The declaration of a provincial state of emergency just three weeks before the spring election has introduced a new level of complexity to Alberta’s electoral math.
With dry conditions, hot winds and high temperatures fanning more than 100 wildfires that had forced close to 25,000 Albertans in about 20 communities out of their homes by Saturday afternoon, there’s no question the state of emergency is justified.
The personal presence of Premier Danielle Smith, clad in sombre black, Saturday was strictly necessary at two wildfire briefings normally conducted by forest firefighting officials. The state of emergency was declared between the two briefings.
The situation – with a stream of provincial emergency warnings blaring from radios and smoke visible from local fires in many parts of central Alberta – gives Smith an opportunity to change the channel on her serial blunders so far in the campaign.
On the other hand, she could hardly continue to go to campaign events with the opposition NDP announcing it will stop campaigning in seven ridings hit particularly hard by the fires: Drayton Valley-Devon, Lesser Slave Lake, Central Peace-Notley, Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland, Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville, West Yellowhead, and Grande Prairie-Wapiti.
At the noon briefing Saturday, Smith seemed to admit she’d asked Elections Alberta if the vote could be delayed.
“I did make a request to Elections Alberta to give some feedback on what they would do in the event that there was an event, whether it was a fire or a flood,” she said.
The answer appears to have been forget about it, or, as Smith actually put it, she was told it would be “very unusual to move election day.”
NDP leader Rachel Notley, who was premier during the Fort McMurray fire and successful mass evacuation of the northern city in 2016, said in a statement that, “I also want to formally extend my offer to the premier and fellow members of the Emergency Cabinet Committee that I join their meetings as they work through this difficult situation.”
But when a reporter brought that up during Smith’s second wildfire briefing Saturday afternoon, it required the premier to squirm a bit, and not appear to be ungrateful, but the answer was pretty obviously no.
Meanwhile, the ironies highlighted by the wave of wildfires battering Alberta in the midst of an election campaign in which the state of the environment plays a controversial role are inescapable, although not particularly funny.
Smith called the situation “unprecedented” at both news conferences – prompting many observations that western Canadians had better get used to precedents being set because global climate change is driving the conditions that are a creating this situation.
The premier and her United Conservative Party aren’t very anxious to go there, and given their history of climate change skepticism and outright denialism, you can’t really blame them.
A much-commented-on social media video from Friday showed Smith unironically holding forth about the need to pay attention to what the experts had to say.
“For those who live in areas with or near active wildfires, it’s crucial that you listen to local officials and obey evacuation orders,” she said. “The direction they provide is for your safety and for the safety of your family.”
As for fire bans and other restrictions, she added, “the bans and restrictions are not optional. They are in place for the safety of Alberta families and to help prevent more wildfires.”
Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis expressed a similar thought at Newser No. 2 Saturday: “We’re listening to those incident commanders that are on the ground. We’re listening to the experts.”
Of course, under the circumstances, Smith’s reaction the last time experts were being consulted, about a spike in COVID-19 infections, is impossible to forget.
I suppose we Albertans should count ourselves lucky that there are some experts, at least, that Smith and the UCP consider worth listening to!
After some initial dancing around about whether to accept the federal government’s offer of help – which hardly reinforces Smith’s and the UCP’s sovereignty schtick – she seemed to acknowledge with a lot of muddled verbiage during the second newser that Alberta will accept Ottawa’s aid.
Asked why she attended a UCP campaign event in Calgary Saturday, the emergency notwithstanding, she explained that there are some commitments you just have to keep.
Meanwhile, UCP supporters and their army of social media bots were quick to gin up a conspiracy theory that the fires were being deliberately set by “the far-left” so, as one such tweet put it, “The mainstream media will soon push ‘climate change’ harder.”
It would be as absurd to suggest that the other side was lighting fires to make life less embarrassing for the premier, although it’s a comment on the quality of the debate that there was none of that from Smith’s opponents.
What’s with those never-ending emergency alerts?
Eyebrows are being raised everywhere in Alberta at the never-ending stream of emergency alerts, often for fires not remotely close to where the alerts are being heard. Also, it’s weird that the robotic voice of the announcements doesn’t know how to pronounce “emergency.” Hint: It’s not “aymer-JENN-see.”
This is a reminder that the Provincial Emergency Public Warning System worked just fine up until 2011, as long as CKUA Radio was responsible for running it.
In 2010, the Provincial Emergency Management Agency inexplicably announced an Ottawa company called Black Coral Inc. would build a new and supposedly better system.
NDP candidate fights back against sign vandalism, ugly messages
Jason Heistad, the NDP candidate in Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, is apparently really bugging supporters of Devin Dreeshen, the riding’s UCP MLA.
Heistad, on leave as an Innisfail town councillor and AUPE official, took on the effort to unseat Dreeshen in what’s considered a safe UCP seat.
This should have been no big deal. But Heistad’s campaign has been suffering vandalism to its signs and some pretty nasty messages from anonymous trolls.
In response, Heistad published a video response that’s very brave and pretty funny. It’s worth a look.
Dreeshen is best known for an image of him toasting Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory while wearing a red MAGA cap, captured by a Getty Images photographer in New York where the Albertan had been volunteering for Trump’s campaign. He resigned as agriculture minister in 2021 after allegations of frequent drinking in the Legislature building.
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