Danielle Smith unveils sovereignty act in attempt to shield Alberta from federal laws

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has introduced her highly anticipated sovereignty act, which would allow cabinet to direct cities, police, health authorities, universities and other entities to ignore federal laws that the government believes are unconstitutional or harmful to the province.

The bill, formally known as the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, was a central promise of Ms. Smith’s successful United Conservative Party leadership campaign, which focused on escalating the province’s fight with Ottawa on a range of issues from environmental protection to gun control. Legal scholars previously panned the idea as unconstitutional and it has been divisive even within the UCP, with former premier Jason Kenney and most of Ms. Smith’s leadership rivals condemning it during the campaign.

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Premier Danielle Smith to end agreement with World Economic Forum

EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she is cancelling a health consulting agreement involving the World Economic Forum — an agency at the centre of global domination conspiracy theories — because she won’t work with a group that talks about controlling governments.

“I find it distasteful when billionaires brag about how much control they have over political leaders,” Smith said at a news conference Monday after her new cabinet was sworn in.

“That is offensive … the people who should be directing government are the people who vote for them.

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Finally! A sane Canadian leader

Canada at the national level is run by a fascist man-child, purported son of Fidel Castro, Prime Minister Trudeau. He has been hurtling Canada down a dark path leading to tyranny. He is a tyrant with a pretty smile.

But as with the United States, Canada is a federal system and the provinces each have their own governments. I am no expert on Canadian politics–come on, who is?–but even I know that Western Canada has some much saner residents than Toronto and Vancouver.

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Danielle Smith considers dropping COVID lockdown charges, apologizes to unvaccinated

The premier of Alberta, Canada, said she is working on a plan to pardon residents who were fined or arrested over breaking coronavirus protocols, and apologized to unvaccinated Canadians who faced “discrimination.”

“I’m deeply sorry for anyone who was inappropriately subjected to discrimination as a result of their vaccine status,”Premier Danielle Smith said Saturday. “I am deeply sorry for any government employee that was fired from their job because of their vaccine status, and I welcome them back if they want to come back.”

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That was fast…

In reversal of policy, adviser says Danielle Smith’s sovereignty act would respect Supreme Court decisions

The top adviser to incoming Alberta premier Danielle Smith says her proposed sovereignty act would respect Supreme Court of Canada decisions — a reversal of her core policy promise on how she would challenge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.

Rob Anderson, Smith’s campaign chair for the United Conservative Party leadership and now executive director of her transition team, told CBC in a story published Saturday that Smith’s proposed sovereignty act won’t empower Alberta to disregard Supreme Court rulings.

But Anderson promised that the act, which has yet to be drafted, would “have a whole head of very sharp teeth” and “change the dynamic” with Trudeau’s Liberal government.

How many voted  for just that policy? Just another bullshit politician.

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‘I think we would win that battle’: Danielle Smith promises to fight for resource development in Alberta

OTTAWA – Alberta premier-designate Danielle Smith says she’s ready to take the fight to Ottawa for Alberta’s autonomy to develop its resources, so that it can build pipelines to get oil and gas to market and boost the forestry and agriculture sectors.

“We’ve always been treated like a subordinate level of government,” she said in an interview on CTV’s Question Period, airing Sunday. “We’ve acted like it. But we’re going to stop acting like that. We’re going to take our place as a senior partner in Confederation.”

Smith also plans to take the federal carbon tax back to the Supreme Court, after it ruled just last year that the policy is constitutional.

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GUNTER: Smith would do well to tie Notley to Trudeau ahead of spring Alberta election

If you want to know why Danielle Smith’s anti-Ottawa message was so popular during the recently concluded UCP leadership campaign, consider this one statistic. Annual investment in Alberta’s energy sector remains only about one-half of what it was before the world price of oil collapsed in 2014.

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Other oil-producing countries, such as the United States, Norway and Saudi Arabia, that aren’t in the midst of war or domestic turmoil (Russia, Venezuela, Iran), have seen their oil and gas investment return to 70 per cent or more of 2014 levels. But not Canada.

