I watched Danielle Smith’s speech to her supporters at the UCP AGM and all I could think of was Salvador Dali’s painting of the clocks.
Time was melting, the landscape was warped.
Going backwards
Smith told the crowd that in the next Legislative session the Smith government will go backwards to fix the problems created by previous conservative governments (my words, not hers).
The government will go back:
- to 2019 so Smith can reverse the Kenney government decision to give free rein to auto insurance companies which allowed premiums to jump by 30%, and
- to 2008 so Smith can reverse the Klein government’s decision to centralize AHS (this will take 18 to 24 months and will create further instability in healthcare), and
- to the 1990s so Smith can reform the electricity market to bring down prices and rid it of “market manipulation” and other unsavoury practices that resulted when the Klein government deregulated it.
Don’t get me wrong, reducing costs to consumers and improving healthcare delivery are good things, but every time Smith says she’s going to fix something—Turkish pain meds for kids, the DynaLife labs fiasco spring to mind—it blows up in her face.
Wasting time (and money)
Smith vowed to continue the good fight. To stop the “powerful forces in this country” (the so-called NDP/Liberal coalition and eco-extreme dogmatists) who are determined to destroy Alberta’s economy and our way of life.
It’s unlikely that the “powerful forces” are quivering in their boots given the sorry performance of the War Rooms, the Allen Commission, the Manning Covid Inquiry, etc. To say nothing about the millions being wasted on Smith’s nation-wide campaign to push Albertans out of CPP, even Pierre Poilievre doesn’t support the idea.
Looking forward
Smith said this is “Alberta’s century.” Alberta will do so well in the future that millions of people will immigrate here.
She predicted that Alberta will grow to 10 million by 2050, making it Canada’s second largest province, (The government website puts the medium case population number at 7.1 million by 2051).
She told her supporters that the newcomers are “our people” and we should “reach out and welcome them.”
She also cautioned that this growth will require massive investments in infrastructure, not just schools and hospitals, but commuter rail links, links between the Calgary airport and downtown Calgary, passenger rail service to Canmore/Banff, and high-speed rail through the Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton corridor to accommodate the 6 to 7 million people who will eventually reside there.
So here’s the thing. The government website says 55% of this growth will come from international migration and 81% of this increase (6 to 7 million) will settle in urban centres, primarily along the Calgary, Red Deer-Edmonton corridor.
This creates two issues for the UCP.
First, as Lisa Young points out, the newcomers will not share “the UCP members’ pasty complexions.” Notwithstanding Smith telling the crowd they should welcome newcomers, the party passed resolutions that would ban race-based admissions to post-secondary institutions and would close all Equity Diversity and Inclusion offices on campus.
That’s not exactly welcoming, is it.
Second, if 81% of the newcomers settle in the Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton corridor, they’re more likely to vote with their progressive neighbours, you know, the people who ensured that the NDP took every seat in Edmonton and over half the seats in Calgary.
So where does this leave the UCP/TBA? Will they support Smith’s dream of an Alberta that opens its arms to international immigrants and invests piles of cash in the infrastructure necessary to accommodate them and us?
Who’s in charge
It all depends on who’s in charge.
On the eve of the UCP AGM, David Parker, the leader of TBA, said, “This weekend begins a new age in Alberta. The Age of Democracy. After this AGM, the grassroots of the UCP will be in charge. Those who do not listen to the grassroots or attempt to thwart their involvement in the decision making process, will be removed from power.”
In a democracy the people elect politicians to govern and vote them out if they’re not satisfied with how they’re being governed. In Parker’s world the TBA-endorsed candidates on the UCP Board will determine whether a democratically elected politician stays or goes.
Alberta is beginning to look like a Salvador Dali landscape. Time is warped and the ground is unstable.
If Smith bows to Parker and enacts legislation to ban race-based admissions and close Equity Diversity and Inclusion offices we can all kiss “Alberta’s century” goodbye.
Susan on the Soapbox 
Susan: Thanks for sharing another great blog. I do believe we are going in a backwards direction with Danielle Smith, the UCP and TBA. It seems like we are seeing Social Credit 2.0 spring up in Alberta. Nobody elected David Parker or the TBA, and they have a set agenda, and they are intent on pushing it upon Albertans. In 1971, after years of hard work and determination, Peter Lougheed and the Alberta PCs unseated the Social Credit Party, because he knew their backwards ideals would not help Alberta move in a proper direction forward. Danielle Smith has lofty ambitions, that are not aligned with reality. Instead of addressing the matters that need to be dealt with, such as homelessness in the major cities of Alberta, badly underfunded social programs, skyrocketing utility costs, healthcare issues, the needs of senior citizens, the public education issues, the environment, among other things, Danielle Smith is focusing on things that are not likely to materialize, because of the volatile nature of oil as a commodity. I’ll play some more fitting music. This is a song from The Cars, called Drive. It was written by the band’s lead singer, Ric Ocasek, who passed away, in his mid 70s, within the last three years.
Wow, Dwayne, you really nailed it with your comment and the song from The Cars. “Who’s gonna tell you when it’s too late?
Who’s gonna tell you things aren’t so great?”
As Don Braid said in his column, when Smith outlined her grand vision for the future she got polite applause, but when she mentioned mentioned protecting “parental rights” the crowd rose from their seats “with a mammoth mass cheer.”
If that “mammoth cheer” wasn’t a wake up call to the rest of Alberta I don’t know what is.
Here’s the link to Braid’s column https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-social-conservatives-complete-control-danielle-smith-party
Mammoths, as we know, became extinct.
Albertan, indeed! and we’re going to be following in their footsteps if we don’t get climate change under control.
Susan: Drive, by The Cars was recorded and released in 1984. I forgot to mention that.
Susan: Here is my second song pick. This is Hotei a guitarist from Japan, who now lives in England. His father is Korean, and his mother is Japanese. He is doing a live version of the John Lennon and Yoko Ono composition, Happy XMas War Is Over. In this performance, Joy To The World, and Jingle Bells are added in. I’ve been a fan of his for years.
Dwayne, thanks for this. It’s uplifting, just the refreshing change we need right now. 🙂
“Alberta’s century” is going to see the oil industry shrink and also the glaciers and rivers. Even if our population does not decrease due to our government’s bad policies, it is likely to be faced with water shortages in the south at least, plus more fires to fight all over.
Will there be enough water for 7 million people? Not if we have coal mines in the mountains poisoning our rivers.
