Over the weekend, a couple of messages came down from Canada. First, it was Premier Doug Ford of Ontario and then Premiere Danielle Smith of Alberta.
Alberta
Alberta premier wins leadership review with 91.5 per cent approval
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith received 91.5 per cent support for her leadership from members of her United Conservative Party who voted in Red Deer, Alta., on Saturday.
The result solidifies Smith’s leadership of Alberta’s governing party and confirms party members agree with the direction she has taken the province in since she took over the party two years ago.
Smith slams Trudeau’s weekend appointment of two Liberal donors to the Senate
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s weekend appointment of two Liberal Party donors as Alberta senators was denounced by the Government of Alberta.
It marks the 35th anniversary of Alberta holding Canada’s first Senate election, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. Premier Danielle Smith said Trudeau’s administration “blatantly disregarded” Alberta’s interests.
Will Alberta Replace the Mounties With Its Own Provincial Police Force?
Along with pulling out of the Canada Pension Plan, Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, has in the past floated the idea of replacing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a provincial police force.
Like every province except Ontario and Quebec, which have provincial forces, Alberta has contracted out rural policing to the Mounties for over 90 years, and several of its cities also outsource policing to the federal force.
And like every province that relies on the Mounties, grumbling about the cost and quality of the service the R.C.M.P. provides ebbs and flows in Alberta.
Inside the pressure campaign on Danielle Smith to make gun ownership (and more) an Alberta right
Premier Danielle Smith intends to strengthen the little-known Alberta Bill of Rights this fall to include protections for people who refuse to be vaccinated, but she’s facing heavy pressure from United Conservative activists to go much farther in her overhaul, CBC News has learned.
A group from the premier’s riding in Medicine Hat, which calls itself the Black Hat Gang, has met with senior government officials and proposed a massive new draft of Alberta’s rights document. The “gang” wants it to enshrine an array of new rights, including confidentiality of health information and “informed consent” to medical care, as well as rights to keep and bear firearms, to use “sufficient force” to defend one’s property, and “freedom from excessive taxation.”
Alberta Draws Academia Into Its Fight With Justin Trudeau
Federal funding promises can shape how much, or how fast, provinces advance their own agenda items, and Alberta wants Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to know that his to-do list will have to wait.
Premier Danielle Smith announced that the province would take steps, through a bill introduced this month, to reinforce the work that she contends is most important to Albertans and to her United Conservative Party government. This latest attempt to square off with the federal government in Ottawa continues to deepen her party’s view that Mr. Trudeau, a Liberal, has thrust his ideological agenda onto Albertans.
Smith is building walls to keep Ottawa out — and may have the political capital to do it
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has long indicated her government would use hammer, tongs and scalpel to reshape the face of Alberta politics.
It’s a strategy can be summed up in four words that actually appear now and again in official government documents: “More Alberta, Less Ottawa.”
Cory Morgan: The Reason Many Canadians Are Moving to Alberta Holds a Lesson for BC and Ontario
Canada is facing serious economic challenges. The nation’s labour productivity figures have been falling since 2016. Only Italy has seen a sharper drop in productivity among G7 countries when compared to the United States.
Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita figures offer a measure of individual wealth, and the figures are bleak. Canada’s GDP per capita has dropped to US$55,000, while in the United States it has grown to US$76,000. Meanwhile, housing affordability has hit crisis levels in many regions, and shortfalls in all services from health care to policing are pressuring citizens.
I hope that’s not like California moving to Texas.
Alberta wants more control over immigration and more Ukrainian refugees to fill jobs
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says federal immigration limits are undercutting her province’s ability to fill jobs, grow the economy and aid those fleeing violence in wartorn Ukraine.
Smith called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government Wednesday to immediately double to 20,000 the number of allotments to Alberta under the provincial nominee program and add 10,000 on top of that for Ukraine evacuees.
Good choice.
Alberta premier says 14 active and proposed federal legal challenges show breadth of Ottawa’s overreach
The Alberta government has about 14 active and proposed legal challenges against the federal government alleging constitutional overreach, Premier Danielle Smith said Thursday.
Appearing virtually before a federal parliamentary committee Thursday morning, where she was invited to explain her opposition to the federal carbon tax, Smith said the number of ongoing legal challenges her government has against the federal Liberal government illustrates the degree of federal meddling.
“That should give you an indication of how often we think the federal government violated the spirit of the constitution,” Smith told reporters later at an unrelated news conference.
Is Danielle Smith winning?
Danielle Smith has been lambasted by critics for her policies on renewable energy and transgender youth, for promoting a dubious plan for a stand-alone Alberta pension, and for a broken income-tax cut promise. And yet, the Alberta Premier’s approval numbers haven’t budged in the 10 months since the last provincial election.
Given all the controversy surrounding her, is this a state of winning for Ms. Smith?
Alberta to opt out of national pharmacare deal, demanding cash instead: LaGrange
Alberta’s health minister says the province won’t sign on to a federal pharmacare plan covering birth control and diabetes medication.
The deal is part of a supply-and-confidence agreement that has seen federal New Democrats support the Liberal minority government in order to get the NDP’s priority policies introduced.
Why it’s Danielle Smith vs. Ottawa, over and over
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith knows she increasingly needs to step up where Ottawa steps down.
“Canada is becoming irrelevant,” the premier reports, matter-of-factly. “We have the ability to supply the world with everything they need, and we really could be a leader. But we have a federal government that chooses not to, that chooses to work against the national interest rather than advance it.”
Anthony Furey: Canadians Are Moving to Alberta, Proving That Policies Have Consequences
During the 2023 Toronto mayoral byelection, I made a tongue-in-cheek campaign promise to ban pro-Alberta advertising in the city.
It was during the annual gala dinner for the Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada, and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had flown into Toronto to be honoured.
‘Not be tolerated’: Alberta files formal response to proposed oilsands emissions cap
Alberta says a federal emissions cap on greenhouse gases “will not be tolerated” as the province’s environment minister meets today with her federal counterpart.
Alberta’s formal response to Ottawa’s proposal says the cap would undercut the work that the province has been successfully pursuing “for decades” to reduce emissions.
The response says oilsands production has already risen above the forecasts that were used to establish the proposed 100-megatonne limit.