He’s tried everything from rolling up his shirtsleeves and pointing at graphs to quoting Franklin Roosevelt (“we have nothing to fear but fear itself”), but still Albertans refuse to give him his due.
Jason Kenney’s pandemic performance gave him a one point bump in approval ratings (from 47 to 48 percent), while Doug Ford shot up 38 points to 69%, John Horgan climbed 25 points to 71% and Quebec’s Francois Legault rose 22 points to 77%.
One lousy percentage point; despite the fact Alberta has the lowest per capita rates of hospitalization and ICU admissions and deaths amongst what Kenney calls “the large-population provinces” (Ont and Que) and is, he says, “essentially” tied with BC.
Why?
Perhaps because Kenney continues to say and do things that undermine Albertans’ trust.
Erosion of public trust
In the Legislative Assembly debate on Covid-19 and in subsequent interviews Kenney said:
- Covid-19 is “a form of influenza”. It’s not.
- The death toll from covid-19 from March 5 to May 27 was 139.* Yes, and the death toll from flu in the entire 2018/19 flu season was 30. Covid-19 is much more lethal than the flu.
- Albertans have a very high level of immune resistance, immunity, and resilience against an influenza of this nature. The Buffalo People, or whatever he’s calling us nowadays, are no more immune than anyone else and Dr Kirsten Fiest, a real epidemiologist, says there is limited evidence that people who’ve been exposed to covid-19 are immune and if so to what degree.
- Epidemiologists assessing the threat of covid-19 look at past experiences and our Public Health Act specifically refers to an influenza pandemic. So what, that doesn’t make covid-19 a form of influenza.
- In support of Kenney’s claim of immunity, his press secretary referred to media coverage about people who tested positive but were asymptomatic. Ever heard of Typhoid Mary? Asymptomatic doesn’t mean you’re immune, it means you don’t have symptoms but can still infect others.
- The average age of death from covid-19 in Alberta is 83, our average life expectancy is 82. And your point is?
- The government did not overreact, it did not impose a lockdown. It just asked sick people to stay home and everyone to practice social distancing. It didn’t shut down manufacturing or construction. It didn’t micromanage every aspect of Albertans’ social and economic lives. Huh? Sounds like Kenney is feeling pressure from the Trumpian “LIBERATE!!!” crowd.
Downplaying the severity of the coronavirus does not serve Alberta well. It simply sets us up for a second wave that will be even more devastating to lives and livelihoods than the first.
Pandemic smoke screen
To make matters worse, Kenney’s government is using the pandemic to further his political agenda.
His health minister continues to attack public healthcare by cutting doctors’ compensation (they’re supposed to defend themselves in the midst of a pandemic, right?). His education minister attacked public education by laying off 26,000 educational assistants, substitute teachers, and support staff on the pretext of redirecting $128 million to Alberta’s covid-19 response.
Alberta’s environmental laws have been virtually negated by the Alberta Energy Regulator which suspended environmental monitoring and reporting requirements due to unspecified covid-19 public health concerns. Kenney and the environment minister claim they can’t do anything about it, despite the fact Cabinet and the environment minister appoint the AER board and CEO and can unappoint them in a heartbeat.
Kenney’s energy minister says the pandemic is great for pipeline construction because “you can’t have protests of more than 15 people.” Her comment made international headlines. The environment minister supported her, saying she was simply stating the obvious and the government will do everything possible to get what he called Alberta’s clean natural resources to market. Clean?
It’s happening at a whirlwind pace under the radar, but we see it and we know that taking advantage of the pandemic to promote private interests at the expense of public health, public education, and the environment is unworthy of a democratic government that professes to have the public interest at heart.
And that, my dears, why Kenney’s approval rating is stuck at 48%.
*Death toll is now at 143, one of the people who died was in the 20-29 age bracket.
Susan on the Soapbox 
The miniscule bump in support for Kenney compared to almost any other leader in Canada is what I would euphemistically say is not a good sign for him and I think he realizes this.