Valerie Jobson: I agree with you. Those are realities, and oil price fluctuations are another issue. If oil prices collapse, this won’t help either. What are people going to come here for? Oil price slumps, and the UCP’s tax cuts will mean weakened public services, more cuts, and people will leave Alberta.
There’s a real reality check to every impediment you mention….but its the last one that keeps me awake at night. We desperately need to begin now to create the movement awake enough to prevent coal mining in our eastern slopes. Kevin Van Teagum explained that best during the last fight;
Our eastern slopes hold the spring melt, releasing the water slowly into our rivers. Coal mining has to strip the overburden (trees/flora) before proceeding. So not only is it a hog for water while the mine is in operation, but it creates slopes where the spring melt can happen real fast….causing floods in river vallies in the spring….but then drought in our rivers by the summer.
Once the glaciers are gone, and they are melting rapidly….all we have is the water tower of our mountains…and what snow falls in the high country in the winter. Extensive coal mining (which is one of the hidden benefits of a rapidly growing population) will leave us with neither glaciers nor verdant mountain slopes designed by nature to release ground water slowly.
Smith’s plan is actually an Extinction Fantasy. If she’s allowed to even begin to pursue it, we should ask our children’s forgiveness, because they will be joining the flood of climate refugees, looking for somewhere to escape what has devastated their homeland.
Thanks Ingamarie: my husband and I were just talking this morning about the looming threat of a water shortage. Our conversation was in the context of Trump winning the next election and the US moving into a full bore authoritarian state. As we know from Russia’s behavior authoritarians think nothing of invading neighbouring countries and taking their resources. The US is becoming desperately short of water, what’s to stop an authoritarian leader from coming across the border to claim ours. By the way, this isn’t as outlandish as it sounds. When we lived in the US an American told me they see Canada as a giant food locker, when the US runs out of supplies, they’ll just take ours. It spooked me at the time and that was well before Trump emerged on the scene.
Absolutely Susan….and the really scary thing for me about Americans coming north…is that they are likely to do so under the pretext of defending the rights of crackerboxes like Danielle against NDP Socialist like me.
Fascism isn’t a pretty thing…and its not communal at all. Umberto Eco did a pretty good job characterizing it in an essay in the 1995 June issue of the New York Review of Books. Back then I bet most of us thought he was talking about the past…not us and our petro entitlements.
Valerie, excellent points. I’ll note that both the Throne Speech and Smith’s speech made reference to Alberta’s strong fiscal future. This sentence that struck home: ” Let us leave future generations of Albertans a legacy of prosperity and opportunity built on a fiscal foundation as strong as our Rocky Mountains.” My first thought was the Rocky Mountains? The same Rockies that Smith (and Kenney before her) thought were fitting for coal mining operations. These people live in a bizarro world.
Susan: Wait until people do come after our water. Saskatchewan and Manitoba have a lot of it. There are water shortages in different parts of the world, including in the United States. This won’t be a good thing.
Dwayne, you said it. All we have to do is look at the water shortages in Arizona to see where this is going.
Yes and also take a look at the swimming pools they have.
Lots of concern there for their water I think LOL.
Well if Trump is president he will invade us and take whatever they want.
I would give him all the water, every single drop of our tailing ponds.
Susan: Here is my final song pick. This is from Procol Harum, and was recorded live in concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and The Da Camera Singers, live in Edmonton, Alberta, on November 18, 1971. It was written by Gary Brooker and Keith Reid. The song is All This And More. Gary Brooker passed away in 2022, at age 76, and Keith Reid, passed away this year at age 76. Guitarist Dave Ball, who passed away in 2015, at age 65, replaced Robin Trower in Procol Harum in 1971. Dave Ball was was only 21 when this album was recorded. The only surving member of this lineup is organist and harpsichord player, Chris Copping. Drummer B.J Wilson, and bassist Alan Cartwright also passed away. I remember reading someplace that people in Edmonton were wondering what was about to transpire here, because a rock band was coming to perform with the symphony orchestra. It didn’t seem right to them. This was before the days of social media and the internet. This album went on to sell so many copies. I do have this in my music collection. I did meet various past and present band members, including Gary Brooker, Keith Reid (who shared lyrical duties), and Dave Ball, and others.
Thanks for this Dwayne, I think your comment that the people in Edmonton thought it wasn’t right for a rock band to play in a symphony orchestra hall is a good analogy to what we’re seeing with the TBA take over of the UCP. Change is happening and it confuses and frightens them so they batten down the hatches and reject it. But as Ingamarie and other have pointed out, this change is happening whether they close their eyes to it or not, so wouldn’t it be better to figure out how to address it than trying burying their heads in the sand?
Kudos to you for listening to Danielle Smith. Did she talk about anything new?.. She basically is saying the conservative governments made mistakes!! Well we know that. I can speak to the health care aspect as I worked the front lines from 1986 until 2020 when I retired. So believe me when I say I know a thing or two first hand. How on earth can we trust a politician that back peddles all the time?
The only time we can turn back the clock is in the fall. Screwing with health care and going backwards is not going to help. Healthcare today is NOT the same as it was in 2008. All Smith is doing is moving things around on the checkerboard trying to buy votes so she can get elected again. She is clueless. Changing the system disrupts the system… and does NOT help people get well but only adds stress to an already stressed system….
Did Smith talk about innovations? In healthcare or anything?? The more I know about the UCP/Conservative/Wild Rose or whatever the branding they choose… is they really dont have a clue about anything and are only puppets of the ones with big wallets….
What a waste of space… Oh and she best leave my CPP alone!
As usual… just a rant. Thanks for reading
Mary Jane Borg
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Mary Jane: thanks for your comments about healthcare, As you said, 34 years on the front line gives you a realistic view of what can be done to improve healthcare delivery.
Sadly Smith didn’t say anything about innovations for healthcare. All she said was we’ll need more schools and hospitals to accommodate the explosion in population growth.
What worries me is her announcement that it will take 18 – 24 months for her government to decentralization AHS. I’ve been through many corporate reorganizations and nothing, absolutely nothing, is more detrimental to your ability to do your job properly. In the private sector these reorgs are done by trained professionals, I can’t imagine what a gong show it’s going to be as the politicians jockey to push more healthcare into their ridings in order to get more votes from their grateful constituents.
