I don't like to give Danielle Smith - and Alberta in general - any more attention than necessary. She tends to make my blood boil, which is not good for me medically. But she does keep making announcements that, well, make my blood boil.
The latest, in the aftermath of a federal election, in which "her" party failed to win but all but swept the board in Alberta and Saskatchewan, is more whining and victim-playing about how badly Alberta is being treated by the federal government (by which she means the rest of the country that voted them in). It just so happens that Ontario and Quebec have bigger populations, and so they often decide elections - that is not a flaw in democracy, that's the way it's supposed to work. And sometimes those large populations will vote overwhelmingly Conservative, just not this time.
Ms. Smith has a way of speaking that particularly grates, and which usually requires translation into the language that the rest of the country speaks. She is at pains to appear straight-talking and reasonable, but hides a barb behind almost every statement she makes.
For example, she talks of "hostile acts" from Ottawa, meaning policies that the rest of the country approves of, but that happens not to benefit Alberta, with its 20th-Century attitudes to oil and gas among other things (most things she says have a link to Alberta oil on some level).
She says that Albertans are "deeply frustrated" at the election of another Liberal government, indeed that they are "crushed" by it. Well, maybe, but so probably are NDP voters, but you don't hear them whining in the same way. That's just the way democratic elections work: the party with the most seats gets to form a government. Does she want to change that system?
And she is still talking about "Alberta sovereignty within a united Canada", whatever that actually means, as she has for some time now, all while doing her level best to foment divisiveness and fanning the flames of an independence vote. How does that help United Canada? She tends to blame Ottawa (i.e. Liberals) for threatening national unity by their policies (i.e. the ones she happens not to agree with), but she is the one almost single-handedly destroying any national unity that may have existed with her words and her actions.
She says " we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa". Furthermore, "Alberta didn't start this fight, but rest assured we will finish it". Fighting talk indeed. So what is she going to do about it?
Well, with that in mind, she has put forward Bill 54 that would make it easier for a potential secession referendum to be brought forward by Alberta citizens, lowering the threshold from 20% to 10% of voters. She says the timing of this, just after a Liberal election victory is coincidental.
She is careful to to stress that SHE will not be the one to bring such a separation vote - in fact she says, in very clear language, that "I do not support Alberta separating from Canada" - but if enough Albertans want to, then so be it, what can she do? She even points out that polls suggest that most Albertans don't want to separate from Canada, but she is nevertheless doing everything she can behind the scenes to encourage it. She visibly bristled when a reporter suggested she was being disingenuous in these apparent contradictions.
So, there you have Danielle Smith. Firebrand activist? Principled statesperson? Sneaky backroom wheeler-dealer? You decide. Meanwhile, though, Alberta's economic credibility is taking a hit. Secession remains a highly implausible scenario, but the very fact that the government is even talking about it is enough to put the willies up current and potential investors.
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