The Real Goal of Smith’s Referendum Blitz? Separation

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a raft of referendum questions Thursday demanding provincial intrusion into federal jurisdiction, cutting services to new Canadians and other anti-immigrant measures, and seeking significant changes to the Canadian Constitution.

There will be five wordy policy referenda on Oct. 19 focusing on immigration and clearly designed to appeal to the United Conservative Party’s base, but worded to sound reasonable at an inattentive glance. There will be four additional questions asking voters to approve an effort to negotiate major constitutional changes.

Dump All Your Carbon Emissions in Alberta, Pitches Smith

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has a solution to Canada’s carbon emissions: dump them underground in Alberta.

Smith is a proponent of carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, where carbon dioxide emissions are captured from large industrial emitters, turned into a fluid and injected underground via pipeline. She is such a booster of the technology that during a Dec. 7 news conference from Dubai, where she was attending the COP28 climate summit, she was irrepressibly positive about CCS’s future.

Secret Indian Memo Ordered “Concrete Measures” Against Hardeep Singh Nijjar Two Months Before His Assassination in Canada

The Indian government instructed its consulates in North America to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” against Sikh diaspora organizations in Western countries, according to a secret memorandum issued in April 2023 by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. The memo, which was obtained by The Intercept, lists several Sikh dissidents under investigation by India’s intelligence agencies, including the Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Danielle Smith Is Really Mad — Again

Is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government now planning to introduce a new, tougher Sovereignty Act to fight Ottawa’s proposed emissions regulations?

As is well known, the plainly unconstitutional Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act has been shown to be a meaningless joke.

So this morning Smith and her environment minister, Rebecca Schulz, who lately has been reduced to the role of an insignificant cheerleader for the premier, published a belligerent statement about the proposed federal “de facto production cap” in which they vowed to “develop a constitutional shield in response to this and other recent attacks on our province by what is fast becoming one of the most damaging federal administrations in Canadian history.” The cap on oil-and-gas emissions was announced by Federal Environment Minister Steve Guilbeault today.

Here’s What Danielle Smith Is Really Doing in Dubai

Steven Guilbeault and Danielle Smith are both in Dubai this week for the COP28 conference on climate change. But you could be forgiven for thinking they’re on different planets.

On Monday, federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change Guilbeault announced Canada would be cutting climate-warming methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by at least 75 per cent over the next six years.

Alberta Premier Smith immediately issued her own statement from Dubai calling the target “dangerous and unconstitutional” and in a personal attack suggested Guilbeault wanted to grab international headlines to benefit his “post-office career.”

Danielle Smith Heads to COP28 to Sell Fossil Fuels

While much of the world views the upcoming United Nations summit on climate change as a step towards reducing the global reliance on fossil fuels, Premier Danielle Smith is taking a much different approach.

Believe it or not, she sees her trip to the COP28 conference in Dubai as a marketing opportunity for Alberta’s “clean” fossil fuel industry.

There’s certainly an element of chutzpah to Smith’s approach — or maybe it’s just dangerously unhelpful, like showing up at a weight watchers convention with a box of doughnuts.

Danielle Smith Says the Darndest Things

Last week Danielle Smith was interviewed by Matt Galloway, the host of CBC’s The Current. Listening to her, I was reminded of Art Linkletter’s show Kids Say the Darndest Things. Unfortunately the things Smith said weren’t funny.

Here’s a sample.

Leaving CPP

Smith said Alberta is entitled to 53 per cent of the Canada Pension Plan’s assets and that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s number of 16 per cent was pulled out of the air.

Smith Just Exploded Alberta Health Care. What Comes Next?

Premier Danielle Smith’s declaration last week that she intended to blow up Alberta’s health-care system came 25 years after then-Alberta premier Ralph Klein literally blew up the Calgary General Hospital.

Klein’s demolition on Oct. 4, 1998, involved tonnes of explosives to bring down a health-care icon the government had declared too old, inefficient and expensive. Ten years after its destruction, however, Calgary was still short of hospital beds and emergency room capacity.

On the other hand, Smith’s announced demolition will be much less dramatic but will involve a massive, long-run restructuring of the province’s system and thus affect every Albertan, for better or worse.

Danielle Smith believes she's found the org chart that saves health care

If there was a health-care system structure that guaranteed better patient care, lower surgical wait times and impartial and accountable decision-making, then it would be in place everywhere.

But it's not.

British Columbia has five regional health authorities. Québec has 18. Ontario? It's somewhat complicated.

Alberta to dismantle current patient-care model, create new health delivery system

Alberta's government is dismantling its provincial health-care delivery organization into four entities in a sweeping overhaul that will change the structure and decision-making for the entire health system. 

Heralding it as a "new day for health care in Alberta," Premier Danielle Smith says dividing Alberta Health Services (AHS) into new agencies with a narrower focus, to be overseen by a council of politicians and senior government bureaucrats, will improve access to care in a system under strain.