Oh and I wonder what happened to Dr John Cowell. You’ll recall Smith fired the entire AHS board, saying Cowell was going to fix AHS in 3 months. Hopefully he’s no long on the payroll.
Susan, It seems that the healthcare system is being traumatized and damaged once again by the UCP/PC team lead by Danielle Smith. It seems AHS is at fault. The AHS that the Previous UCP/PC governments created. And it goes back to the early 90’s if not before. In my opinion Danielle Smith and her band are pointing the finger at the victims here. It’s the victims fault, the creation of the super boards fault, the people who need healthcare is at fault, The federal government is at fault. The price of oil is at fault, etc. Lets increase the number of boards in healthcare seems to be the answer I am hearing… Really? Is dismantling the current system really a good idea in anyones book?
As a retired (34 years full time) frontline critical care healthcare worker I have first hand knowledge and experience of the horrors and the trauma that the UCP/PC governments have created.
Rebranding the healthcare system only causes more problems and does not solve them. It costs money! How about using the money that is being spent now on all the propaganda on something that will help the people on ‘both sides of the rail’, the healthcare worker and the patient.
To Daniel Smith and her band I would like to say when you are pointing a finger to blame the people, look at the three fingers pointing back at you!
Mary Jane and Ingamarie: excellent points. It’s nice to see the victims fighting back. In a recent story Heather Smith, president of the UNA asked the question: “How is this in any way going to reduce the times that people have to wait in emergencies because we don’t have the beds? We don’t have the beds because we don’t have the staff.” And of course we don’t have the staff because the government, for all its talk, isn’t hiring them. There’s no mention of bringing on extra beds/staff in the Plan to Blow up AHS, but there’s a lot of talk about creating layer upon layer of committees and secretariats and subcommittees and regional advisory committees, to manage the four silos these guys are determined to create. Here’s the link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/nurses-doctors-alberta-health-care-restructuring-1.7024460
Well said my friend. These folks love to politic, complain, play the blame game and come up with big pie in the sky ideas. What they don’t do very well is govern. And governance is something other than political grandstanding. It takes research, work, writing and re writing….
They don’t have the chops. Which is why Dynalife was such a disaster. Ideology works well on the campaign trail. It’s not so efficient at delivering the services our tax dollars pay for….and on every issue, they seem to be more than a little ‘behind the times’.
Ms Soapbox, I want to commend you for your sacrifice in listening to Daniellezebub spouting her nonsense and propaganda on behalf of those of us who could never stomach it. What a load of tripe. Thank you for putting up with it.
Jerry you said it. The trouble is the ‘propaganda’ machine seems to be creating a reality. Is it real? My day to day life does not reconcile with the world of TBA and the ‘nonsense’ as you describe it. Too much of this ‘nonsense’ has taken on scope and presence that this week seems overwhelming for me. Normally an optimist and ….a realist. I hear the positions taken as democracy and wonder about the divide created, the way some media speaks of all Albertans as though there is unity in support of this UCP policy. As I write this the CBC am radio news is outlining some of ‘cracks ‘ in the positions taken this past weekend at the UCP AGM. Is there enough reason to push against this government and somehow rebalance some direction. Yes, again Susan on the Soapbox creates analysis that adds some clarity and perhaps a means to give voice and create action to push back.
Jerrymacgp and Susan in Palliser: thanks. What was alarming was hearing the crowd’s vocal support of the extreme social conservative resolutions.
At first I hoped people like Cynthia Moore (the past party president) were right. She said, “The people at this convention are not at all representative of the party’s wider base.” But then I wondered why the moderates didn’t come out to defend their party from the TBA takeover. It’s not as if David Parker made it a secret that he was going to pack the Board with social conservatives. If the moderates aren’t prepared to fight for their party, Smith certainly won’t.
Susan you are right but in a way I am glad they are turning to the far right because when that explodes the party will be out of commission for a while. I am sure it will happen, just a question of time.
Unless I miss the mark, having sown the wind we are about to reap the whirlwind. Smith wants to remain Premier so she will do as she is told. This is all self inflicted.
Jaundiced Eye: that’s what Jared Wesley said when he commented on Lisa Young’s article. “The months ahead will be critical in determining whether Smith is willing or able to “moderate” her party.” The fact Wesley said “willing” or “able” speaks to Smith’s desire to stay in power as well has her ability to walk on the razor’s edge without being sliced to ribbons. Frankly I don’t think she could do it, even if she wanted to.
Ahh…..the myth of endless growth, set like a diamond in the dross of TBA’s right wing, convoy style ideas about democracy!!! Sounds like good theatre, if you like those 4 hour spectacles of endless armies ‘clashing by night’.
But one thing is clear: She’s telling a story. And everyone now, believes a good story is worth many pages of analysis, economic, demographic or climatic. People can get into a good story without having to do much reading…it can be repeated in memes and emojis and sent out into the stratosphere on a daily basis.
What it will not be able to do is end racism, global heating, the continued damage to our arable land, endless wars, or the destruction of our boreal by extractivism and extreme fire seasons. It’s a fantasy and fantasies may be fun…for awhile….but they don’t build prosperity or peace.
And Peace and Prosperity is what we need now. There is such a thing as too much immigration, and as a nation, we are already experiencing that. Sure Macdonalds appreceiates the low wage worker, as do our privatized long term care corporations…..but no governments, least of all the UCP, want to invest in the thousands of affordable housing we’d need to build. Growth is good for capitalists…but the ecosphere reaches a point where more growth chokes development.
As for food? Where that’s going to come from as we play a numbers game, designed to talk a lot of fools into leaving the best pension plan on earth, is anybodies guess. It doesn’t pay to farm sustainably in Alberta. While we welcome in the hundreds of thousands of desperate folk from our proxy wars…farms are being gobbled up by foreign corporations….and a few rich supporters of the UCP.
Perhaps its time we connected a few dots…never mind a few….a lot of dots. We have neither the infrastructure nor the land base to support 10 million people. And if they don’t have jobs that guarantee they contribute to the pension plan while making that barely living wage….the future of the Alberta Pension Plan looks bleak indeed.
Time for a reality check folks…..Danielle may well be smoking something….but even that new industry isn’t as profitable as promised.
Ingamarie: I agree 100% As you said, it’s all about telling a good story nowadays, preferably one that validates your racist, xenophobic, mysogynist, anti-LGBTQ2S beliefs.
