Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy Kwanza!
However you celebrate the season, the Soapbox family would like to wish you and yours a safe and happy holiday. All the best to you in 2025.
And, in keeping with tradition, here’s a picture of Rudy under our Christmas tree. He’s seven and can’t wait to gobble up that treat that’s just out of the frame.
See you next year,
Susan
I swore I was going to put politics aside in the run up to Christmas, but when the latest screed from Free Alberta Strategy dropped into my inbox, I had to respond.
You’ll recall that the Smith government is trying to implement as much of the Free Alberta Strategy as possible. One of the pillars of this strategy is to take Alberta out of CPP.
The Smith government commissioned LifeWorks to calculate how much of the CPP assets Alberta would receive if it exited CPP.
LifeWorks determined that Alberta’s share was $334 billion or 53%.
U of C economist, Trevor Tombe, reviewed LifeWorks’ report and concluded Alberta’s share would range from a low of 16% ($100B) to a high of 25% ($150B) and his preferred estimate was 20%.
The matter was referred to Canada’s Chief Actuary who rejected Alberta’s 53% number, setting out a position that “is consistent with the findings of the IAP and the method presented in Dr. Tombe’s paper.”
In other words, the most Alberta could expect is 25%. (Well done, Trevor!).
The Smith government is miffed with the Chief Actuary’s report because “it did not contain a number or even a formula for calculating a number.”
Tombe points out the dollar amount would depend on the year of withdrawal, but “we should have in mind not 334 billion, but something like 120-150 billion.”*
Also the Chief Actuary’s analysis is clear and supports the calculation of 20 to 25%.
The issue here isn’t that the Chief Actuary didn’t provide a number, it’s that the Chief Actuary rejected Smith’s assertion that Alberta would get 53% of the assets if it exited CPP.
So now the ball is back in Smith’s court. What’s she going to do about it?
I’m betting she does nothing.
Why?
Because based on federal polling numbers it’s highly likely that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives will boot Trudeau’s Liberals out of Ottawa.
Poilievre is on record saying he does not support “anyone” (this means you Alberta) pulling out of CPP. His exact words were: “We will not stand by as anyone seeks to weaken pensions and reduce the retirement income of Canadians.”
In other words, Alberta is going nowhere. And Smith knows it.
Furthermore, if Poilievre will not stand for Alberta exiting CPP, how do you think he’ll react if Alberta (the “economic engine of Canada”) tries to pull out of Confederation?
Do the math.
*See Trevor Tombe’s twitter account @trevortombe for more details.
Alberta moved one step closer to becoming a banana republic this week.
Premier Smith announced she will use the Sovereignty Act to combat the federal government’s cap on emissions by putting forward a motion that will give her government more control over energy companies. Smith is proposing legislation and regulations that will:
Why is she doing this?
Smith insists that the legislation imposing the emissions cap (even as amended to comply with the Supreme Court’s advice) still violates provincial jurisdiction. She’s taking a reference case to court to see if she’s right. And that’s fine.
The reference case should have been sufficient, but Smith went further. She’s bringing forward this draconian legislation under the Sovereignty Act.
To what purpose? Smith says she’s protecting the energy companies by seizing their GHG emissions data and reporting it on their behalf. These are multibillion dollar companies, I’m fairly certain they can do this for themselves.
At what cost? How many civil servants will Smith need to add to gather an energy company’s GHG data, to analyse it and aggregate it and feed it back to the public? To figure out what the disclosure should be before they feed it to the feds? To ensure the disclosure aligns with what the energy company is telling its international regulators and investors? To sign off on the disclosure in time to allow companies to meet their securities filing deadlines? Your guess is as good as mine.
How confident will energy companies and their investors be once Danielle Smith and Brian Jean and Rebecca Schulz and Rob Anderson and God knows who else start telling them how to run this part of their business?
And how effective will any of this be in stopping the feds from implementing the cap on emissions?
Smith says, “Companies should look at this and thank us for this, for being willing to protect them from federal government overreach. We’re anticipating that this should be welcomed by the energy sector.”
Really Danielle? I wouldn’t bank on it.
The election of Donald Trump on Nov 5 left me feeling numb. Why? Because it confirmed my worst fears about the majority of Americans.