I think the leaders who do best in difficult times like this are those that can emphasize with people, appear cool and competent or even summon populist frustations. Mr. Kenney is not much for empathy as he seems to come across as more interested in his own political advancement than in anyone elses situation. His approach to doctors and health care is a bit of a bull in a china shop now, which might go over slightly better in more normal times, but now is just too unsettling. He doesn’t even seem to have the right tone to appeal to populist frustrations that Doug Ford seems to have hit on.
What is worst for Kenney is things will probably not get better for him. If the pandemic ends, perhaps in some places the economy will recover ok. However, Alberta has other serious lingering eonomic problems that show little sign of abating ant time soon. The political honeymoon is over, so blaming things on the previous government doesn’t seem very credible any more, if it ever was, as things are worse than in 2019.
The other side of the pandemic popularity bump is it will probably fall after for all politicians. Those that had a big bump have some cushion for this, but Kenney has virtually none. In a year or two 48% may look good as Kenney unsuccesfully continues to try deal with all the other problems that continue to dog Alberta.
Well said Dave. I was particularly interested in your comparison of Kenney and Ford where you said Ford at least demonstrates the empathy people expect from their leaders in times of crisis.
When Kenney appears before the media he seems guarded, he recites the script and it’s only when reporters ask good questions that the inconsistencies of his position become obvious. I’ve noticed he has a “tell”, when he’s about to say something that’s, how shall I put this, not grounded in facts, he’ll repeat the same sentence or sentence fragment a few different ways. For example when he announced the $7.5 billion backstop for KXL he said without Alberta’s support KXL would not be built, then right after that he said, I believe KXL would not be built without government support. So which is it: did TC Energy tell Kenney it wouldn’t finish KXL unless Kenney propped it up, or was that just Kenney’s “opinion” and justification for taking a ridiculous risk in the hopes of looking like a hero.
I can’t believe some idiot actually said Covid is good for pipelines because it stops protests… what? We are talking about sick and dying people here, right?
Not only did the energy minister say this, but our premier let it stand so obviously he’s OK with his energy minister saying, in effect, look on the bright side, there will be fewer pipeline protesters if they’re afraid of getting sick and dying.
Given what’s happening in the US now, it appears the UCP government can no longer take comfort in covid tamping down protests’ if the injustice is great enough the people will come.
Yikes! 48% could mean another UCP majority!
Linda, that’s the frightening thing isn’t it. Almost half of Alberta thinks Kenney is doing just fine after all he’s done to dismantle public health, public education, and services for the vulnerable, the elderly, and children. It’s been constant strife with him against people who perform useful services and people at the lower end of the wage scale.
This man is figuratively stabbing everyone in the back, and he’s not trying to hide it any more.
CallmeHal, you’ve nailed it. And thanks for your comments on last week’s blog in which you outlined the dangers of Kenney reintroducing coal mining to sensitive areas. When we lived in Pittsburgh, the coal lobby ran a series of ads about “clean” coal. That was the first thing that sprang to mind when Nixon, the environment minister, defended Savage’s comment about covid being good for pipelines with a reference to people trying to get Alberta’s “clean natural resources” to market. Has he forgotten about the dozens of birds that died when they landed on an oilsands tailings pond? To say nothing of emissions, spills, leaks, etc that we are no longer monitoring. That is not “clean”.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/15/new-market-coal-mine-critical-minerals-national-security
This sounds like something Kenney would do.