Lately I’ve been hearing people say: “No one is going to tell me what to think!” Usually this is said to put down an expert or a vocal advocate espousing what is characterized as a progressive position. When my (usually) reasonable friend said that he was not going to let a 14 year old tell him what to think. He was talking about Greta Thunberg. I said, she wasn’t telling him what to think. She was exercising her right of free speech to tell people what the experts are saying about climate change. My friend didn’t say anything more on the topic but I was surprised that even he, my reasonable friend, interpreted Thunberg’s efforts to raise awareness as a personal attack.
I suppose this is another symptom of what happens when politics is transformed into a cultural war.
Perhaps its also what happens when the old get old without getting wise. There’s more authoritarian, father knows best in our culture than I think most of us realize, or want to have to deal with.
Too many men are still more likely to react to a smart woman with ‘who does she think she is?” than with ‘that’s an interesting perspective”.
Trust me. I know what I’m remembering….and its still here, eager to take back the mike.
Ingamarie: It’s funny but I was talking with my daughter about this over dinner. I said that Parker likes Danielle Smith and supported her in her bid for the leadership, but he liked Kenney as well in the beginning. It wasn’t until Kenney stopped dancing to Parker’s tun that Parker ousted him. My daughter predicts that if Smith doesn’t do Parker’s bidding her time as leader will be even shorter because as a she’s automatically lower in the hierarchy than Kenney was.
Parker may control Danielle…..but he thinks he does, and increasingly Albertans think he does. I’m not sure his power is as great as he may imagine however….following their convention a lot more Albertans know how wacky….and racist they are.
Now maybe racism is more prevalent in Alberta than I imagine…
But the issues Parker and his take back crowd want to push are trivial and anti-democratic. Book banning being a classic example…getting busy patrolling other people’s sexuality, restricting inclusion efforts………..these things might be fun for the religiously inclined bigots of the world…
But they aren’t important issues…….they are diversions from the important issues.
If the people in need of housing, living wages, affordable food realize that the UCP is on a social conversion mission……..will they continue to vote for them??? Women at least will be wising up I hope……..our schools are bursting at the seams and the pronouns of 1% of that population are the real problem????
I say GO PARKER…show us who you are. Bully more…..watching Danielle stand up for herself might be interesting.
Ingamarie, let me echo Carlos’ comment I agree with you 1000%!
We need to see the opportunities in the ucp turn to the radical right. And if that is where Albertans are determined to go….see that you have no debt if possible, transition if possible…stay off those jets south…….invest in this place where we all live…..and ride out the madness.
These wing nuts control us because we let them…….and maybe are so desperate for easy money we want to believe we can abscond with over half the CPP and see better dividends instead of more investment of ourpension money in fossil fool companies.
Fools and their money are soon parted. There are non fools in my family
Well said Ingamarie – 1000%
I’m absolutely delighted in the wake of the UCP Party Convention in Calgary this last weekend. The party delegates spoke loudly and passed all sorts of policy directives that will be evaluated and implemented (or not) in any number of ways going forward.
Now there is NO DOUBT as to the thinking and direction the UCP will take. Its all out, in black and white. Albertans who pay attention to such things have a clear, easily understood map as to what the UCP stands for and will proceed with. Delightfully, one will be able to hold Smith et al accountable to these resolutions.
The stink will not wipe clean.
Being fore-warned is fore-armed. David Parker and his TBA cadres are not boogeymen! They are however, organized and united. Nor will they be the final or for that matter, the only voice inside the inexecrable UCP party. Its the UCP donor class that counts – Dave and his wannabee brownshirts will be useful until they are not. I believe the whatever center in the UCP will not hold and all factors for the UCP to fracture are in place. Smith is not adroit enough to hold the party and I doubt there is anyone in the wings who can. Look at what happened to hapless Rick Orman – he tried to Lazurus himself as a policy peacemaker into a party that in no way or form resembles the PC machine he left more than a decade ago and ended up with spooted merengue all over his face. This UCP is not your daddy’s Progressive Conservative party folks – this weekend should have wiped that guttering dying hope from everyone’s minds.
I encourage all progressive Albertans to not be afraid, get organized and get off yer duffs and work hard for the values and principles you hold dear! You are running against brittle doctrinaire social and economic righties who laid out all their cray-cray for ya – How hard will those work water cooler/backyard barbeque discussions refuting choice UCP moonbat-crazy policy points be now? Walk in the park……
Albertans need to be presented with very stark political choices in the next provincial elections – and I’m sure 1965-era Social Credit era policies from the UCP will not hold buoy them to greater electoral success.
You are right of course…..although that word has been given a dirty reputation by the crew crafting fantasy island provinces this last weekend.
But all our superior intelligence and prognosticating is vain if your last appeal doesn’t hit home, Everyone capable of connecting the dots….AND including the reality of climate change in that emerging picture, needs to get busy, join a constituency association…work supporting the renewable sector of our economy, think hard and talk turkey about our actual growing food insecurity…
And above all, raise our reasonable and unintimidated voices every chance we get. And oh yes….pray we don’t get hit with another new virus or other kind of novel pandemic…while these know it all know nothings are in power.
I hear you Ingamarie – we act locally, effect change globally. I will not hand Danielle and her rubby UCP crew my despair or resignation.
Lee and Ingamarie: I really appreciate all the good ideas you bring to this conversation. Thank you!
Lee, these are excellent comments. Thank you. You mentioned Rick Orman. I saw two things in the media which I thought were telling. First Orman was Smith’s preferred choice for president, however he was defeated by David Parker’s preferred choice, Rick Smith. Second, one of the elements of Orman’s leadership campaign was the argument that the party should be loyal to Smith. Wile I don’t agree that political parties should be loyal to their leader come hell or high water, I do think it’s interesting that Orman campaigned on the “loyal to Danielle” plank and lost.
Both of these points would support the argument that the UCP has morphed into the TBA which is the Wildrose on steroids.
The TBA is kryptonite. It will destroy the UCP before the next election.
I shudder to think where its supporters will go and who they’ll elect to represent them, but we need to do everything we can to shore up democracy, civility, and the rule of law in this province while we still can.
‘Alberta is beginning to look like a Salvador Dali landscape. Time is warped and the ground is unstable.’
I much prefer Salvador Dali landscape. We are heading to look more like El Salvador but the country itself.
