SAINTS PRESERVE US

A Cunning Linguist

Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms promises citizens from coast to coast to coast “peace, order and good government.” Though sensible enough, the phrase is no guarantee as there’s a “notwithstanding” clause farther down the document.

A good government to me is a duly elected entity that quietly goes about its business of dealing with the issues of the day. A good government may be reactive or, preferably, proactive but it does not create the issues of the day. Why waste the expertise and energy involved in making stuff up?

This brings me to nascent Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s “Job One,” the awkwardly titled (perhaps entitled) “Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act” tabled Tuesday in the provincial legislature. I have not read the bill; I have only read about it. My understanding is that its language is so convoluted and hackneyed as to be gibberish in legalese. It’s essentially a teenaged Alberta telling adult Ottawa to “talk to the hand.” Canadians of a certain vintage might have an olfactory memory triggered, a whiff of “sovereignty-association.” That vague slogan championed an independent Quebec complete with the domestic and foreign services provided gratis by the Government of Canada. Sort of a mulligan ratatouille. 

The ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) has six certain months left in power as a provincial election must be held next May. Alberta’s previous premier, Jason Kenney, founded the UCP big tent coalition of the right. He was usurped by the party’s lunatic fringe whose poster dominatrix is Smith. Kenney resigned his seat in the legislature Tuesday. He has dismissed Smith’s proposed Alberta sovereignty act as a “cockamamie idea.” That assessment from a backroom Machiavelli who sold Albertans on complaint by searing federal-provincial relations with his brand of populism.

The conversation inside the centrally heated confines of the Crooked 9 has changed. Ann and I should be refining family plans for the upcoming holiday season. Ann is rehearsing with two different orchestras for a series of Christmas concerts. I’m well into the first draft of a new novel and poor Ann has to edit the drivel. I need a haircut. We’ve always lots of things to talk about. The new Springsteen album of soul covers, for instance. No! We spend our time discussing provincial affairs with all the inarticulate vulgarity of roughnecks. Ann says anger is great “cardio.”

My sister, delightedly hysterical, gleeful and mildly relieved down the landline from Montreal: “Ah-ha! Quebec’s not the national laughingstock anymore! When are you moving back?”

When the Tuesday Night Beer Club convenes, Stats Guy and I rarely touch on politics. It’s not that we disagree, but rather baseball, books and World War II movies are more engaging topics. This week Stats Guy said, “I never imagined Frau Goebbels would make me long for the days of Mini-Trump.” That sepia-toned era of the UCP and Premier Kenney was as recent as the first week of October.

Now, let us inspect Frau Goebbels, hmm? She, a member of three different provincial political parties at variously convenient times, is the type of politician who makes the electorate cynical about democracy. Outside the ring of power, Smith snuffled on the mixed grass prairie as an extreme conservative pundit. Did you know a veterinary medicine concocted for upset cow tummies cured covid? Did you know public health and safety measures are communist creeps on universal human rights? Did you know Ukraine should’ve just buckled down and submitted to the whims of the Kremlin? Smith also shilled for Alberta’s largest fossil fuel lobby. Did you know Alberta’s oil and gas companies should receive public subsidies for cleaning up their dirty sites even though they are already compelled by law to do so?

Recently Smith revealed how proud she was of her family’s heritage, the lore of Cherokee blood running in her veins. Alberta First Nations, every indigenous person in this province, didn’t quite know how to look away or at what. That’s because tone deaf Smith has said that the most discriminated against group she’s ever encountered in her whole, like, entire, lifetime are anti-vaxxers, convoy cowboys, border blockers.

Smith’s reign, while legitimate, is awfully perilous, for her and for we the people. She was awarded the leadership of the governing UCP on the sixth ballot of a run-off vote. Me and numbers being what they are, my figures won’t be exact, but…. about 140,000 Albertans (assume the province’s population is 3,000,000 and, oh, I don’t know, maybe 2,400,000 are over the age of 18) paid their $10 UCP membership dues to be involved in that process. Smith then won a by-election in the riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat by a landslide: 54.5-per-cent of the popular vote went her way! Barely 14,000 people out of 40,000 eligible voters bothered to cast ballots.

I’m not sure that 7000 or so thumbs-up from a rural region of Alberta comprises a solid mandate to conjure up provincial superpowers and constitutional chaos. The Sovereignty Act permits Smith’s government to ignore existing federal laws and future legislation she doesn’t or won’t like. Her legislation also grants her cabinet the authority to make new and contrary laws while bypassing debate in the legislature. Smith’s cabinet ministers have since been tasked with picking federal nits from their portfolios. Some of these men opposed her in the UCP leadership derby. All of these men had publicly decried her proposed Sovereignty Act as half insane. Meanwhile, constitutional lawyers are having wet dreams about future billings; I hope the relevant courts have cleared all or most of their pandemic backlogs.

A crass opportunist gaming an existing system is not without precedent. Napoleon, no democrat he, but something of a reformer in his time, infamously crowned himself emperor of France and bits and parts of Europe. The ceremony took place in Notre Dame de Paris and not a mental hospital. Modern history books and the morning papers are rife with stories of democracy being subverted or perverted in pursuit of a benign or malevolent yet somehow legitimate autocracy. Seizing Power for Dummies is never out of print. In Alberta’s case, an embarrassingly Big Lie for awfully small stakes is at play. Whether Smith’s signature Act is serious business or a disruptive negotiating ploy vis-à-vis federal-provincial relations remains a mystery to me. There is no evidence of best intentions, public good. The tragedy of this sad little story is that its outcome, whatever that may prove to be, only matters to its flawed hero, a spurious and delusional little tin goddess.

Click on the far right to order your stylishly cut UCP uniform. Colour choices range from black to brown and are available in all sizes.      

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of provincial political commentary since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com for links to purchase it in your preferred format from various reputable retailers.