Over the coming weeks we’ll see many articles explaining what happen, why it happened, and who’s to blame, but one of the most insightful pieces I’ve seen is Dr Melanee Thomas’s interview on The Ryan Jesperson Show.
Dr Thomas said vote choice is a complicated matter. She pointed out that economic voting (which always punishes the incumbent), partisanship, and other factors influence the outcome, but that it’s impossible to understand what happened in the Trump/Harris election without understanding the role of race and racism and sexism.*
She acknowledged that many people refuse to believe this to be the case.
Until Nov 5, I was one of those people. I believed the world was a better, more egalitarian place than it was many years ago and that today merit counted more than the colour of someone’s skin or their gender.
You’d think after living in the US for seven years, I would have known better.
Our family resided in the US from 2000 to 2007 in Pennsylvania which. at that time, was a Democratic state.
We had a lovely house in a lovely neighbourhood and many well educated American friends. Naïvely, we believed that the occasional weird conversations we’d had with our friends were aberrations.
Weird conversations like the one with:
Dr William Darity of Duke University said the predominant vote for Mr Trump was from white men and white women and this indicated that race is fundamental to why a black woman was trounced by a convicted white criminal.
Dr Darity concluded: “This election reveals what America has long been.”**
Having spend seven years in one of the more enlightened states in the USA, I was deeply saddened to discover than after 24 years, Drs Thomas and Darity were right.
Will we never learn?
*In particular, Dr Thomas cites “hostile sexism” which perceives power relations between men and women as a zero sum game (ie. men fall behind if women get ahead).
**Globe and Mail, Nov 9, 2024, A10
The US election is like a train wreck, it’s impossible to tear your eyes away.
But we made a conscious effort not to get sucked into the maelstrom. There’s nothing we can do to influence the outcome and we have our own issues right here in Alberta and Canada that need our attention
That worked until Oct 30 when Mr Soapbox received an email from the Orange Oompa Loompa himself. Trump.
The subject line was: “I’m not supposed to share this with you.” Oooh, a secret!
Trump sent Roy his team’s final PATH TO VICTORY memo because “I know I can trust you to keep it confidential.” Wow! Roy’s part of Trump’s inner circle!
The memo, entitled SECURE MEMO FROM TRUMP, sets out a 3 step plan:
What can I say, it’s a game-changing strategy. Kudo’s to Trump’s brain trust.
Then Trump asked Roy to donate $6.
The confidential Trump memo was followed by a flurry of emails from not-so-prominent Republicans.
Lisa McClain, congresswoman from Michigan (and a self described pro-life, pro-Trump, Catholic politician) said her state will determine the election. She praised Roy as a patriot and said he should know the truth: the Democrats crushed jobs, the middle class, and cities, to make a quick buck. All Roy had to do was donate to the Trump campaign and “we will finally rid our country of the Democrat party once and for all.
Autocracy? Sure, why not?
Elise Stefanik, congresswoman from New York state linked Biden’s “garbage” comment with Hillary’s “deplorables” comment and said no matter what they call us, Roy, as one of the 75 million patriots, should donate to the greatest political movement in history and donate.
Gavin Wax, the 30 year old president of the New York Republican Club told Roy not to believe the Kamala bump. The fact Harris is “SURGING” in the polls and Trump will be down by 2, 4, 6, or even 8 is “NORMAL.” He warned Roy the Left Media will lie and say Trump can never RECOVER.
Not true, said Gavin, then he asked Roy to donate.
Is there a reason why these people talk in CAPITALS???
Then, on Nov 2, Roy heard from the Orange Oompa Loompa again.
The subject line was: 3 days until victory!
Trump set out 3 reasons to donate $3: (1) to send a get-out-the-vote message, (2) to fund the final ad blitz and (3) to break every fundraising record. This must have been a very important message because there were exclamation points all over the place!
Then the final sweetener. There was a “bonus reason” to donate. A donation “will automatically enter you in the contest to win the only SIGNED GOLD DARK MAGA HAT!”
A signed hat? Cool!
What the hell is going on?
We have questions, lots of questions.
For starters: how did Trump and his acolytes from New York, Michigan, and God knows where, get Roy’s email address?
We lived in the US from 2000 to 2007. We were citizens for a brief time during which we were registered Democrats and voted accordingly. We returned home and are no longer American citizens, we don’t reside in the US and we’d vote for a tree stump before we voted for a Republican. So tell me, how did Trump’s team get their grubby little paws on Roy’s email address?
