I’ve been writing these little meditations on the state of politics in Alberta now longer than it takes an infant to grow old enough to vote and in that time I have had many opportunities to observe certain failings in the quality of political discourse here.
Still, I must say I felt a little frisson of delight yesterday after returning from Ontario to hear our premier, Danielle Smith, declare with her usual unshakeable confidence that “we’ve got the lowest living standards in the world.”
Because Smith’s arguments sound persuasive but often don’t make a lot of sense when closely parsed, it was not entirely clear upon examination whether Smith had all of Canada in mind, or only Alberta.
Let’s go with the former, even if the latter plays a little better to Smith’s and other Alberta Conservatives’ constant whining about how Alberta is victimized by the East (a geographical region that appears also to include British Columbia).
To be fair, Smith then made a claim about how we’re falling behind all other advanced Western economies. This may or may not have been an effort to correct her earlier statement without admitting she was wrong. Admitting mistakes, after all, is not Danielle Smith’s style. Such breezy statements delivered with such apparent certainty are, it is said here, both intentional and instinctive.
Either way, I’m sure, Smith’s bombshell factoid will come as a surprise to the people of, say, Afghanistan, South Sudan, or Haiti – not to mention to those citizens of Canada and Alberta who haven’t yet gulped the MAGA Kool-Aid™ peddled by Smith’s United Conservative Party (UCP) and its federal farm team led by whomever leads it at the moment.
Nevertheless, Premier Smith explained with great assurance to Vassy Kapelos, host of CTV’s Question Period political program, this is all the fault of the Liberals in Ottawa for failing to build pipelines to seawater, or allow pipelines to be built to one coast or another, or something a lot like that. Also, carbon taxes!
This is Olympic-level gaslighting, of course, and it deserves acknowledgement as such before the backtracking, excuse-making, and tortured explanations begin to circulate. Surely by later today someone will have explained that Ms. Smith merely meant the rate at which our standard of living is improving, or something. Or maybe not. Why confuse the party base?
Regardless, the statement stands on its own as almost the Platonic ideal of gaslighting, and it deserves recognition and celebration as such. It can be heard at about 13 minutes and 20 seconds into the program, which CTV has kindly posted on its website if you can stand sitting through the advertisements.
Kapelos also deserves great credit for keeping a straight face when the premier uttered this howler. Most of us, I am sure, would have spat out our coffee, figuratively speaking, or stopped the premier immediately and wondered aloud if she was nuts, or if she thought we were.
Perhaps Kapelos just didn’t want Smith, who was obviously annoyed at the way the broadcaster kept asking questions the premier thought were impertinent, to tell her to piss off once again.
Garett Spelliscy, NDP executive director, sets June 30 departure date
Garett Spelliscy, Executive Director of the Alberta NDP, announced Friday on social media that after 14 years serving under three leaders and putting his name on countless fund-raising emails he will be stepping aside to pursue “new roles and projects.”
There is speculation, naturally, that party Leader Naheed Nenshi will replace Spelliscy with someone more Liberal red than NDP orange, but that remains to be seen. It may not be as easy as all that.
As Spelliscy said in his farewell note, “the party’s Executive will appoint a new Executive Director,” and Nenshi loyalists being thin on the ground these days, the leader depends on plenty of more traditional NDP stalwarts to keep the party machinery running.
Spelliscy was part of a small group of party officials perceived as close to former leader Rachel Notley. It would not be a shock if he popped up soon in a similar role in another province.
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