In the face of the abject failure of Danielle Smith’s appeasement tour of Mar-a-Lago and Washington D.C. last month, Alberta’s premier has declared victory with the fatuous claim the Trump Tariffs imposed on Canadian oil and gas are only 10 per cent thanks to her.
“We note the reduced 10 per cent tariff for Canadian energy,” she sniffed in an official statement Saturday on the Alberta Government website that urged a supine response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war on Canada. “That is partially a recognition of the advocacy undertaken by our government and industry to the U.S. Administration.”
No it isn’t. If it’s anything, it’s recognition of panicked calls from Republican donors with money in some of those Midwest refineries that have been tooled up to handle tarsands dilbit.
It’s hard to argue with NDP Opposition Leader Naheed Nenshi’s assessment: “Danielle Smith’s Washington D.C. selfie tour and balls-and-parties charm offensive has failed every Albertan and every Canadian.”
But in Danielle’s World, all other exports from Canada to the United States will deservingly have harsh 25-per-cent tariffs slapped on them by the premier’s political and ideological hero because of the failure of their premiers and the federal government to adopt her collaborationist strategy of surrendering before the negotiations even begin.
If you want to know what Alberta’s thoroughly MAGAfied United Conservative Party (UCP) really thinks of Trump’s declaration of trade war, consider the gleeful tone of her chief of staff’s tweet.
“Dear Rest of Canada,” gloated Rob Anderson, who is also a co-author of the separatist Free Alberta Strategy. “Are you ready to build Energy East and Northern Gateway yet? How about cutting absurd taxes and anti resource development laws to be more competitive? Or are we just going to sit back and listen to this sitting down while wrapped in the flag? Tick Tock.”
Mr. Anderson included an image of a Trump tweet about how “Canada should be come our cherished 51st State.” That’s an outcome, we can be pretty sure based on what he says, that would be just fine with Mr. Anderson.
Meanwhile, someone in the Premier’s Office churned out a similar but longer op-ed advocating her collaborationist position, reprinted, naturally, by the U.S.-owned National Post.
“As premier of Alberta, I am calling on my fellow premiers, the prime minister and all of our national leaders to de-escalate the rhetoric as much as possible and look to diplomacy and advocacy as our primary tool to resolve this conflict,” she whinged in that sad effort.
No doubt by tomorrow every Postmedia political peanut gallery pundit will be attempting to lend Ms. Smith’s appeasement dialogue some spurious credibility.
But to borrow a hockey metaphor from Globe and Mail sports columnist Cathal Kelly: “Ask a former NHLer how much good constructive dialogue does you when someone’s got hold of your shirt and the first blow is incoming.”
This is all an excellent illustration of how Smith’s UCP has nothing to offer but bad ideas – although it would be hard to come up with a worse idea than Smith’s call last Thursday for Canada to permanently cede control of the Northwest Passage to the United States by allowing the U.S. to open a military base in the Arctic. If we do, it’s gone like Greenland!
The premier’s Chat GPT account must’ve been working overtime churning out dangerous drivel when her office came up with that one!
Presumably inspired by the neoliberal strategy that a perfectly good crisis should never go to waste, Ms. Smith used her official statement to evangelize for more pipelines, more mining, less “red tape,” and an even weaker federal government. Then she concluded, “Alberta stands ready to do our part if this true Team Canada approach is taken.”
I am indebted to University of Calgary political scientist Lisa Young for noticing Smith’s significantly conditional “if.” Talk about the words of a true Canadian patriot!
“Smith’s repeated insistence that Canada must do what Trump wants looks increasingly naïve,” Dr. Young observed in her Substack column yesterday. “In the face of the President’s intransigence and expressions of expansionary ambitions, the Smith government must reconsider its charm offensive. Jetting off to Washington to pray with the political leaders who are enabling Trump through their inaction is as tone deaf as a trip to Hawaii in the middle of a pandemic.”
And, by the way, if you’re wondering where Health Minister Adriana LaGrange disappeared to when she was needed to explain why the UCP had liquidated another entire Alberta Health Services board of directors or how it came to pack it’s COVID-19 response “task force” with anti-vaxx nuts, she too had slipped off on a prayer pilgrimage to the Imperial capital! She won’t be back till February 8.
So when Smith’s statement promises that “Alberta will continue diplomatic efforts in the United States to persuade the U.S. President, lawmakers, administration officials and the American people to lift all tariffs on Canadian goods as soon as possible and to repair our relationship with the United States,” all Canadians should feel a shiver of fear run down their spines.
Even the federal Conservatives’ seemingly irrelevant leader, Pierre (Canada is Broken) Poilievre, seems to have come around to the necessity of tariffs, although he wants to pair them to tax cuts – an obviously ridiculous idea at a moment in history when we’re going to have to deeply draw on our national financial reserves to save Canadian jobs and industries.
Sad to say, Smith’s collaborationist instinct is not unique. “We strongly encourage the federal government to focus on diplomacy and de-escalation and avoid further blows to our economy through retaliation,” said Calgary Chamber of Commerce President Deborah Yedlin in a statement Saturday.
Who would have thought a stronger statement opposing U.S. tariffs on Canada would be published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce?
Pathetic!
UCP and NDP in virtual fourth quarter fundraising tie
Elections Alberta published its fourth-quarter and 2024 political party fund-raising results on Thursday, an important story that seems to have been missed by everyone.
The results show a tight race between the United Conservative Party and the Alberta NDP in in the fourth quarter, with the UCP edging out the Opposition party with donations of $1.96 million to $1.94 million. For the year, the UCP edge was bigger – $6.44 million to the NDP’s $5.18 million.
Of 14 registered parties only six, shown in the chart above, raised more than five figures. The most successful was the so-called Pro-Life Alberta Political Association, which is not really a political party, receiving more than half a million dollars in donations in 2024. These contributions should be considered partisan contributions to the UCP, since the Pro-Life Party operates as a public anti-abortion and covert candidate-recruitment auxiliary to the UCP.
The remaining parties – the Greens, the Communists and various right-wing fringe parties – appear to be moribund if you go by cash donations. Cash may not be everything when it comes to fringe political movements, though. Alberta’s Communist Party, which received only $200 in donations in 2024, has been around longer than any of the others and always manages to field one candidate in every election.
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