And another thing, don’t American political parties spend billions on sophisticated computer programs that can identify potential supporters based on the magazines they read and the burgers they eat? Even a cursory glance at Roy’s data (he doesn’t belong to the NRA) would tell Trump he’s not their guy.
Or is it simply this: In the dying days of the US election the Republican’s strategy is falling apart.*
Like I said, we’re fed up to the teeth with the US Election, but a part of me says that despite all the crap everyone has had to endure, it just might turn out all right.
*Recently, they accused 55 Benedictine nuns in Erie, Pennsylvania—all registered voters—of voter fraud.
”[These changes] are good for municipalities, good for voters, good for Albertans.” – Ric McIver, minister of Municipal Affairs with respect to Bill 20.
How do they do it?
How can a politician say Bill 20 will strengthen democracy when in fact it does the opposite?
Shall we count the ways?
The purpose of Bill 20
Governments pass legislation to remedy a problem. In this case Ric McIver, minister of Municipal Affairs, says Bill 20 will boost transparency, accountability and trust in local elections.
OK, so the problem the UCP is trying to fix is a lack of transparency, accountability and trust in local elections, right?
While Bill 20 imposes donation limits—individuals, corporations and unions are capped at $5000/year, it also permits the creation of local political parties thereby creating a new way to inject even more big money to local politics.
If Bill 20 was truly focused on transparency, it would have required candidates to disclose their donors and the value of their contributions before election day, not months after the fact.
Better yet, if the UCP was serious about strengthening democracy it would have gone back to the NDP position and banned contributions from corporations and unions and limited altogether.
Local political parties
McIver says Bill 20 is good for Albertans; however one of its key elements, the creation of local political parties, is restricted to Calgary and Edmonton. If local political parties are a good thing how come hundreds of Alberta municipalities are not allowed to have them?
According to McIver that’s because: “We think the most shining and bright examples of where political party activity was already taking place was in the municipal elections of Calgary and Edmonton, so we chose that would be where we start.”
If this nascent political party activity was a concern, Bill 20 could have banned it instead of giving it the government’s blessing.
I suspect the reason why Edmonton and Calgary were singled out is that unlike other municipalities, all of Edmonton and a good chunk of Calgary voted against the UCP in the last election. And the UCP would like a few sympathetic souls looking out for the province’s interests at the municipal level.
About those electronic vote tabulators
Bill 20 requires the municipalities to replace their electronic vote tabulators with pencil-and-paper ballots.
Why?
According to the UCP MLA Mrs Johnson, voters just don’t trust them (notwithstanding the findings of a UCP survey that found 36% of Albertas wanted them removed, but the remaining 64% weren’t fussed). In any event the UCP government wants them gone. As Mrs Johnson put it, we need to be protected against hackers and AI.
When she was asked whether a hacker could hack a voting machine not connected to the internet, she said she didn’t know, but suggested the Def Con convention was somehow relevant. She never did explain how AI could interfere with the ballot counting process.
Nevertheless, something about electronic vote tabulators scares the bejesus out of the UCP, consequently municipalities will have to shoulder the cost of switching to pencil-and-paper ballots. Edmonton estimates this will cost the city an additional $2.5 million. Calgary is guessing something in the range of $1.3 million.
Local autonomy
Bill 20 gives the premier and her cabinet significant additional powers. They can:
In other words, Bill 20 allows the premier and her cabinet to oust a locally elected politician and to overturn bylaws passed by elected municipal lawmakers simply by calling a cabinet meeting. The decision is made behind closed doors. It’s all hush hush, away from the public eye.
Ironically Bill 20 makes the provincial government less transparent and less accountable while it does absolutely nothing to increase trust in local governments.
Voter suppression
Taking a page from the loons south of the border, the UCP is determined to eradicate a non-existent voter fraud problem by requiring photo ID when voting.
Political scientist Jared Wesley estimates anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 Albertans could be stripped of their right to vote because Bill 20 makes it impossible for neighbours and coworkers to vouch for people without photo ID.
If voter suppression was not the UCP government’s intention then Bill 20 should have included provisions requiring the government to ensure people without photo ID can obtain such ID quickly and at no cost. It doesn’t.
