned thing for Canadians” – unless, of course, it was something that the Conservatives were going to do IF they formed government, such as changing the rules regarding the setting of bail for repeat offenders. What bothers these inflamed entities the most, though, is the reality that Parliament is now under the control of a majority rule Liberal Party. 

The manner by which they obtained that majority, however, is unique to the annals of Canada’s parliamentary history. Following the 2025 election the Liberals held 169 seats, leaving them a mere 3 seats short of majority rule. However, since then five MP’s, four of whom were elected as Conservatives have chosen to cross the floor to join the Liberal ranks, and following Monday’s three by-election victories, all won by Liberal candidates, contributed to that majority status. 

To those who have studied our nation’s history, there have always been floor crossers in Parliament, particularly during troubling time such as the nation is now encountering by the disparaging manner in which U.S. President Trump holds our sovereignty. During World War 1, as an example there were multiple crossings of Liberals joining Prime Minister’s “Unionists” to form a “consensus government”, which one would think would be the type of political situation that Canada’s having to find a relatively uniform and cooperative manner by which it can repulse Trump’s stupidities.

This time, however, no doubt fuelled by the awareness of their popularity from early 2025 to the present has deteriorated some 35 points and is still in decline, CPC politicians are suddenly of the opinion that should a Parliamentarian having won a seat under the banner of one party and its priorities, then later simply deciding to compromise on certain fundamental issues in order to provide the necessary consensus the government needs to prepare its defense of its democracy, that person should, indeed MUST first subject that choice of sides to the voters within the riding they represent.

That a democracy under attack can’t afford the luxury of a three month or longer sojourn down a by-election pathway should be obvious, but for the Neanderthals, their only goal is to turn the pain of the Covid-19 pandemic into an opportunity to define what exactly is a human right into a deification of their own personal id. Their sickly venture to relight the old fires of political sectarianism, be it Carbon Convoy’s Pat King now stalking Mark Carney wherever he moves within Ottawa circles or “Air Fare” Tamara Lich boringly repeating “Freedom” to a meme background of Volvo cab-overs decked in Canada’s flag are only yielding more sickly results to society. They serve no purpose in attempting to heal the ills that political hatred has foisted upon our nation though the rantings of our Conservative brethren, especially those once spoken by Pierre Poilievre.

Perhaps Carney, instead of just calling the three by-elections, should have simply called that general election and sent the puppets who speak for this faction preaching destruction home to lick their wounds and hope they have enough time spent in Ottawa to collect their pensions. The small-“c” conservatives know full well that their numbers would have been decimated to post-Mulroney levels had that occurred, and it’s now up to them to assure Canadians that these clowns do not speak for us.

I just want to sit down and watch the play-offs – both in basketball and hockey – just like everyone else does, and no longer have to worry about our nation again losing its now ascending cordiality. 

I doubt that I’m alone in expressing that feeling…

Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former election candidate for the federal NDP.

I seriously doubt that the “news” of a fourth Conservative MP crossing the floor to become a Liberal would even rank in the Top Ten of concerns voters have on their minds at the moment; however, my problem in trying to understand just why Marilyn Gladu made such a move, especially when it looks as though come this next Monday evening PM Mark Carney will become the proud father of a Liberal majority in Parliament.

Indeed, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that most of her new Liberal “friends” view her transition to be nothing more than opportunistic. 

Equally repulsive to these members, Ms. Gladu is someone who associated with and supported the leadership that organized the Freedom Convoy and the vaccine skeptics who’ve reintroduced the world to medical diseases scientists believed would no longer impose their deadly illnesses upon tomorrow’s children. However, she does at least recognize that Mark Carney’s changing of the direction in our economic policies and trade practices, especially with respect to his current efforts to radically divorce our market dependency from the United States, is long overdue.

What is refreshing about her change in attitudinal approach to political issues is that she’s at least prepared to ditch the typical small-“c” conservative tendency to denigrate the intellect, culture and achievements of Canadians, a ploy still being utilized by Western Canadian separatists, especially in Alberta, to take voter issues and turn them into opportunities to finger-wag with fake bursts of outrage that only blame our most recent “rulers” in Ottawa.

Many of my so-called “critics”, especially in the Saskatchewan Party, would maintain that I do my own fair share of finger-pointing, in particular at Premier Scott Moe, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre or U.S. President Donald Trump. They may have a point, but it’s a minute one, as I try to highlight the “why” in how governmental policies usually end up as failures by seeking out the roots festering voter dissatisfaction and work from the ground up to vaccinate the issues from the viral attacks of our political masters.

