According to some wag on the Internet, Blaine Higgs has changed his pronouns. They’re now Has/Been.
I don’t know enough about New Brunswick politics to be certain if the cruel and needless anti-trans policies Higgs imported from the Benighted States of America are the reason he’s finished as premier of that beautiful Maritime province and even as MLA for the riding of Quispamsis.
I’m sure New Brunswickers had a multitude of excellent reasons want to be rid of the man and his Conservatives in the province’s general election, but it seems likely his focus on the pronouns children choose to use was at least part of what brought him crashing down a week ago.
No matter, here in Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith is doubling down on the same kind of cruel nonsense, packing the Legislature sitting that begins today with bills attacking trans kids, political interference in medical treatments, and performative invention of distinctly un-fundamental rights designed to appeal to her party’s MAGAfied base.
Of course, Smith isn’t preparing for a general election and may well try to gaslight away the significance of the fall 2024 sitting’s agenda when the time comes to pivot to the wants of a larger sample of voters.
Right now, though, she’s anxious to appeal to her United Conservative Party’s social conservative and hydrophobic MAGA factions with promises they can buy assault rifles and hysteria about the gender of kids who just want to play soccer.
So the 13 bills her government plans to introduce as quickly as possible – presumably getting all of the worst ones on the order paper before the end of the week so her angry and oppositional base will be sufficiently placated not to use her leadership review at the party’s November 1-2 AGM to run her out of Red Deer on a rail as they did to her predecessor, Jason Kenney.
Accordingly, UCP House Leader Joseph Schow spent a lot of his time at a news conference Friday trying to give the impression the upcoming bills have nothing to do with Smith’s immediate political needs and everything to do with her consultations with “grassroots Albertans” about what really matters to them – you know, gun ownership and the danger children changing their pronouns might end civilization as we know it.
This is of course pish-posh, as the reporters present kept pointing out, citing surveys suggesting what’s really on most Albertans’ minds is stuff like affordability, health care, and housing.
Moreover, most of the consultation the premier has been doing lately seems to have been at members-only UCP town halls, and readers will have a pretty good idea of what segment of the electorate has been showing up for those based on the unauthorized recordings that have leaked out of the sessions. Chemtrails anyone?
Schow, MLA for the Cardston-Siksika Riding deep in southern Alberta’s Book-of-Mormon Belt, clumsily tried to dodge most of those questions by insisting reporters should really talk to the responsible cabinet ministers – who, naturally, were not at the newser.
As for questions about whether or not the government would use the Notwithstanding Clause of the Canadian Constitution to ram through clearly unconstitutional aspects of its War on Trans Kids legislation, he dodged those with a similar lack of finesse.
“You know I think I’ve already answered to the most part … answered as much as I, I really can about the Notwithstanding Clause and, and using it. You know, again, it’s something that’s at the disposal if necessary, but what I actually go back to is how important this legislation is. We’re talking about the health and safety of youth in Alberta, we’re talking about parents being involved in their kids’ education, and we’re talking about safety in sport.”
One hates to ponder how the UCP might decide to go about what its news release called “protecting fairness and safety in sport by ensuring biologically born women and girls have the opportunity to compete in biological female-only categories.”
There will also be legislation continuing the UCP’s program of dismantling Alberta Health Services and fiddling with workplace safety legislation. Nothing good can be expected to come from those things either.
Despite his uncertain performance, Schow did respond confidently to one journalist’s question about how Smith would do in her November leadership review. “I think she’s gonna rock it,” he asserted. “She’s gonna crush it.” Well, perhaps there are reasons for his confidence.
Coincidentally, on November 2, New Brunswick Liberal Leader Susan Holt will be sworn in as New Brunswick’s 35th premier.
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