This Lawyer Paid for Spying on a Judge. Charges Stayed, He’s Defiant

At a law society hearing in August, John Carpay, the controversial president of Alberta’s far-right Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, expressed abject contrition for hiring a private investigator to spy on a senior Manitoba judge.

But in an abrupt about-face last week, Carpay downplayed the judicial surveillance and claimed Manitoba Justice officials attempted to silence and intimidate him by filing bogus politically motivated criminal charges against him.

Carpay levelled that accusation last Friday after Manitoba Justice stayed criminal charges of attempted obstruction of justice and intimidation of a justice system participant against him, and fellow JCCF lawyer Jay Cameron.

Danielle Smith’s Dangerous Clean Energy Fantasies

Perhaps Danielle Smith forgot where she was when she told the attendees at the Pembina Institute’s Alberta Climate Summit that clean electricity by 2035 was impossible and anyone who thought otherwise was a fantasist.

The summit attendees paid $400 to $600 for the one-day event, which brought together “thought leaders from industry, government, civil society groups, Indigenous governments and rural communities to hear success stories, identify opportunities and challenges, and explore solutions related to Alberta’s clean energy future.”

Saskatchewan Joins Alberta in Backing Government Law-Breaking

I’ve been away, and I’m a little jet-lagged, but it seems to me that we’ve just seen the first use of the Alberta Sovereignty Act. 

By the government of Saskatchewan.

On Monday, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced provincial gas utility SaskEnergy won’t collect or submit the federal carbon tax on natural gas used to heat homes starting on Jan. 1.

Poilievre Walks a Tightrope over Alberta’s Pension Uproar

In an obvious effort to inoculate himself against being identified as an enemy of the Canada Pension Plan, federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre Friday inserted himself into the open-letter uproar over the Alberta government’s plan to force the province’s citizens out of the CPP with a statement of his own.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent a forceful open letter to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith vowing to defend the CPP and Canadians’ pensions. Smith responded with an open letter of her own, accusing the PM of fear-mongering and warning of unspecified “serious legal and political consequences.”

Danielle Smith's pension trifecta: Trudeau, Notley and Poilievre agree on something

It's not clear if Pierre Poilievre had already devised a position on Alberta's proposed quitting of the Canada Pension Plan, but the Conservative leader issued one barely a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proclaimed his own stance.

The Liberals' unusually forceful opposition to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's pension ambition has doubled as a political wedge against Poilievre. Alongside trying to criticize the CPP-weakening gambit itself, Liberals applied pressure on Conservatives to squeeze their leader through one of three doors:

Canada pulls 41 diplomats from India amid row over separatist’s killing

Canada has pulled 41 diplomats out of India in the latest escalation of a bitter dispute over the killing of a Sikh separatist in Vancouver.

The Canadian government made the decision to recall its diplomats after the Indian government said it would revoke their diplomatic immunity, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said on Wednesday.

Joly said India’s threat to revoke their diplomatic immunity was “unprecedented” and violated international law.

Pension becomes another Alberta-Ottawa fight. But this time, Trudeau's on offence

Jim Dinning, engagement panel chair: Thank you, Duane from Camrose. We appreciate all your comments on the potential Alberta Pension Plan. Isn't this telephone town hall format a swell idea? Sarah, please put through the next call.

Operator: Our next commenter is Justin, and he's on the line from Ottawa.

OK, so it didn't quite happen this way, but may as well have.

Trudeau attacks pitch to take Alberta out of CPP in open letter to Danielle Smith

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has sent an open letter to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith calling her efforts to pull Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan a risk to "certainty and stability."

"With all the uncertainty they face, Canadians should not have to worry whether or not the Canada Pension Plan will continue to be there for them in their retirement," Trudeau said in the letter.

"Alberta's withdrawal would weaken the pensions of millions of seniors and hardworking people in Alberta and right across the country. The harm it would cause is undeniable."

Canada accuses China fighter jets of ‘reckless’ interception of military plane

Canada’s defence minister has accused China fighter jets of carrying out a “dangerous and reckless” interception of a Canadian military plane over international waters.

Bill Blair spoke after Canada’s Global News said a Chinese jet had come within five meters (16ft) of a Canadian surveillance plane taking part in a UN operation to enforce sanctions against North Korea.

The incident took place in international waters off the coast of China, said Global, which had a crew on the plane. Blair said that while the Chinese air force regularly interacted with planes on UN missions, the incident on Monday had put the Canadian aircraft at significant risk.

The Homophobia, Racism and Conspiracy Theories on Display at ‘Parents’ Rights’ Rallies

It was advertised as a protest focused on children and families. But at a rally in Vancouver, an antisemitic slur was hurled. In Ottawa, a flag with a Nazi swastika was displayed at a park. And at protests across Canada, protest signs equated education and advocacy about LGBTQ2S+ issues with pedophilia.

Last week, protests co-ordinated under the banner of “1 Million March 4 Children” took place in cities and towns across Canada. In many cities, including Vancouver, those protests were met and outnumbered by counter-protests supporting the rights of queer people, especially trans youth.