It is hard to see this Parker nut case being arrogant and the owner of Alberta. It is quite interesting that a group that has been pushing the UCP to extremes and sabotaging internal elections is now the saviour of Democracy! Yeah right. Get ready for the reality of that group. One just has to read their comments with magnifying glasses to realize what they exactly call Democracy. It is a bit like the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Carlos, I’d have to agree, given the choice I’ll take Salvador Dali over El Salvador.
You mentioned David Parker as the “owner” of Alberta. Seems to me he thinks he owns rural Alberta and he’s surprised he hasn’t been able to get a foothold in the cities. He came to Calgary a few months ago to head up a protest and was disappointed in the tiny turnout. I think he’s trying to downplay this rejection. Don Braid quotes Parker as saying: “Little-known fact, the population of Calgary + Edmonton does not even equal the population of rural Alberta. We are the majority.” Braid points out that Parker’s “fact” is false. The cities combined population is more than half the province whether you count the metro areas or just the the cities themselves.
Just wait until Parker finally figures out what’s in store for him and the TBA if Smith succeeds in filling the Calgary-Red Deer-Edmonton corridor with immigrants.
Sometimes it takes a little while for the penny to drop with these characters.
Thanks, Lee for a ‘call’ to go forward. That is the affirming response with a cry for engagement. Grateful to you and others who add to this discussion.
So many excellent comments & a great post (as usual):) The UCP convention did clarify that the UCP base appears to require ‘control’ to feel ‘safe, secure’. I feel for the children – they don’t get a vote but have to live with (under) the consequences of what so called thinking adults come up with. Which apparently is to obey the parents, never act/be anything other than straight white bread sexual.
I guess it is something of a change that Smith admits it was previous Conservative governments who created some policies that didn’t work so well. Usually the first words are ‘the NDP is responsible for this (fill in mess of choice here)’.
And I’ve had an idea to derail the UCP. It does involve actually consorting with them. What to do: everyone against these cockamamie policies & the TBA crowd joins the UCP as a card carrying, voting member. Then vote AGAINST the polices that we don’t want to see enacted. Horrifying as that might be – I must admit, the very idea that I’d voluntarily give the UCP my hard earned cash does horrify me – the end result may make it worth while. For instance, if nay sayers flood the UCP voting base, maybe our CPP will be left alone & the APP nonsense will die a deserved death.
Linda, it’s an interesting suggestion, but I’m with Lee on this one. I think that formally “consorting” with the UCP would translate into providing them with funds in the form of membership fees and information–we’d end up on their mailing lists and be counted as Alberta who support their cause.
I think there may be some ground to be gained by pointing out to anyone who will listen that:
(1) the TBA takeover of the UCP is now complete. Progressive conservatism is dead in Alberta. So if you call yourself a UCP supporter you may need to think again, and
(2) Danielle will be so busy either trying to avoid implementing TBA policies or trying to justify why she’s implementing them that she won’t be able to focus on the work of government.
Frankly this weekend is the start of another internecine war for the heart and soul of Alberta conservative, which, given all the challenges facing us, is the last thing we need right now
Hi Linda – respectfully I disagree.
Do not be tempted – No succor is to be given. No accommodation. Not a single penny. I refuse to perfect that awful, tawdry, tired-out dipsomaniac, sociopathic, flea-bitten dried out mean-as-a-dying-snake party.
I will do nothing to ameliorate from it within – If the UCP was on fire, I wouldn’t cross the street to p*ss it out.
Consider this – if the so called PC center of the UCP party can’t be arsed to show up and save their own shambolic sh*tshow of a party, why should I (or any other progressive Albertan) walk in like a fire-eyed Daniel into that mangey flea-bitten snarling lion pit and save it for them?
Let it go Linda, let it go snarlin’, a-limpin’ and a-mutterin’ into history’s good long night.
Remember, its just 6 seats to win majority in the next provincial election (providing the NDP can hold every seat). 6 seats! Take that as the mantra – 6 seats!
Lee, I agree and I love your mantra “6 seats!!!”
Hi Lee: I do hope that the UCP will end up as a dusty historical note, the sooner, the better. Unfortunately we are stuck with them for the next 3.5 years. Heaven knows what kind of rubble we’ll have to dig out from under by then.
Susan: In Alberta, things get stranger by the day.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/dr-verna-yiu-joins-epcor-board-of-directors
Sitting on a corporate board is a part-time gig, and she can probably continue to hold her post with the U of A. She clearly has governance experience. But I wonder if she has kept up her medical license … it’s not like she’s been practising.
Dwayne: jerrymacgp is right. When I worked in the private sector part of my responsibility as VP Legal, General Counsel was to work with the Board of Directors. We had 6 board meetings a year. The directors would fly into town the night before a board meeting, the executives would take them to dinner, we’d hold the board meeting the next morning, and committee meetings (if there were any) in the afternoon and by 4 in the afternoon everyone was back on their respective planes heading home. Not too onerous at all.
Having said that directors are liable for the mistakes of the company and if their directors & officers insurance doesn’t cover the liability, they’d be personally on the hook,
Anyway, I’m glad Verna Yiu landed on her feet after she was so shabbily treated by Danielle Smith.
Dr Yui does provide front line clinical care as a pediatric nephrologist.
Dawn, thanks for the additional information. Much appreciated!
Susan, it was Kenney who fired Dr. Yiu, probably trying to suck up to the extreme right for his leadership review.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/dr-verna-yiu-ahs-departure-1.6407676
I was amused that afterwards she would tweet from time to time with general observations about leadership which I felt tended to highlight Kenney’s inadequacies. Here are a couple:
https://nitter.net/dryiu_verna/status/1586771786569756672#m
https://nitter.net/dryiu_verna/status/1640036467002179584#m
Valerie: thanks for the correction. I thought David Shepherd, the NDP health critic, nailed it when he said “The dismissal of Dr. Yiu is an attempt to appease the extremists within the UCP and tempt them back into Jason Kenney’s camp.” How ironic that notwithstanding Kenney turning cartwheels for them, the extremists still tossed him out on his ear. And we’re going to see the same thing roll out, only more slowly with Danielle Smith. Touch times ahead!
Dear Ms Wright:
The Alberta ads were pulled here in Ontario, such a waste of money !!!
They were pointless.
Nobody who watched them could understand why the Alberta government was
asking Trudeau to do something about standardizing electricity or
whatever it was.
Why would the Feds be interested ?
Just reflecting on some of the comments.
Danny Girl is supposed to have studied economics, but, what economics ??
The Falkland Islands ?
If this was not so serious, it would make for a GREAT new series to take
on Saturday Night Live.
