The Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa surely isn’t the only Canadian venue with more than a whiff of panic in the air these days.
Consider the likely conversation in Premier Danielle Smith’s office in the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton.
According to Environment Canada, periods of snow are forecast in Ottawa today with more flurries tonight. What the hell is the United Conservative Party’s strategic brain trust going to do if Justin Trudeau decides to take a walk in the stuff?
Conservative Alberta politicians have made a cottage industry out of blaming everything bad that’s happened in Canada on members of the Trudeau family for more than 40 years now. It’s pretty much an involuntary reflex, requiring no thought, and it still seems to work.
Plus, ever since Gerry Butts quit as Trudeau the Younger’s chief political advisor in February 2019, the prime minister has been obligingly painting targets on his own back at which Alberta Conservatives can aim their pot-shots.
Even with the clock running out on the Liberal Government and the possibility looming of a blowout for the erstwhile Natural Governing Party on the scale of the 1993 election’s rout of Kim Campbell’s Conservatives, it’s hard to imagine a replacement for Trudeau who would make as good a whipping boy, or girl, from the UCP perspective.
Mark Carney? Well, he could turn out to be another Michael Ignatieff, one supposes, but he’s obviously smart. As a politician, as opposed to an inscrutable central banker, his talents are not fully known. But he seems to have the Conservatives worried.
And even if he was as bad as Professor Ignatieff – who headed back to Harvard after the 2011 federal election, just like the Conservatives predicted he would – how would that be worse than the fall for which Trudeau appears to be headed?
Chrystia Freeland? If she manages to finagle her you’re-fired/I-quit moment into a crack at the PMO, we’re soon going to learn she’s basically the Liz Cheney of Canada! Indeed, if you’ve been paying attention, that’s been obvious for years.
To channel Freddy Lee “Ted” Morton, Firewall Manifesto signatory and worst premier Alberta never had, Freeland would be every federal Conservative’s worst nightmare, a Liberal so far to the right that Pierre Poilievre would look woke!
And if Trudeau surprises everyone and asks the Governor General to call an election, the apparently inevitable ascent of Poilievre to the PMO would potentially be even worse news for the separatists in Smith’s office, if not for the ones expected to show up momentarily in Quebec City.
Do you seriously think Poilievre would let the UCP pilfer the Canada Pension Plan unopposed if he wants to retain any hopes of being re-elected, no matter how massive his majority turns out to be?
Remember, it took a Nixon to go to China. It might take a Poilievre to finally stomp on Smith.
Meanwhile, belligerent joint statements from the Premier’s Office continue, although readers will notice that yesterday’s failed to mention Trudeau by name. Nerves?
Edmonton police commissioner drops plan to work from Portugal
Well, so long John McDougall, outgoing chair of the Edmonton Police Commission who sought to serve his last two years on the police oversight and governance body from Portugal, known for its gentle breezes and generous tax laws.
The Internet may work in Portugal, but it turns out that McDougall won’t – at least not for Edmonton’s putative “guardian of public trust.”
After sparking a brouhaha with his plan to Zoom in from Portugal, McDougall said yesterday he would resign immediately. “It is clear that my residency would be an unwelcome distraction from the important work of the commission, which is not fair to the citizens who rely on us to provide governance and oversight of the Edmonton Police Service,” he said in a statement.
Like his change of address, this decision also seems either not to have been communicated to or not understood by Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis, who earlier in the day told media he expected McDougall to resign after he’d officially moved to Portugal.
At any rate, the prospect of a provincially appointed Alberta official Zooming in from the Iberian Peninsula while the snow flies in Alberta appears to have been too much even for the cheekily entitled UCP.
Lethbridge-West by-election is today
Today is the day of the provincial by-election in Lethbridge-West, held by the NDP until the resignation of former MLA Shannon Phillips last summer.
The NDP is favoured to win, according to some pollsters, but it’s said here that’s no sure thing.
Both parties’ candidates have strong ties to the southern Alberta city’s civic politics – the NDP’s Rob Miyashiro is a former city councillor and the UCP’s John Middleton-Hope is a current one. Bet on Layton Veverka of the Alberta party, the only other candidate in the race, to finish in third place.
The by-election is bound be seen as a test of Leader Naheed Nenshi’s low-bridging approach to the leadership of the NDP, even if the outcome masks other strengths and weaknesses of the Opposition Party’s strategy.
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