I read a report in Alberta Views that coal mining royalties in 2018 from the eastern slopes were about $5M, which coincidentally is about what it costs to maintain the provincial parks tgat wi be sold off.
re Kenney’s urgency to get AB ‘re-opened’. He must. Very high unemployment from general Covid-driven demand collapse, sustained economic depression in AB means Kenney becomes very likely to lose the next election. IMHO, this scenario assumes some fairly likely things given relevant history: Kenney-UCP refuse to change course into Keynesian investment across sectors… he/UCP was elected on cutting deficits, taxes… i.e. shrinking govt, privatizing public services. And he’s continued right thru an historic pandemic and oil price crash. And soon he’s going to get more neoliberalism economic policy advice from the Mintz and Harper market cultists, right? so… assume: 1) oil price fails to bounce back to $50-60 WTI, which is likely, and 2) Kenney-UCP keep up the cutting public service jobs in public healthcare and education budgets, and generally stay true to their free-markets/corporate-jobcreators-TaxCuts-will-save-us economic ideology, and thus fail to spend on anything other than misc. subsidies, e.g. tax credits to oil/gas/oilsands industry. UCP cut the tech credits, right? For all our sakes, I say this only half-jokingly, if I was religious, I might pray for a miracle: an economic policy conversion by the Kenney-UCP & AB’s dominant political-economic class in the face of the worst sustained AB depression/recession since ’81 shocking abrupt decline. The only positive difference is interest rates are very low. Without that miracle in policy conversion, I don’t see how our economic markers, e.g. jobs, bankruptcies are *not* gonna’ get really bad here and stay there for years for a lot of low and middle-income Albertans, I’m afraid. And oh yeah… our biggest trading partner will probably have a tanked economy for a few years, with more waves of virus deaths.
Sam, I agree with you, Things are especially dire here in Calgary where our 26% downtown office vacancy rate means fewer corporations are paying property taxes leaving a bigger burden on residential home owners, which means the hawks on council are demanding service cuts (while at the same time promoting the Flames arena and other useless big projects).
I’m especially interested in which neoliberal policy advisor will win the day on the issue of sales tax. Jack Mintz has been pushing a sales tax for years, Stephen Harper thinks all taxes are evil. We’ll see what the guy who “holds the pen” has to say.
Jack Mintz’ idea of a sales tax is that it would be compensated by an equivalent reduction in income tax. So for him it’s not a question of increasing government revenue, but of redistributing the tax burden. It’s not that far from Harper’s thinking.
Alfredo, good clarification. Thanks.
The UCP were elected with a little over fifty four percent of the vote in April of 2019 and Jason Kenney has done absolutely nothing worthy of note in his first 14 months. More to the point, his performance has been abysmal. Kenney’s statements defy belief, the majority of his Ministers are a joke and we know he is going to do his utmost to privatize health and education in the near future. Yet he is down only six points in the polls, to forty eight percent. On the other side of the ledger, the progressive vote in Alberta is split 6 ways to Sunday. It pains me terribly to say this, but Kenney will be Premier of Alberta for as long as he wants the job. No amount of evidence will convince people when their pay cheque depends on them not believing.
Jaundiced Eye: fair point. I’ve been thinking a lot about Kenney’s Ministers, the best of the bunch appears to be the finance minister Travis Toews, and he’s the guy who delivered a budget based on $58/bbl oil and said, on the day he delivered it, he could see Rome burning behind him. This might be because he hasn’t attacked the Opposition or his critics with the nasty contempt displayed by the premier and the other ministers. (Or maybe he has and I missed it). In any event this government is a gong show and it’s just going to get worse.
Susan: Thanks for another great blog. This world is getting more crazier by the day, and Jason Kenney and the UCP are not helping to make things any better. The UCP have already amassed over $50 billion in very costly blunders. Among them, is the UCP giving out a $13 billion assistant package for Alberta, which is so out of balance, that it is unreal. Also, the UCP’s policies are taking us backwards, to the bad old days of Don Getty and Ralph Klein, and with all the Alberta PC governments after that. Mishandle Alberta’s finances, waste money on fruitless things, give lavish tax breaks to big corporations, lack any proper direction, or planning, cut, cut, cut, with no regard to who these cuts adversely effect, and blame someone else for the self inflicted mess they made. The UCP were already doing foolish things and wasteful spending, before this pandemic was here. From history, Ralph Klein kept on saying and doing stupid things, and it finally caught up with him. As I recall, his own party gave him a 55% approval rating, and he had to resign. Perhaps, if Jason Kenney gets a low enough approval rating, (by whatever means), he will resign. I’m wondering if the R.C.M.P investigation is still ongoing with him? With this virus, I’m wondering if opening things up on June 15 is premature. We know what happened in New Brunswick, with someone who was complacent. Also, look at Ontario and Quebec. I have also heard this virus has been mutating, and what has happened is not good. I also heard that a second wave of this virus is likely. Then what? There are people who are struggling, like those on government support, seniors, and others, under the UCP government. The UCP is not helping them. The UCP still must have an illusion that oil prices are going to rebound into the levels they were prior to the 2014 crash. They won’t. As the UCP continues to waste so much money on boondoggles, where will they get revenue to run things from? As I’ve mentioned before, it’s good to donate to our local food bank, so struggling people can get help.