As an example to this deflection of meaningful political progress, I sincerely believe that the Saskatchewan Party lost its moral purpose when candidates began shunning public debate under former premier Brad Wall. The result of that practice is that now the party of Scott Moe has lost whatever zeal it could offer in advocating for the party’s policies and the eventual election of candidates being reduced to being nothing more than “no-names” whose voices neither count nor have influence within the party.

We need only look at the two MLA’s we now have representing Prince Albert to see the result of this avoid-the-public practice, their reports published in the Herald fill with worshipful references to the Heliport that will soon grace the Union Hospital just like it is in “big cities” such as New York or Chicago. Left out is the reality that our health care system is now being deliberately farmed out to private clinics in Alberta, yet unlike Manitoba’s efforts initiated under NDP Premier Wak Kinew, American health professionals are being “liberated” from their paper-pushing, insurance claim dominated practices leading to personal bankruptcy to come to Canada and finally practice “real medicine”.

Health care issues have dominated political discussion for decades; however, since most of the positive ideas as to how to further reform the system are generated by NDP consciousness, the more “right of centre” parties still trot out their stale sloganeering, maintaining that the Party is “tax and spend”, even though this province is over $41 billion in debt and facing bankruptcy, as it did following the Devine years.

Equally ludicrous is that we still hear that social democratic parties “have no idea as to how to manage the economy, as they have no business acumen” – from a party having led since its inception by two FAILED businessmen. The opposition of the right STILL clings to this notion that it’s the “responsibility” of our governments to at least balance the budget, even though the expectation of our voting public is that our government’s primary function is to provide social assistance and infrastructural services that the private sector either can’t or won’t supply.

In an effort to force the public to transition its monetary concerns back to their own sentiments respecting the economy, our conservative thinkers introduced a new cliché, “affordability”, into the political lexicon. Interestingly enough, President Trump, by virtue of his desire to go to war with Iran in partnership with Israel, we now have an interesting paradox to demonstrate how what we now have and appreciate as a social benefit should be cast aside in favour of what we’ve ignored whenever the topics of environmental health and global warming are mentioned. 

This “war”, which the U.S. administration has tried to defend since its start-up, has resulted in more than a 20 per cent reduction in the delivery of crude oil to market and inflationary prices that have seen gasoline prices rise more than 30 per cent in less than two weeks, while creating total chaos on stock markets world-wide. This begs the question: Why is this happening in the U.S., especially given that Trump maintains that the nation has an energy surplus, and can be further enhanced by ramping up production in Venezuela? More to the point, why is this happening in Canada, which itself is one of the world’s major producers of bitumen crude? 

What this cost ripple has produced is the fact that we’ve become not only reliant upon the need for oil to service our daily needs, but DEPENDENT upon that supply continuing so that our personal and business fiscal needs do not further increase the pain of our current affordability crisis; therefore, WHY haven’t we taken steps to diminish the monopolistic tendencies that our continuing dependence upon oil has led us?

In 1984, Exxon technicians warned of an impending climate crisis if the industry did not restrain the influence of carbon gases in our atmosphere. We did nothing, even though Exxon’s move towards developing wind power sources have been visible in Texas fields for years. Following the formation of OPEC, Mark Lalond and Pierre Trudeau sought to establish a National Energy Program to solidify our energy independence, as was being done in Norway. American oil lobbyists cheered as Albertans shouted, “Let the East bastards freeze in the dark.” And now, “green energy” research has been demonized and reduced in both Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Why?

American oil exploration efforts are now winding down, the industry lost over 38,000 workers last year, with another 50,000 more expected to lose their jobs in the next two years. Labour unions are already pointing to how wage negotiating sessions are becoming increasingly confrontational. Why, then, are we not embarking upon huge retraining programs for these displaced workers into trades upgrading, where they can then earn equivalent wages working in a seriously understaffed housing market?

Given this state of economic reality in Alberta and Saskatchewan, why are these two governments still defying economic and environmental reality by pretending that the THEORIES of the LEAP Manifesto are but the theoretical meanderings of an unhinged “leftist” idealogue?

In next week’s column, I’ll try to answer that very question….

Ken MacDougall is a retired teacher and former candidate for the federal NDP. His column runs on Saturday

Having returned to the province in 1979, I’ve had more than one opportunity to experience some emotional “highs” and “lows” created by my emotionally responding to political actions undertaken at the federal, provincial and municipal levels of government.

While these events may seem trivial to some, I find myself increasingly triggered by something Premier Scott Moe might have recently said or done of late, a sentiment unfortunately fine-tuned by his predecessor’s contempt for Indigenous relations in general, and giving short shrift to their circumstance and severity.