Protecting democracy
If Bill 20 was indeed intended to strengthen democracy it would have taken big money out of politics by banning corporate and union donations instead of creating yet another entity to funnel even more money into municipal politics.
It would have mandated disclosure of donations of any sort (including any value derived from third-party advertisers) before election day. It would have leveled the playing field by going “full Quebec” and adopted that province’s practice of capping individual donations at $100 with the balance made up of public funding.
Instead Bill 20 expands the role of big money in municipal elections, strips marginalized Albertans of the right to vote, and gives the provincial government even more power to meddle in local politics free from transparency and accountability.
Bill 20 is the antithesis of legislation aimed at strengthening democracy.
And the UCP government pulled it off without any meaningful consultation with Albertans because that’s how the UCP roll.
Sources: Globe and Mail Oct A6, Oct 19, 2024. Calgary Herald Oct 18, 2024, Hansard Apr 25, May 22, 28, 29, 2024.
Happy Thanksgiving!
This is a quick note to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.
The Soapbox family celebrated as it always does with dear friends, our daughters and their partners, and a big fat turkey with all the fixings. The conversation around the table was lively, far ranging and polite. The evening was wonderful.
Other friends celebrated with their own non-traditional Thanksgiving dinners: one family opted for Chinese food and another chose Mexican. The beauty of these choices is they too become traditions if you do them more than once.
I hope your Thanksgiving celebration was wonderful and if you have any unusual traditions I’d be delighted if you shared them here on the Soapbox.
All the very best,
Susan
Mr. Soapbox’s timing couldn’t have been worse.
A couple of days before my husband experienced chest pains that landed him in the cardio unit at Foothills Hospital, Dr Paul Parks, an emergency physician and past president of the Alberta Medical Association, declared that the UCP government is “choosing NOT to act” in the implementation of a new funding model for family medicine (FM) specialists.
Consequently we can expect the number of family doctors closing their practices to increase. This will put even greater strain on hospitals because Albertans without doctors pitch up in emergency departments and require hospitalization which could have been avoided (or at least minimized) if they’d had access to a family doctor in the first place.
However, the fact that UCP government has chosen not to implement a new funding model for FM specialists doesn’t mean it’s been idle. Since Smith took the helm, her government has:
Dr Parks describes the government’s current plan to compensate FM specialists as a plan to pay pharmacists and nurse practitioners to do family medicine that they’re not trained to do, then to pay emergency physicians again when they send these same patients to emergency departments. He notes this won’t reduce healthcare costs, it will increase them.
So here’s the really remarkable thing. Despite the chaos, the relentless attacks on publicly funded and publicly delivered healthcare, the finger pointing and the ceaseless pressure on overworked and underpaid healthcare professionals, despite all that, Mr Soapbox says the staff at Foothills are wonderful and he’s getting excellent care.
Despite the flak Danielle Smith’s government has thrown at them, our healthcare professionals are doing their level best to keep our healthcare system afloat.
Smith boasts that Alberta is the best place on earth to live and work, but she fails to recognize that no one can live here if they’re dead or work here if they’re sick.
Mr Soapbox might come home on Monday. Others have not been so lucky.
The responsibility for Alberta’s healthcare system falls squarely on the shoulders of the UCP government. Sadly, instead of fixing healthcare, they’re making it so much worse.
On Sept 12, the day after The Trump/Harris debate, Premier Smith told the federal government that Alberta has closed its doors to any more asylum seekers.
Here’s what she said:
“Alberta’s government is opposed to the federal government’s plan to relocate tens of thousands of asylum claimants to Alberta, especially without any financial assistance to support the province in doing so.
According to the Immigration Minster Marc Miller, the feds have never said they’d impose asylum seekers on provinces without financial compensation.
“Alberta has always welcomed newcomers who possess our shared values – and we will continue to do so.
Ah, yes, the “shared values” proviso. When asked to clarify what these values are, a government representative said “freedom, family, faith, community and free enterprise.”
We could argue about the meaning of these words until the cows come home, but in the interest of brevity let’s consider just one: freedom. And how members of the UCP government and its supporters demonstrated their belief in freedom by supporting the Freedom Convoy that laid siege to Ottawa and set up a blockade at Coutts that resulted in criminal convictions and prison sentences for its leaders. Is this really what Albertans value?