Dwayne, you’ve very accurately described the hole Kenney got us into by following the same old Reagan/Thatcher policies that didn’t work 40 years ago and now are even further out of whack. The thing that’s so alarming about Kenney and his band of bozos is none of them is a visionary (like Peter Lougheed) and none of them knows how to lead. If you can’t see the future how are you going to get us there?
So far all I’ve heard from Kenney about how he’s going to lead Alberta back to prosperity is he’s going to make the US the linchpin of our recovery. The US will be lucky to get through covid and Trump in one piece so good luck with that.
.. you might forgive Jason Kenney.. currently being dragged to the landlocked seabed of Alberta by Ed Amaare and a cement pail chained to both feet.. while self immolating.. whew .. Presumably, Kenney never met the fellow.. a la Harper ‘I have no knowledge of the matter’ (delivered by a sidekick)
Diamondwalker, wasn’t that appalling!
For those who missed this on Twitter yesterday Ed Ammar, the founding chairman of the UCP, responded to a tweet posted by Ahmed Hussen, a man born in Somalia who moved to Canada, became a lawyer, ran for the Liberals and eventually became the federal minister of Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees. Hussen tweeted that anti-black racism doesn’t stop at the border. Ammar responded “Don’t bring this to Canada you f*ckin loser”. Today Ammar posted an explanation of his “ill thought out comment” which didn’t make much sense and ended with the statement that he regrets how his first tweet was perceived and for that he’s sorry.
What can I say: most of us who saw the original tweet were not surprised by its vicious tone, nor the fact it was posted by the founding chairman of the UCP. I’ll leave it at that.
Two points: (1) typo alert — I’m fairly confident Premier Legault identifies as a binary, cis-gender male, & his first name is François, not Françoise ;-); (2) more substantively, there are dozens of viral upper-respiratory tract infections circulating in the population at any one time, of which Influenza A & B are usually the most likely to be fatal. The constellation of signs & symptoms of all of them tend to overlap, so that it can be difficult to tell if a person has true ‘flu’ or just a cold, although fever is less common in the common cold. And, just to confuse people, some common cold viruses are members of the coronavirus family, although not SARS-CoV-2, the causative virus in COVID-19. However, the case fatality rate of lab-confirmed Influenza — meaning only those cases severe enough to get swabbed by their health care provider — is roughly 0.1%. The comparable rate for COVID-19 is between 2 & 3%, or 20-30 times greater, and this includes cases far less severe in the denominator because of a far lower threshold for testing than with flu. In other words, for every person that dies from flu, we can expect 20 to 30 deaths from COVID-19. So, yes, it is much more deadly than flu.
Jerrymacgp: that was an excellent way of putting it: 1 flu death for every 20-30 covid-19 deaths.
My biggest challenge in writing this post was trying to figure out which bit of Kenney’s warped logic I wanted to highlight. His speech in the Legislative debate on covid-19 is jammed with outrageous statements like “younger people, while not completely immune, have a rate of mortality related to COVID that is no higher than their general mortality rate for other illnesses.” There is so much wrong with that sentence: (1) what is the definition of “younger people”, (2) whoever they are, saying they’re not “completely immune” implies that they are “partially immune”; as far as we know no one is “immune” and (3) tell me their “general mortality rate for other illnesses” and I’ll compare it to the covid-19 mortality rate for the same age group because I don’t trust a word Kenney says.
