@nigelb.bsky.social:
On the CBC eyeopener this morning Rob Smith, the re-elected
president of the UCP, without any pushing, said that he thinks that the majority of the UCP members favours separation.
Doesn’t that make them a separatist party.
www.cbc.ca/listen/live-…
Can somebody tell me why this isn’t headline news?
cherryredtoes.bsky.social:
And yet today in Question Period, the UCP raised a point of order when Nenshi said Smith was “pandering to the separatists.” They insisted it was an unparliamentary personal attack.
If you’re loudly announcing what you’re doing, you don’t get to complain when other people also say you’re doing it.
ruggedbroad.bsky.social:
I listened to QP today. I believe Smith is pretty scared by the news and the return of the PCs (name TBA). They canceled the private HC builds, she is openly stating that Canada works, and all of them were loudly crowing about how everything (including HC, Ed, & coal) is the NDPs fault.
Successful Pro-Canada Petition Puts Danielle Smith in a Tough Spot, Proponent Thomas Lukaszuk offers his thoughts on what the premier should do now by David Climenhaga, Dec 2, 2025, The Tyee
David J. Climenhaga is an award-winning journalist, author, post-secondary teacher, poet and trade union communicator. He blogs at AlbertaPolitics.ca. Follow him on X @djclimenhaga.
Thanks to the success of former Progressive Conservative deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition campaign, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith now finds herself on the proverbial horns of a very real dilemma.
Alberta Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure announced Monday that sufficient signatures have been verified for the requirements of the Citizen Initiative Act to be met and Lukaszuk’s Forever Canadian petition to be declared successful.
Elections Alberta said the total number of verified signatures after random statistical sampling with a 95 per cent confidence level was 404,293, and that 438,568 valid signatures were counted. That was well above the petition’s required 293,976 valid signatures, or 10 per cent of the voters in the 2023 provincial general election.
In the event, an estimated 13.6 per cent of all the electors in the province signed the petition — an outpouring of support for Canada that was a remarkable accomplishment by any measure.
Under the act, the premier’s United Conservative Party government can either take the petition’s question — “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?” — to the legislature for a vote that would probably end the separation debate. Or it can allow it to proceed to a provincewide referendum.
The first course would likely smoke out how many of the UCP’s MLAs and cabinet members are hard-core committed separatists. That would be bad for Smith and the party.
The second course would create uncertainty, possibly drive away investment and result in a decisive loss for the separatists. That would also be bad for the premier and her party. It might drive the UCP separatists to set up their own MAGA-influenced far right party.
Without the government bending the rules or retroactively amending the province’s “direct democracy” laws, a yea vote in the Legislature would also block the wishes of the UCP’s large and influential separatist faction from having a secession referendum on their terms at least for five years — but practically speaking quite possibly forever.
So thanks to the remarkable success of the Forever Canadian campaign’s volunteers in every part of Alberta, Smith would appear to have found herself between a rock and a hard place.
According to Lukaszuk, who I talked to last night, “seldom are premiers faced with such really binary problems where the right and wrong are so clear: Do what’s right for the province. Don’t divide Albertans any further. Don’t cause us economic harm, and just deal with this in the Legislature. Or do what a small group of angry UCP party members demands of her and what’s expedient for her politically.”
“I chose the pathway that’s legislative, that gives her the opportunity to not call a referendum,” he said. “Separatists chose the pathway that forces her to have a referendum. I’m giving her an opportunity to do the right thing.”
danielle smith isn’t capable of doing the right thing, she serves herself and the Nazi Trump regime.
“I certainly hope there is no referendum,” he added. “There doesn’t need to be one. Nearly half a million Albertans spoke loud and clear. But if there is one, I’m ready for it. I’m pivoting my campaign from petition-signature gathering campaign to a referendum campaign, and we’ll be prepared for it, just in case.”
The campaign bus is in the shop right now getting a new transmission, he noted.
Lukaszuk thinks a significant number of former premier Ralph Klein’s “severely normal Albertans” remain in the UCP camp. If Smith proceeds to a provincewide referendum, he argues, “they will walk away from her because they know the damage that this is going to cause.”
“Chambers of commerce across Alberta will be now coming out asking her not to have a referendum,” he predicted.
“She is having positive talks with Prime Minister Carney. All that goodwill will be shredded immediately when she decides to go into a referendum.”Smith won’t be deciding anything, her bosses in the GOP, Harper and Alberta’s extreme evangelicals/TBA will order her to do the thing most damaging to Alberta.
“I appreciate the dilemma of her position,” Lukaszuk concluded, “but, let’s be frank, it was Jason Kenney and her who put themselves into this position in the first place. First, they curated this sentiment of criticism within their own party. Then they created legislation for these referenda, and then they even made it easier for separatists to have these referenda. So they have no one else to blame but themselves.”
Regardless of what the UCP’s supporters are saying on social media, it’s hard to believe this is the high point for Smith it was supposed to be before she was publicly embarrassed by prominent members of the UCP’s separatist faction who booed her and attacked her pipeline deal with Mark Carney at the party’s annual general meeting last weekend.
Still, don’t count Ms. Smith out. She has a solid record of getting away with more than most politicians ever could. She will be looking for a way to dramatically change the channel. An early election on the pipeline deal might do the trickOr she’ll drop a new law to squash the Forever Canadian petition results and verification
ct57gt:
Ah, so she’s merely a political opportunist and not a Christ bitten reformer? That is good news.ya but, she’s not the boss of herself or her position, the religious extremist fucker trucker TBA types are It’s the mission driven who spark a danger to civilised society, the Salem witch trials and the Inquisition are but extreme examples.
zalm:
Order of Alberta for Lukaszuk. Ordure of Alberta for UCP and TBA
pwlg:
Now there’s a guy who should be running that province and maybe he will since the NDP’s Nenshi is MIA.I think Nenshi’s controlled opposition, keeping evil in power doing dreadful things to Canadians and Canada, same as Elizabeth May
Ken_Akura:
“An early election on the pipeline deal might do the trick.”
What pipeline deal? A MOU isn’t a pipeline deal. If Abs fall for that line of BS they must really believe Ab doesn’t have a future unless it can pump more dilbit to the coast.
Sarah:
Smith has become a victim of her own antagonism towards Ottawa. Just as with the Afghan shooter of 2 National Guard members who was allegedly self-radicalized once in the USA, Danielle is the one who has been radicalizing many Albertans towards the idea of separation from Canada, as she witnessed at the UCP convention last weekend when she was booed.
Hopefully this pro-Canada petition can defuse the radicalized separatists within the UCP and others around Alberta. This province’s successive right wing governments seem to be doing a great job of wrecking the environment and landscape of their province in favour of the corporations rather than its peoples, so do these separatist twits really think that if they are an independent country, they will have any success at getting any pipeline through BC and the rest of Canada, that would then be a different country?Every province is ruining safe air, water, land, food and dividing and harming communities everywhere by catering to billion dollar profit-raping polluters. Too many greedy humans on earth wanting more more more, destroying everything fast.