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Carson Jerema: It’s now Danielle Smith vs. Justin Trudeau

EDMONTON — Only a fool would believe that Alberta’s new premier, Danielle Smith, only appeals to malcontents blindly raging at intrusive COVID policies and Justin Trudeau. That is certainly part of her base — the new United Conservative Party leader actively courted separatists and vaccine refusers — but the anger Smith has so expertly marshalled to her side is the same resentment that the man she is replacing, Jason Kenney, rode to electoral victory just three-and-a-half years ago.

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Alberta lieutenant-governor says not a done deal she’ll OK proposed sovereignty act

Alberta’s lieutenant-governor says it’s not a done deal that she would automatically sign off on a proposal from a United Conservative Party leadership candidate to pass a bill aimed at ignoring federal laws and court rulings.

Salma Lakhani says she would seek legal advice as required, but says she is duty-bound to ensure the Constitution is followed.


Culture Minister Ron Orr bashes ‘Laurentian elites’ as Alberta celebrates birthday holiday

Alberta celebrated its inaugural birthday party holiday with Culture Minister Ron Orr bashing the prime minster and “Laurentian elites” while asserting the province has received the short end of the stick in the federation for more than a century.

“The family compact of Laurentian elites have always skewed the deal in their favour,” Mr. Orr told assembled dignitaries, including Premier Jason Kenney, Indigenous leaders and Lieutenant-Governor Salma Lakhani, on a sunny morning Thursday near the legislature grounds.

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David Staples: Canada is broken so don’t be surprised if Alberta conservatives elect Danielle Smith

As I see it, the United Conservative race comes down to two leaders, Danielle Smith and Travis Toews. They are polar opposites within conservative politics on how Alberta should best proceed on fixing, building and protecting Alberta’s energy economy.

Toews, a rancher, an accountant and a small businessman, leads an incrementalist camp. He is a steady-as-she-goes type who wants to keep working with the energy industry and First Nations on new oil and gas projects, while pushing hard against any obstructionism from the Trudeau Liberals in Ottawa, but doing so mainly as its always been done, through negotiation and court action.

Seems a prudent approach given the Lunatics in Ottawa.

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How Banning Alberta Oil Benefits Saudi Arabia, And Possibly Justin Trudeau

As federal Canadian politicians pat themselves on the back regarding climate change leadership, tanker-loads of foreign oil are delivered regularly to Eastern Canadian refineries, including increasing volumes from Saudi Arabia.

As published by the Financial Post, the Saudis have conducted a “not-so-subtle campaign of economic warfare against Canada and others to permanently cripple their respective oil industries.”

“Strangely enough, Canada is helping them do it.”

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Our fraying constitutional order

In a recent podcast interview, my American host asked me to comment on whether Canada constituted a nation, in the substantive sense. Beyond platitudes such as a shared commitment to multiculturalism, general good government, and a thin conception of liberty, there is not much there there, I reflected. No, there isn’t really a singular Canadian nation, I answered.

But I was oversimplifying: the fact is that Canada is a nation that contains many nations. The compromises of federalism as set out in the Constitution were specifically designed to accommodate the vast regional and cultural differences across our equally vast land and, for the most part, have held up well.

However, proposals in Alberta and Quebec are starting to nip at the fabric of our constitutional order. Both provinces are, as one academic recently put it, apparently treating the Constitution as a “buffet that one can pick and choose from”, rather than a blueprint for how power flows in a state.

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Jason Kenney steps down after 51.4 per cent approval in leadership review

Jason Kenney quit as leader of his party, and premier of Alberta, Wednesday night after receiving a slight majority of support in his United Conservative Party leadership review.

“While 51 per cent of the vote passes the constitutional threshold of a majority, it clearly is not adequate support to continue on as leader,” Kenney told a crowd gathered at Spruce Meadows in Calgary.

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