Sincerely.
Gord Yong-Peterboro
Gord you are not alone. Alberta is being subject to propaganda Nazi type bombardment with of course the well known ‘Fake it until you make it’.
It is hard to witness flat earthers trying to run a province that of course is flat to them and so they have been trying to find the end of it. I wished they would and throw themselves off the cliff because they are absolutely useless.
As a Canadian from Alberta, it is not hard to believe what people think of this province and its people right now but even I no longer know what to think, other than the fact that our river is already polluted by the tailing ponds and we are zombies in waiting. Lots of them.
Furthermore it seems we belong to the Trump species branch and so I think we can consider ourselves a new species ‘Albertensis maga-litics’.
It is embarrassing what is going on in this province.
By the way if you do not know we are no longer a democratic province, we now have a tsar named Parker and we are all waiting to see what he decides to do with his subjects. They are always extremely mad and they love bullying as a sport. So I am a bit concerned and I have tried to become an internal refugee but because I cannot afford rents anymore I stayed put and I am waiting to see if this is going to stay calm or if eventually we all need baseball bats.
Hi Ms Wright:
So we have heard here in Ontario, about your new Tsar out there.
Always nice to have some to shift the blame when things go sideways.
And, things are not much better.
Dougie Trump had to rescind the stealing from the Environmental
Greenbelt that was to go to his DEEP pocket money buddies for new
subdivisionsin an environmental swamp land
https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/doug-ford-cancels-controversial-8-28-billion-greenbelt-land-swap-it-was-a-mistake/article_68bb891b-f18f-5d0c-940f-b3be7c1ebdfb.html#:~:text=Doug%20Ford%20cancels%20controversial%20%248.28-billion%20Greenbe
Wonderful stuff.
Pretty soon, a single carrot will cost $5 a bunch of 6 will be
$30-whatever all because, the rich loam farm land got buried by a
$2.5-million houses.
Hmmmmmm.
Geologists here in Ontario picked up a minor earthquake in Calgary,
centered in Eden Brook Cemetery…………….probably my dad’s lonnnng
time goooooood friend Ernest C. Manning.
Probably on of T H E A L L time great Premiers, with Tommy Douglas
coming in a distant second.
T H E M O S T worrisome thing now, is , that, the Americans are going
to have a President sitting in Rykers Island Minimum Security Jail. and,
governing the country from the pantry there.
If things are screwed backward, now, then they will R E A L L Y be
screwed backwards this time next year.
YIKES !!!!
BTW: The Feds are still wanting to build a “high speed rail service”
from Ottawa/Montreal through Peterborough and wherever.
This has been on the go since Dean DelMastro want to fly
promotional pizzas here for the P.C.’s to get this rail built
here…….that was, 12-whatever years ago.
We told him and others since, that its N O T possible.
There is 50-whatever miles from Tweed, to just short of
Smith’s Falls, that is rock-n-swamp-rock-n-swamp, and, 50-whatever acres
of quicksand in a number
of places along there.
Indeed, somewhere along there, the C.P.R. had to sink a
derelict locomotive in 1885, in order to open the line !!!
Hmmmmmmmm.
The C.P.R. built a line in 1912 with a very, very god
idea……..spent the equivalent of about $1.5-million to move grain
from Port McNicholl to Montreal via Lindsay/Peterborough.
The dumb fools didn’t upgrade the line from Tweed to Smith’s falls.
In 1914, they spent another about $1.5-millions on a detour
from just west of Smith’s Falls to the lakefront………near $5-million
in today’s money for two rail lines.
D U M B !!
Have a great week.
Kindly.
Gord-Peterboro
r
Carlos: Look at this latest development from the UCP. Democracy obviously doesn’t matter to the UCP.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/new-bill-would-halt-ethics-investigations-of-politicians-during-election-campaigns-1.7024473
Dwayne another joke but here is another one for you
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/11/09/Alberta-Carbon-Tax-Scheme-Unfair-Sham/
I realize your comments are about Alberta, but, here is another worry
for you, your family, Alberta, and, Edmonton Calgary.and everywhere.
A volunteer of of our online history resource group for
Peterborough-n-area, has a family member living and teaching in the US.
They are what the Americans call a “Resident Alien”………gotta love
that term, and, yet, there is N O evidence of extra-terrestrial life
at their house.
Got there on a scholarship and a fellowship, neither of which were
campaigned for, but, given ….very nice. Lonng story on that, which I
have shortened for this note.
Their colleague, is an ardent Reptile [Republican] and Trumpster, told
them the other week to go back to Canada.
NOT politely for a so-called tenured professor at a university.
Down right rude.
As blunt as that.
It gets worse.
They are desperately trying to get out of their teaching agreements and
get back to Kingston, or, Peterborough, or a couple of other family
related towns.
This is because, they took some of their top class to the Reptile
Party’s meeting of candidates.
Its 95% given that there was and still is with 20% rowdies, [80% of the
Reptiles are do-nothings] in the Reptile Party, who are promoting THE
DONALD as a martyr.
Indeed, from what was learned at that Reptile candidate meeting, that
THE DONALD has 85%-more money for campaigns, than the combined
candidates they heard.
Chris Christie is in the top, followed by Haley, but, fortunately, the
80% do-nothings got scared of this chap with ties to Bombay, and,
working to derail him because of
his family ties with India which has turned on America.
Haley of course is also with Bombay-ties, but, she is N O T radical,
more towards the center.
This I assure you is N OT fokelore.
Their class came away frightened which seems to be the basis of them
being told to get out.
It gets worse.
You may check for yourself, but, there was an ever so slight uptick in
the number of Reptiles voted-in in the “mid-terms”……..many of those
were in such offices
as governors, and, other state high-end officials.
Those, could and likely will turn on Canada and Canadian provinces.
Remember that map of the connecting hydro systems between the Canadian
provinces and the American states that I sent a few e-mails ago???
Am I hearing a toilet flush on those hydro agreements ?
AND, if not the hydro interconnection agreements, then there is at least
a 1000-plus more such agreements on everything from railways, airlines,
and who knows what ?
Maybe the toilet flush noise is A L L these agreements going down.
Sorrrrrrrrrrrrry, but I’m scared, and, do N OT mind admitting, and, so
are my contacts in our online group.
You and Alberta need to be scared too, if THE DONALD gets elected while
in Rkyers Island NY, or Jessup-Federal in Georgia.