Instead of listening to a broad perspective of opinion on a matter, the premier seems to prefer restricting his attention to those individuals whose personal actions border on the extreme of right-wing of political belief, such as Allan Kerpan, whose traitorous support for Saskatchewan separation appears to inject little opposition to the Premier Moe seeking his advice. Equally annoying is the prevailing attitude of some male members of Cabinet, particularly Meadow Lake MLA Jeremy Harrison, whose support of “open carry” and similar radical gun legislation while tormenting former House Speaker Randy Weekes should have resulted in his being tossed from caucus.

At a policy level, however, Premier Moe’s legislative choices are not only limited by their extremeness, but regularly plagiarize the political legislation of Canada’s Queen Bee of the political right, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Here, our “Saskatchewan First” legislation merely mimics that province’s “sovereignty” stance, and both would likely be declared unconstitutional were either one be challenged in court. As for her having cut off incentive funding for so-called “green energy” research, the Moe government has made it a point to insist that it is contributing to Canada’s need to cut back on carbon gas emissions (with Canada now being the highest “per capita” contributor to this problem as a result of last year’s forest fires burning unchecked) by experimenting with technology limiting such emissions from its coal-fired power generating stations.

Still, Prime Minister Carney needs every premier to be a member of Team Canada as it attempts to deal with  Christian nationalist “deity” Donald Trump threatening both our international trading options and sovereignty, and included the Premier in the entourage that travelled to both China and then India to resolve trade impasses principally involving our province.

While these negotiations resulted in two international trade agreements that seriously benefited our agricultural community, at times the premier reacted to Carney’s forceful manner in which he summarized these dealings.

As for the overall approach that Carney is attempting to have his Team Canada cohorts initiate in the field, especially as it could apply in dealing with the housing crisis or environmental constraints, Premier Moe’s response to such implementation follows the curve of what most of the leaders in the team (with the exception of Manitoba premier Wab Kinew) in waiting for the PM to tell them what to do, instead of taking any initiative on their own.

When it comes to dealing with the need to boost housing construction, there are far too many issues in which municipalities could “incentivize” independent builders and developers to increase their own performance levels. For instance, by modifying local building codes to allow construction to include green energy options (solar panelling, wind turbines on roofs, storage batteries, etc.) included in such building, then immediately tied into SaskPower’s energy grid, this would emphasize the obvious requirement that providing energy to our province should also include ways of CONSERVING such needs; however, our municipal governments, including here in Prince Albert, seem to feel that they are either powerless to implement such bylaw changes, or must first seek permission to modify building practice, When we have had our cities regularly modifying building code bylaws to favour local business interests (e.g.: Saskatoon’s 50 year regulations that result in wooden framed basements costing far more to construct than concrete foundations, thus favouring Warman-based concrete suppliers), such a response is not only laughable, but embarrassing as Hell.

Equally perturbed by the foot-dragging tactics of developers and independent contractors, prefabricated home construction operators cannot understand why people aren’t taking advantage of increasingly attractive modular home designs that are easily modified to incorporate energy saving technology being able to attain move-in status in four to six weeks, as opposed to the four to six month regimen now standard in the industry. One would assume that a client’s satisfaction at the prospect of their finally attaining their dream homes would outweigh and improve the profit margins of real estate agents and builders alike, but apparently these components of the industry lack leadership in moving their client’s dreams forward.

Just why our government seems loathe to address the continuing annoyance of a public increasingly angry at the cost of living and price of energy adding to its fiscal woes defies any sense of budgetary reality or leadership within our energy sector. For instance, this week residents in the rural municipality of Sherwood, fully aware as to the energy needs of AI-orientated businesses, pushed back hard at councillors who unanimously decided to approve the construction of a $1.7 billion facility being proposed by Bell Canada, resulting in four of the seven members of government resigned in embarrassment. Equally embarrassing to the community, Minister of Government Relations Eric Schmalz simply indicated that his department will “appoint” one or more individuals to these positions so that municipal functions can continue without delay, an obvious attempt to avoid having Bell Canada officials take their proposal to another venue or province.

By the province avoiding offending this “inner circle” of Canadian and U.S. corporations considering investing in Saskatchewan, the government risks the potential for these industries attempting to push their luck and try to receive greater concessions in paying taxes, lowering environmental safety regulation, or addressing their cost effects upon the communities in which they choose to build. As well, municipalities must also start to take into consideration costs associated with population buildups placing stress upon waste disposal sites, not to mention reviving areas of tourist visitation and vacationing that have been recently destroyed by our province’s failure to control our wildfires, and to provide still more food even as agricultural sites in the United States in particular are being destroyed as a result of global warming.

It is these latter concerns that I hope to address in next week’s column.

Ken McDougall is a retired teacher and former election candidate for the federal NDP.