The way the UCP describe covid-19 depends on the context. UCP MLA Ron Orr asked health minister Shandro why Alberta’s experience didn’t match the models. Shandro said we were in the middle of a pandemic with a virus “none of us have seen before” (message: this is something brand new, don’t blame us for changing our models). The next day Kenney says it’s just the flu (message: we can safely reopen the economy because only old people or those with underlying health problems will die).
The UCP government plays fast and loose with the facts depending on the message of the day. This is a shocking breach of trust.
PS thanks for catching the typo. I’ve fixed it. 🙂
And by “old people” he said people age 60 and up, people who could shop at Costco in the early morning hour before the rest of the pandemic shoppers. If you were there, you’re old enough to be written off by Jason Kenney. Shop, go home, die. Please do not reverse the order, or you will mess up the economy. Besides, zombies are not welcome at Costco.
Comme ça
Thanks Edison. I didn’t see your reply when I posted my answer to Diamondwalker above, but I have to agree with Ryan Jesperson: when someone shows you who they are believe them.
The UCP have shown us who they are time and time again. Albertans can no longer ignore the horrible things they’ve seen in the hope that the UCP’s economic policies (such as they are) will bring them prosperity.
“Jason Kenney’s pandemic performance gave him a one point bump in approval ratings (from 47 to 48 percent)”
The irony here is that I am dead certain that Kenney owes most of that ‘gain’ to Dr.Deena Henshaw, a Notley appointee.
GoinFawr, I’m dead certain you’re right. Although I don’t think Kenney believes that. In the Legislative debate he couldn’t resist returning to the fact he had to delay opening Calgary and Brooks. He said “I regret for the citizens of Calgary and Brooks that things were delayed. I regret that that confirmation was given at the last minute, but that is when we received the advice from our public health officials – we were not going to ignore the advice.”
My question is this: Did Dr Hinshaw actually make Kenney wait until the last minute to tell him Calgary and Brooks shouldn’t reopen. Those two centres have been hotspots for months. I suspect Dr Hinshaw’s recommendation from the outset was it’s okay to open up everything but Calgary and Brooks, and Kenney sat on that information until the last minute in the hope she’d change her recommendation. But the way he phrased it, it’s her fault that the confirmation was given at the last minute, not his.
Throwing your subordinates under the bus is not leadership.
It might not help that he grabs the microphone for non-covid-related political rants.
Keith, I agree. Hijacking the agenda in the middle of the chief medical officer’s pandemic update is the act of a petty politician.
Here’s another example of petty: When Kenney blamed Dr Hinshaw for the delay in opening Calgary and Brooks, he said he wasn’t going to ignore her advice. However when he decided to lift the emergency order, he just did it, he didn’t ask for her advice (what would she know she’s just the chief medical officer with responsibility for Alberta’s pandemic response). She found out about it in the middle of a press conference.
Some people say Kenney did that because he was mad at her for making him delay opening Calgary and Brooks. I think he didn’t ask her because he didn’t want to hear her answer. “If I don’t ask you, then you can’t tell me no” is a very reckless way to manage our pandemic response.
Did you see Tyler Shandro throwing Dr. Deena Hinshaw under the bus — again — in the legislature? He got his facts wrong when he said 100 percent of workers in care homes work in only one facility now. Oops, not true, but it’s Dr. Hinshaw’s fault. Of course it is, if you happen to be Alberta’s health minister, who never accepts responsibility for his own mistakes, like that ugly driveway meltdown that can never be undone. Did she make him do that, too? Note to TS: act like a grown-up, even if you are not.
