One can feel a little sympathy with Danielle Smith for wanting to be at Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Jan. 20, especially since the trip is likely to be on her fellow Albertans’ dime.
While it’s unlikely Alberta’s premier will be part of the largest presidential inauguration crowd ever – that would be the 1.8 million people who gathered on the National Mall in Washington to see Barack Obama take the oath of office in 2009 – it will be a historic occasion just the same.
After all, it may be the last presidential inauguration in American history and, even if it isn’t, the next one might not be until the establishment of the Second American Republic, whenever that is.
Meanwhile, Smith’s unquenchable penchant for sucking up to prominent figures of the MAGA right is well known, and widely understood.
But what the heck, it’ll probably be a lot less expensive to indulge her than some of the things she might get up to if she has to stay at home and watch it on TV.
Alert readers will recall where Alberta’s political leader was on January 24 this year, the day after a frightening shooting at Edmonton City Hall. That’s right, she was just a short untaken flight away in Calgary, where she was doing something far more important than offering sympathy to frightened citizens or showing her government was in control during a crisis.
To wit, she was excitedly awaiting lunch with Tucker Carlson, the odious U.S. broadcaster best known as the leading voice of white grievance politics.
Then she was off to Edmonton for more of the same, an evening at Rogers Place with Carlson, National Post founder, professional bloviator and ex House of Lords member Tubby Black, and Doctor Jordan Peterson, meat eater and inspiration to a generation of Canadian incels.
There’s never been any suggestion Smith ever called Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi to say she was sorry that someone shot up City Hall. Well, fortunately there were no casualties, notwithstanding the fact a group of school kids were on a field trip to the building when the bullets started flying.
But, you know … we’ve all got priorities.
Nowadays, of course, the likes of Carlson, Conrad Black, and Jordan Peterson don’t hold a candle to the biggliest right-wing celebrity of them all, the Very Stable Genius himself, Donald J. Trump.
The trip to Washington, of course, will be an utter waste of time. Smith isn’t going to get anywhere near The Man, obviously.
Still, Alberta media can be counted on to do their best to make the junket look important.
“Smith heading to Trump’s inauguration, but ‘not worried’ about U.S. tariffs on Canadian energy,” The Calgary Herald whooped in a headline yesterday.
Turns out that was nothing more than clickbait, though, since the story essentially contained no information about the trip, devoting only 60 words to the topic, generously calculated.
Still, that was good enough for the UCP’s communications brain trust to cobble together a social media meme saying the same thing and implying by omission that their boss was going to meet the fellow.
So, is she going to mingle with the crowd on the National Mall? That’s probably her best chance of getting close to a Republican official that day. Will she visit the Canadian Embassy nearby? Who the hell knows? Probably not the ambassador, or even the premier, at this point.
Will she and her entourage even be able to find a hotel room? Well, maybe they can bed down at the Embassy or spend the night in the subway.
The only tidbit of information in the Herald about the trip was this quote, attributed to the premier: “We’re prepared to spend a few days there, just building those relationships with the new administration.”
Cool! Take your time!
The Herald’s big scoop seems to have been shoehorned into a story that Smith has signed on with a group of like-minded Republican state governors who are looking forward to Trump’s expected command to Drill! Baby! Drill! Ms. Smith will presumably now be the Canadian auxiliary to the Governors’ Coalition for Energy Security.
That story, in turn, was based on a couple of press releases, one from the Alberta Government and the other from Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, which was linked to the Alberta.ca page.
Smith will also be attending a meeting of Western state governors in Las Vegas – always a sure sign that serious and important business is about to be done.
No date was given for that meeting, but the Herald’s reporter appears to have somehow managed to get ahold of a quote by Smith about how she doesn’t think Alberta oil will be included in Trump’s planned tariff on everything made by the United States’ trading partners.
As for the well-established tendency of an ample supply to cause a drop in the price of a commodity – often covered in economics textbooks under the heading, The Law of Supply and Demand – this appears to be a foreign concept to Alberta Conservatives.
But you can rest easy, fellow Albertans! Whatever the environmental or economic impact of all that new drilling south of the Medicine Line turns out to be, Smith isn’t worried about it.
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