He’ll pardon himself, and/or the 20% rowdies will mount an armed assault
to get him out.
Gord: your story reminded me of a similar experience our family had in the US. We moved down there in 2000 and thought we were going to stay there. We got our citizenship in 2007 and told a friend we were not American citizens and she said, you’ll never be real Americans because you weren’t born here. Made me wonder what she thought about non-white Americans who were naturalized citizens or those who were descended from people they’d dragged over here in slave boats. .
Carlos, your comment to Gord reminded me of a quote that appeared in the Edmonton Journal story about the APP/CPP telephone townhall meeting. One caller said this debate is asking us to consider ourselves Albertans first and Canadians second, she pointed out many of us see it the other way around. We’re Canadians first and Albertans second. I know I certainly see it that way. My family and I have lived in Saskatchewan, BC, Ontario and Alberta. I identify as a Canadian first, and an Albertan second. Although at this rate the time may come when I’ll move out of Alberta and stop identifying as an Albertan at all.
Gord: I’m glad to hear that the ads were pulled out east. As you said, what a colossal waste of money. As to your question about what Smith studied in university, whatever it was, it’s all coloured by her ideological beliefs, at one time she was a libertarian, although I’m not sure what she she believes anymore. I suspect she’ll go with the flow if it keeps her in power.
Some reasons for hope:
Good opposition:
https://nitter.net/JanisIrwin/status/1721696412923203643#m
@TheRealDKGray has started something that seems to be taking off, to talk public policy without allowing propaganda to intrude:
https://citizensresearchforum.com/
People stepping up on specific issues:
https://nitter.net/CorbLund/status/1721606004494716995#m
https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/mobile/video?clipId=2792868&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fedmonton.ctvnews.ca%2Falberta-primetime
Valerie: thanks for sharing these reasons to be optimistic. Much appreciated!
Valerie: Thank you for posting those links. Especially the DK Gray one. He’s not only a hoot but a knowledgeable firecracker – just the kind of guy we need.
It is wonderful to hear your thoughts on our authoritarian government. I have recently read about the Wilberforce Project which has also staked a claim to our “democracy”. They are putting forth candidates to run in elections which is wise if it weren’t for their anti-abortion stance. They are bringing Ben Shapiro from far right wing politics in the states to Alberta. I fear we are going down the MAGA slope at a frightening pace!
Cheryl Gairns: I share your concern that we’re sliding down the MAGA slope. I was talking to someone who’d moved to Canada from the US 5 years ago. She and her husband decided that they could no longer live in the US because it was on the road to becoming a “diminished democracy.” They’re both highly educated professionals. We’re lucky to get them and I think we’ll be seeing more of this in the future as thoughtful Americans decide they’ve had enough.
I don’t get it. Daneille Smith is a MAGA Republican and separatist at heart. She’s a breaker, not a builder. So what possessed her to do something constructive for ordinary Albertans?
Limiting insurance-premium increases? Reforming the broken electricity market? What the fff… fennec is Smith up to? She’s hurting corporations, not ordinary people!
Ohhh, right. Her neighbours musta complained about car insurance and electricity bills. Maybe she got a good look at a recent electric bill for her railcar café. Well, everyone who knows ‘em both agrees Smith is a much nicer person than Jason Kenney. I guess Danielle just wanted to do something nice for her neighbours. How much “nice” she’ll do we’ll have to wait and see.
And of course she’s making up for it by destroying the only good thing the Old Tories did in Oilberduh (they did it more or less by accident, but whatever). AHS has been the most efficient, least-top heavy provincial health agency in the country. Of COURSE Smith is gonna wreck it! The most frightening part is she’s given herself a veto over anything the doctors and chief medical officers of health might decide. No more mask mandates, yaayy! Right, Danielle?
I wonder how David Parker and his “I’m a victim” Parkerites will react when local hospitals (1) don’t get to make decisions after all, and (2) lose what few doctors they have left.
Mike J Danysh: I had exactly the same thought: How will David Parker and his “I’m a victim” Parkerites (loved that term) react when their local hospitals still can’t decide anything (there’s a reason why they’re called Regional ADVISORY commitees) and more and more doctors pack it in and say goodbye to rural Alberta because they’re sick and tired of trying to get decisions out of the multiple additional layers of bureaucracy this loopy government has created. The next time Smith’s UCP government says it’s cutting red tape we should give them a giant raspberry!
Susan I admire your sense of respect. I unfortunately have no respect AT ALL for these people.
A giant Raspberry?
hmmm not me SORRY – I would have a much better gift.
Susan: Here is another interesting development in Alberta. It’s another blow to our democracy by the UCP. What are your thoughts on this?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/new-bill-would-halt-ethics-investigations-of-politicians-during-election-campaigns-1.7024473
The radical Trump like sick ideology continues by big ego Pierre Poilievre.
https://pressprogress.ca/pierre-poilievre-under-fire-after-video-surfaces-of-homophobic-and-transphobic-speech/
Hey if you cannot win following the rules then just force it – that is Danielle Smith attitude as well as her far right goons.
https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2023/11/10/alberta-cpp-exit-panel-argues-with-callers-tries-to-persuade-naysayers-at-town-hall/
Trump the Hero of the Republican party just said that if he wins again he will use the FBI to get his political opponents. No wonder he loves Putin and the other pudding like guy in North Korea.
Amazingly that is what more than half Americans want.
I rest my case and I suggest Daniella to join his team because I am sure she is salivating at this.
I think that we all know more or less what all of this is going to end at, and the scary part is that people seem to really want to end life as we know it to ideologize this kind of lunacy.
What has happened to all of us. The reason is this rot political class that has to be removed or we all perish.
Carlos, it does take your breath away doesn’t it, that a majority of Americans would support Trump who’s made it clear he’s going to turn the US into an authoritarian state. I suspect they don’t understand that if Trump can turn the FBI against his political opponents, he can also turn them against the people whether they voted for him or not. No one is safe.
With respect to your very last sentence, I agree that the political rot has to be removed, but I also think the people who support such rot need to understand what this garbage really means and how it will hurt them, not help them.
With respect to your very last sentence, I agree that the political rot has to be removed, but I also think the people who support such rot need to understand what this garbage really means and how it will hurt them, not help them.’
I could not agree more Susan. What I am not sure is whether or not that is possible. When I see people believing in the weirdest conspiracy theories I feel this is just more of a cult type group of people and that is not changeable by regular conversation.