CallmeHal, I’m beginning to think this government is unhinged. Yesterday the environment minister and the culture minister issued a press releases celebrating Recreation and Parks Month and urging us to get out there an enjoy nature, while at the same time the environment minister is selling parkland and opening up crown land to coal mining. I guess what I’m really saying is no I didn’t see Shandro throw Dr Hinshaw under the bus again, but I can’t say I’m surprised because this government thinks it can get away with anything.
Perhaps “coal mining” is actually code for mining “rare earth minerals”, which could fetch a fortune, but will no doubt be sold off as “parks” for pennies., maybe even to a Chinese company, throwing away Alberta’s last hope of a financial future. I think mineral rights are the real story here. Why else would this be done so quickly during a pandemic? I’ve mentioned water before, but let me say that “rare earth minerals”, could line some pockets very quickly, better than gold in them hills!
They are up to something big with this one, selling what could be our biggest source of wealth ever, if only we knew. It will be too late. We’l be holding the bag, like the rubes we are, once again. Swiper no swiping!
You write “give him his due”? What exactly is he due?
I think Kenney was looking for a double digit bump in his approval ratings given how well Alberta did in addressing this virus. But as others have pointed out, the credit should go to Dr Hinshaw, AHS and the healthcare professionals and support staff, as well al the thousands of other people who’ve kept us going in these difficult circumstances.
The reason why his popularity did not increase is clear to me. Jason Kenney would not have agreed to any of the rules of lock down if oil was still at a high price. People know now, that the only reason he agreed is because the Federal Government took all the responsibility to keep us all afloat including the UCP party that did not wait to take advantage of everything that smelled like money. People, including the 48% that support him are starting to read the invisible truth.
Jason Kenney reluctantly agreed to do what he did only because he had no choice or better, he still did not have the power to implement what his real choice was.
I think that by now most of us that have a brain know who Jason Kenney really is and that is very simple – a selfish, egomaniac and unable to understand human beings with normal brain activity. This individual is willing to destroy anything for his brain washed ideology that apparently came from some God he believes in. He is a cult in himself along with the likes of Harper, Tyler Shandro and Sonya Savage.
Everything he does is always controversial or forced on us as some form of sacrifice we deserve. Typical attitude of those who believe that we are all sinful. Bullying is his normal state of mind. Spare the rod and spoil the child attitude is as clear as one can feel.
We on the other hand do not have the means or the will to battle to this extreme because we still believe that this is just an obstacle on our pseudo democratic way of life. Maybe what comes next might wake us up. To be honest I doubt it because human beings, in general, have to see it to believe it. Stability exists only in our minds due to decades of accidental peace. History repeats itself is not a motto, it is real.
Fact less rhetoric is not accidental, it is propaganda.
Corona Virus is not influenza, it is a new virus.
Carlos, good comments. I think Kenney is getting a lot of heat from his base about the economy and the fact the economic downturn was exacerbated by shutting down Alberta to slow the spread of covid-19.
Kenney isn’t making things easier on himself. First he says the coronavirus is just the flu, then he says he didn’t “lockdown” Alberta, instead Albertans voluntarily chose to shut down Alberta themselves (ie. not my fault). But if this is the flu why would Albertans react by shutting down the economy. They’d just rest in bed and take plenty of aspirin. Obviously there was a high level of government intervention that resulted in businesses closing, schools shutting down and people staying at home.
Another way of look at the stupidity of Kenney’s position is to ask: if Kenney’s government didn’t shut Alberta down, then why is Kenney’s government issuing strict instructions on who is going to open up and when? If Albertans voluntarily shut down the economy, then they can voluntarily reopen it, right?
It’s all bafflegab, not the rational thoughts of a competent leader.
But it is not “his due” because: “(to) give the devil his due is often said when you admit that someone you do not like or admire does have some good qualities”. While many elected officials are doing a good job I see no real solid or original good qualities like honest empathy from many other elected officials during all of this. I get it – there is no road map but do things that are genuinely kind or nice and put aside being partisan. There are those that seem to expect or act entitled to “get their due”. I think good qualities are innate and getting ones due from one’s actions is earned.
