Good morning, my fellow Albertans! Happy Alberta Day! (Such as it is.)
No, you can’t sleep in. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney’s lame celebration is a “recognized commemorative day.” So, no day off for you. And no overtime either. Better get crackin’!
The legal holiday is next Monday. You know, Labour Day, a national holiday.
Today marks Alberta’s achievement of official provincehood in 1905, the day the federal Parliament in Ottawa granted this part of the North West Territories official provincial status, although as the sovereign-Alberta crowd in all its various guises keeps sourly pointing out, it was not quite the full-meal deal for a spell.
Of course, the population of Alberta was thought to only be about 250,000 in 1905, and Ottawa’s priority at the time was populating the West in an orderly fashion with grateful newcomers to immunize against U.S. encroachment. (Of course, this is Alberta, so historical circumstances are no reason to suppress our overflowing sense of grievance.)
Seeing as Alberta Day embarrassingly fell on a Tuesday this year, our United Conservative Government told us it was OK to celebrate it on the weekend, which is perhaps why our local separatists decided to stage a demo on the steps of the Legislative Building in Edmonton on Saturday.
As a veteran of many a Saturday protest rally on the steps of the Legislature – surely the coldest spot in Edmonton eight months of every year – I could have told them that a weekend protest at that venue is no good, because none of the people you want to yell at are even in the in the vicinity, let alone on the premises, which are locked up tight.
One might also have thought Premier Danielle Smith’s beloved Alberta separatists, with whom she seems to closely co-ordinate many of her schemes, wouldn’t have seen much value in a commemorative occasion that marks Alberta’s establishment as a province by a democratic vote of Parliament, in Ottawa, when no shots were fired.
But sometimes needs must, and you have to make a sacrifice to get a crowd out. In the event, the crowd that showed up must have been a disappointment to the organizers, since photos of the event made it look as if only about 600 brave blue-clad souls showed up. Maybe 800 if we’re really being generous.
Carefully curated photos were soon posted on social media to make the crowd look a little bigger – a venial sin that more than Alberta separatists have been known to commit. Alas for the rally organizers, that was spoiled by the ubiquity of smart phones with good cameras, not all of them in the hands of their supporters.
On Sunday, Premier Smith delivered a short, anodyne Alberta Day speech to a small and presumably carefully curated crowd at an outdoor reception in Calgary’s Heritage Park, during which she managed not to say a single word about her strenuous efforts to ensure a separation referendum will remain on the province-wide ballot on Oct. 19.
Surely pretending to be a loyal Canadian and “the strongest campaigner on the Remain side” (as one of her loyalists put it on social media) while moving heaven and earth to accommodate her party’s separatist faction and toadying to U.S. President Donald Trump on the tariff file is galactic level codswallop. Still, the premier seems to be able to get away with it without much pushback.
If any hecklers had appeared at Heritage Park on Sunday, presumably they would have been frog-marched out by black-clad Alberta Sheriffs just as they were at Saturday’s seppie rally in Edmonton.
When it comes to freedom of speech, apparently, Alberta is only one of the most free places in the entire world, as Ms. Smith put it in her Sunday remarks, when people are expressing points of view with which her government agrees.
In fairness to the Sheriffs at the Legislature in Edmonton, there was more than one heckler in the crowd! (As the old joke goes: It’s a trick! There’s TWO of them!)
No doubt we’ll soon learn that the two counter-protesters were removed for their own safety, which, arguably, won’t reflect well on the separatist crowd.
Whatever. Premier Smith will presumably be celebrating Alberta Day today at a scheduled morning cabinet meeting and getting ready for her junket to Tennessee in the company of Nathan Cooper, the former Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA and Legislative Speaker who is now the province’s “Senior Representative to the United States” in Washington.
As such, Mr. Cooper is an accredited Canadian diplomat, despite his name having never been removed from the Republican Party of Alberta’s online “Independence Scorecard” as a supporter of Alberta separation. In the past, the fringe political party has been willing to stop listing some MLAs as separation supporters when asked.
According to news reports last week, Ms. Smith and Ms. Cooper will meet the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development, the head of the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, and the CEO of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp.
Many Albertans were left wondering why the premier and her trade representative would bother meeting such insignificant officials. Political commentator Dave Cournoyer described this aspect of the visit as “somewhat comical.”
He quoted an unnamed political strategist suggesting “that the meetings could either be a cover for a meeting with a more important U.S. official that was cancelled at the request of Canada’s trade negotiators or a cover for a meeting with a more important U.S. official that will happen.”
Alternatively, Mr. Cournoyer wondered if the low-level meetings were arranged at the last minute “to justify Smith’s vacation to Music City USA.” Perhaps she plans to claim her meal allowance.
Personally, though, I wonder if some brainiac on the premier’s staff – or perhaps the premier herself – confused Nashville with Asheville, the North Carolina city where G20 finance ministers and central bankers met yesterday and are gathering again today. Tell me that’s not a possibility. I’m listening.
About those Edmonton submarines …
Speaking of the Asheville G20 meeting, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC he plans to meet with Canadian trade officials soon, perhaps a sign his boss is once again preparing to TACO.
Regardless, it’s interesting that Mr. Bessent took a shot at Canada based on an obscure Edmonton factoid. “We’re not at war with Canada,” he told the business news channel. “What are they going to do, take their two-cent submarines from the Edmonton Mall and sic them on us?”
West Edmonton Mall’s “submarine” attraction was closed in 2005 and carted away in 2012, as journalists couldn’t resist solemnly noting in their reports of Mr. Bessent’s remarks. To be fair, the four subs, which ran on tracks and never fully submerged, had a better service record than the four used Upholder-class subs the Canadian Navy bought from some slick used-submarine salesman in the U.K. back 1998. That $750-million deal was bad enough to qualify as piracy on the high seas!
Alert readers will also recall that back in January, Mr. Bessent put his oar in on the topic of Alberta separatism, telling a far-right U.S. TV station about “a rumour that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada” and opining “I think we should let them come down into the U.S.”
The secretary’s latest comment suggests he or one of his minions has been talking to someone pushing U.S. annexation who heartily dislikes Edmonton. This, I would suggest, is not some mere seppie camping in a two-star Washington hotel hoping to snare a meeting with a minor official, but someone with a significant position in the Smith Government. Several possibilities spring to mind.