When I see our premier looking forward to meet a man like Tucker Carlson, makes me sick and worried.
Read an article this morning on #3 of the public town halls regarding the creation of an APP. No doubt said article will be touted as biased, but it pointed out that despite saying they were ‘impartial’ that panel members argued with any town hall caller who was against the formation of an APP. The article also noted that this panel is costing the Alberta taxpayer $7.5 million – good use of our money, Danielle (sarcasm in case anyone was wondering). Also said town halls apparently only will consider comments regarding the Lifeworks report, which has yet to be found in any way congruent with actual reality. And does anyone else wonder why the UCP is going ahead with a motion of affirm how an APP would be created even before said panel actually presents its ‘findings’ – no doubt, they’ll claim a robust support from the general populace, since obviously any naysayers don’t think ‘the right way’ so disregard that.
As for the claim Albertans pay in more than they get, given that each individual’s eventual CPP is based on number of years paid into the system & actual amounts paid in I hardly find it relevant that ‘Albertans pay more’. If they pay more, they will eventually receive more as ‘the rules’ apply the same to everyone. Plus, what is this belief that those currently working in Alberta will retire in Alberta? What happens if they move to another province/territory in Canada? Right now if they do they still get whatever they are entitled to in CPP benefits. Same may not hold true of any replacement such as an APP, especially given the governments inability to keep their meddling paws off the pile of luscious money – for examples of how that turns out, I present the Heritage Trust Fund.
Linda, these are excellent questions which (I’m sure) the Dinning panel will brush off. You made a really telling comment: that the naysayers who don’t “think the right way” will be disregarded. It reminded me how places like Putin’s Russia pretend to engage with the public, they hae “democratic elections” for example, and lo and behold Putin always wins. So far Smith’s public consultation has been nothing but an effort to push the APP, any pushback is met with hostility or disregarded. I can’t wait to see how they react to the referendum which is supposed to be based on the real number. Various experts have said that if Alberta’s share of the CPP pie is lower than what LifeWorks said it was going to be, then all the so-called benefits disappear, but the risks continue or increase.
Maybe Smith will manufacture another crisis so she won’t have to go to a referendum on this one.
I’ll tell you, living in Alberta is like living with a 2 year old who constantly has temper tantrums.
Hi Linda. I can’t say I’m surprised the town hall “consultations” are as biased and slanted as the guv’mint’s own APP web site. The only real surprise is how many Old Tories have been winkled out of their shells to appear on Danielle’s behalf.
As for the “findings”—what did you expect? The LifeWorks report was full of inflated estimates, carefully weasel-worded so the—unknown!—author could say, “Well, I warned you it wasn’t complete.”
As an aside, I’d bet a month’s pension that UCP supporters have been flooding that guv’mint survey thing with “yes please take my pension” entries since it opened. The few of us who bothered to tell them “Hell no you CANNOT have my pension!” will be swamped out.
Logic has no appeal to Danielle Smith and her fanboys, and even less to David Parker’s rage farmers. The fact that everybody pays a percentage into CPP, and gets benefits in proportion, has no appeal to those victim-wannabes. (Ironically, Alberta’s high wages since Ralph Klein’s overblown construction boom—2004-08, aka “the Crazy Years” means Albertans paid LESS into CPP relative to other Canadians. CPP contributions are capped at a year-specific dollar amount, leaving pay above that amount untaxed.)
The fix was in before the town halls were announced. Long before, in fact. This whole sorry excuse for a PR campaign is the logical inevitable result of the Free Alberta Strategy document. Nobody in his right mind believed this would be an honest and open discussion.
(Editing footnote: that word “logical” was supposed to have a line through it. Nothing about the Alberta Pension Scam is logical.)
Look at this article – these are statistics from the government of Canada themselves.
This has been repeating since 1990 at least.
What has the government done? NOTHING.
Either Conservative or Liberal nothing has been changed.
So the question is why publish this when the objective of Neo-Liberalism is exactly the destruction of the middle class?
Personally I am just surprised how fast this happened.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/statscan-incomes-report-1.7025113
Here’s the only explanation I’ve found of how LifeWorks, at the behest I don’t doubt of the Free Alberta Fantasists, calculated that $334B chunk of the CPP pie. Seems they simply left out all benefits already paid out to Albertans.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2281001539525
Honestly, did these UCP/FAF idiots really think nobody would notice?
Mike, I was wondering just how LifeWorks came up with $334 billion. IF one takes the entire working age population of Alberta between age 18-64 which is some 2,880,764 individuals, multiply that by the 2023 maximum CPP contribution of $7,509 (this is both employee plus employer contributions, a single rate is $3,754 & I rounded up) AND multiply that by 15 years one gets roughly $324 billion dollars. This presumes every single Alberta worker contributed ‘the maximum’ per year & is using the maximum contribution rate for 2023. BTW, median working age of Albertans is 38.1 years as of 2022 so there is already a considerable bias in the LifeWorks numbers, since obviously an 18 year old hasn’t yet worked 15 years whereas a 64 year old has likely worked 35-40 years. Plus ‘everyone’ gets to pay ‘the maximum’ because ‘everyone’ earns at least $67,000 or more so they pay ‘the maximum’ CPP contribution. I figured what the heck, let’s go for the absolute best possible outcome & by using the 2023 maximum contribution rate throw in some investment growth to boot. So using this hopium scenario plus adding a nice little $10 billion ‘top up’ bonus yes, Alberta would be entitled to $334 billion from the CPP.
An actual reasonable calculation of what Alberta would be ‘entitled to’ is to take all working Albertans, get their individual contributions to CPP while working in Alberta added together, double it for the employer paid share where applicable & add in a growth rate based on CPP’s own posted ROI over the median number of years of contributions for said workers. Which for the sake of argument say is 20 years. 18 plus 20 is 38, Alberta’s median worker age is 38.1 so 20 years seems reasonable. This of course would be a rather more challenging calculation, but presumably income tax returns would provide the relevant information for all those Alberta workers, including the actual years they worked/lived in Alberta. Get those super computers to work with a program to mine that data & come up with an actual based on reality number. Who knows? It might actually support that $334 billion dollar ask, although I for one would be astonished if it did.
Well here is clearly explained
https://albertapolitics.ca/2023/11/danielle-smith-and-tucker-carlson-four-reasons-the-alberta-premier-will-join-the-far-right-american-bloviator-on-stage/