JW: Ah, I get your point, You’re absolutely right, when I first wrote that sentence it said “but still Albertans refuse to give him what he thinks is his due.” As I was went through the post to shorten it I deleted “what he thinks is”. I agree 100% with your comments, but I’ll have to leave the post unchanged because if I change it now anyone reading these comments won’t know what we’re talking about.
I hope readers will understand that (in my mind) Kenney is one of those politicians who acts like he’s entitled to get his due, when in fact the credit for pulling us through this crisis belongs to people like Dr Hinshaw and all the others working in healthcare, grocery stores, food banks and performing countless little acts of generosity and kindness to help their communities get through this.
Thank you
On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 19:52 Susan on the Soapbox wrote:
> susanonthesoapbox posted: ” He’s tried everything from rolling up his > shirtsleeves and pointing at graphs to quoting Franklin Roosevelt (“we have > nothing to fear but fear itself”), but still Albertans refuse to give him > his due. Jason Kenney’s pandemic performance g” >
Mike, you’re very welcome.
.. Kenney is attempting to reinvent Alberta. He has a to-do list which is astonishingly similar to Harper’s Firewall Letter / Manifesto. Just like Harper, its done almost daily to utilize the ‘water torture’ principle.. just keep drip dripping & wear out common sense, decency, alternate opinion, ethics. Watching from Ontario its quite visible – same old same old Jason Kenney.. hyper glib dogmatic idealogue. I predicted four bitter years for Albertans.. and one also cannot discount the loss of four years of Ms Notely in her prime. Then Albertans may choose to remediate that damage wrought by Jason Kenney Inc. What a dreadful equation. You simply must get the ‘conservative’ cretins out of public service, and perhaps more important, out of politics entirely. You will never have balance, honesty, ethics and a healthy province with such toxic partisans infecting it. See them as a disease and you will find the remedy.
Very well said diamondwalker. I didn’t realize you were in Ontario. We Albertans find ourselves in the peculiar position of saying even Ford is better than Kenney. That’s not a very high bar, is it.
When we’re not saying even Ford is better, we’re debating whether we should move to BC or stay and fight. The prospect of fighting such a toxic government is daunting, but the province will be in shambles if we don’t do something to slow down the UCP ideological machine.
Thank you.
Thank you Dale. Your comment came in the same day I received another “Susan, you’re a communist!” comment. I never post these ad hominem comments because responding to someone who attacks me, not my argument is a waste of time; but a pat on the back is always welcome :).
.. a quick update (per Twitter) – Chantel Hebert.. a rock solid journalist I hold in the highest regard.. says ‘Trump fans in Canada are all Conservatives’ .. others responding suggest Venn Diagrams of both entities overlap perfectly. Like it or not.. its essentially fact. Albertan’s replaced an NDP majority with a melange of Trump fans, the UCP.. and handed them a majority.. all under Jason Kenney. Most of my family thrives.. as I once did.. in Alberta. Do I believe a majority of Albertans are ‘Trump fans’ ? No.. but it really begs the question. And now we see the spectre rising of Kenney trying to subvert new Federal Gun Law.. claiming yesterday that hundreds of thousands of Albertans use firearms in their daily lives.. What ?? Assault Weapons to defend the farm.. or kill a deer ? You have a Premier who believes he can Firewall Alberta off from contemporay reality, as a hysterical fiefdom a la Stephen Harper, Tom Flanagan, Ken Boessenkool, Matt Wolf uber alles.. How their ‘vision’ differs from Saudi Arabia is an interesting question.. Any luck re ‘Conversion Therapy’ being buried alongside Asbestos & Snitch Lines ?
Diamondwalker, you don’t understand. I NEED my AR-15 to protect myself from DUCKS! They scare me! And sometimes they poop on my head!
As well, I find it a really relaxing way to spend an evening sitting on my front porch blasting those stupid birds out of the air. And as long as I wait until after supper most of my neighbours’ kids have gone in for the night. Those who haven’t usually go in shortly after anyway.