“However, last year alone, an all-time record of over 200,000 people moved to Alberta. That’s like adding two new Red Deer-sized cities in just one year.
Now Smith is talking about migrants, international and interprovincial, in addition to asylum seekers. So the question becomes: Wasn’t that the point of the Alberta is Calling campaign? To increase Alberta’s population so it would reach 10 million by 2050. Won’t asylum claimants, like those fleeing Ukraine after the Russian invasion, help Alberta achieve its goal?
“Although Alberta represents only 11.8 per cent of the Canadian population, we are currently supporting approximately 22 per cent (over 70,000) of Ukrainian evacuees who arrived in Canada.
Ukrainian evacuees represent 1.4% of Alberta’s population. It appears that Smith is saying 1.4% of Alberta’s population is the maximum number of asylum claimants she’s prepared to accept.
“Section 95 of the constitution is clear – immigration is an area of shared authority between the federal government and the provinces. Yet, the Trudeau government’s unrestrained open border policies permitting well over a million newcomers each year into Canada is causing significant challenges, and it’s simply not sustainable.
Section 95 characterizes immigration as an area of “concurrent power” and states that while both the province and the feds can make laws in relation to immigration, the provincial laws cannot be “repugnant” to the federal laws. Unless Smith is saying she’ll pass a ”closed door” law that is not “repugnant” to the federal immigration laws, there’s no reason for her to mention the Constitution in this statement. .
Also it should be noted that the Trudeau government does not have an “unrestrained” open border policy. Anyone applying for asylum must meet certain conditions before they’re allowed to stay. From Dec 2012 to June 2024, Canada accepted 22,287 asylum claims and rejected 5,134 claims. It’s not a slam-dunk.
“Excessive levels of immigration to this province are increasing the cost of living and strains public services for everyone.
Smith is working hard to entice people to move to Alberta. She boasts that our 4.4% growth rate is the highest in the land. Given Smith’s success one would think she’d have had the foresight to shore up Alberta’s healthcare, education and public services programs so they could accommodate all the newcomers and their families. But she hasn’t.
“We are informing the Government of Canada that until further notice, Alberta is not open to having these additional asylum seekers settled in our province.
The total number of asylum claimants in Alberta as of April 1, 2024 was 11,292. That’s 0.2% of the population and it’s too much for Smith. And now, she tells us why:
“We simply cannot afford it.”
Wow, who knew the richest province in Canada was this close to going under.
Oh wait,
Maybe Premier Smith statement has nothing to do with the ‘strain’ additional asylum seekers will put on Alberta’s public services, maybe–see photo above–it’s all about the dog whistles and cat whistles Smith’s base needs to hear in the run up to the UCP leadership review in November.
As the witches in Macbeth said, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,”
Yesterday Premier Danielle Smith issued a statement celebrating Alberta Day—a non-stat holiday created by her predecessor Jason Kenney to commemorate the day Alberta became a province—without once mentioning Confederation.
Today the UCP government went one better. It issued a Happy Labour Day statement without once mentioning unions.
Here’s the release in its entirety:
Happy Labour Day: Minister Jones
September 02, 2024
Minister of Jobs, Economy and Trade Matt Jones issued the following statement on Labour Day:
“Labour Day provides an important opportunity to recognize Alberta’s workers and the extraordinary contributions they make to our province’s economy and communities.
“Alberta’s workforce is the backbone of the economic engine of Canada. Each day it makes our province the best place to live, work and raise a family.
“Our government is working to promote safe, fair and healthy workplaces that support job creation, investment attraction and our continued economic leadership.
“On behalf of Alberta’s government, thank you to the 2.5-million Alberta workers for what you do each day. We wish you all a happy Labour Day.”
That’s it folks.
Just for the record, the origins of Labour Day can be traced back to 1872 when 10,000 workers marched in solidarity with the striking Toronto Typographical Union. This led directly to the enactment of the Trade Unions Act which confirmed the legality of unions.
It’s pitiful that this government is so lacking in humility that it can’t give credit where credit is due: It’s the trade unions, not the government, that work hard every day to “promote safe, fair and healthy workplaces.”
In the words of Manitoba premier Wab Kinew let’s take a moment to celebrate the labour movement and our unions.
Happy Labour Day!
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