Paul Wells had a lengthy interview with Danielle Smith yesterday, and let me tell you, it is just exhausting to wade through the volume of bullshit that she is flooding it with. Lots of numbers that she has pulled out of her ass, tonnes of scapegoating, revisionist history, and so, so many strawmen that she keeps fighting in order to make Alberta look like the victim. Much of what Wells had to ask her about was her plans with those nine referendums, and the possibility of at least a couple of more questions in addition, but he never really challenged her on the fundamental basis of what she was doing.
Re: Danielle Smith
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-06T05:26:00.334Z
Referendums are a way for governments to bypass parliament or the legislature, and to manufacture consent for whatever issue they’re putting forward. They control the questions and the interpretation of the answers, so they manipulate the process from start to finish. Most of the time that works out for them, because they can successfully manipulate it to suit their purposes, but sometimes it gets away from them, such as Brexit, and a giant clusterfuck was created because David Cameron was too chickenshit to stand up to the xenophobes in his own party. In this particular case, Danielle Smith is looking to manufacture consent to both engage in further scapegoating of immigrants and asylum seekers (and believe me, there is a portion of the Alberta population who will take the permission that she has granted to them and target those newcomers), but to also manufacture consent for her to continue to engage in grievance-mongering to the detriment of everyone, in Alberta or in Canada.
Smith keeps insisting that she’s trying to make people confident that Canada can work, but it’s really hard to believe her when she keeps inventing new grievances to be mad about, and then engages in an effort to make everyone else mad about them (such as through these referendum questions) even though there is no actual basis for these grievances. And being a crybaby because your preferred party didn’t win the federal election is not a legitimate grievance, and should not be ginned up as one. That said, Alberta has largely been a one-party state for more than 40 years, so it’s hard for them to understand what it’s like to actually lose an election and not consider it illegitimate. And what is most frustrating is that precious few people actually call Smith (or her predecessors) out for inventing these grievances. It’s bullshit, and it needs to be called out as such, particularly from Albertans because being force-fed these fake grievances has done a number on their psyche, and it hurts all of us as a result.
Ukraine Dispatch
President Zelenskyy visited the eastern front lines, as the second day or prisoner exchanges concluded with a total of 500 swapped over both days.
Good reads:
- Part of the agreement that Mark Carney signed in Japan are not just trade, but also include joint exercises for the military and Coast Guards.
- Carney says that banning social media for minors should be debated, but hasn’t made up his mind on that in advance of new online harms legislation.
- In response to a question at a scrum, Carney said that he supports having Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor being removed from the line of succession.
- The PMO announced that an agreement has been reached with Alberta, per the MOU, to let the province take the lead on most environmental assessments.
- Anita Anand continues to tout the “no blank cheque” line about the Iran conflict, as her department continues to arrange commercial and charter passage in the region.
- Dominic LeBlanc was in Washington to restart trade talks, and introduced Jamieson Greer to our new ambassador and chief trade negotiatior.
- Lina Diab has soft-launched a programme to transition 33,000 temporary foreign workers to permanent residents.
- Marjoire Michel announced $5.4 million for five sexual and reproductive health organisations in advance of International Women’s Day.
- Here is a look at the way in which Carney has been reshaping our foreign policy, based primarily on opportunism.
- People in the mining industry are encouraged by the funding that the federal government is extending to them, saying they need it to compete with China.
- The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 8-1 that a refugee claimant should be allowed to access subsidised child care because of the disproportionate effect on women.
- Avi Lewis says he won’t run in a by-election (which should be disqualifying).
- Patrick Lennox suggests that we are already at war with the US and just don’t realise it yet, because it didn’t start with outright invasion.
- Justin Ling questions whether Carney actually understands the “new world order” as he claims, given how much he has been caught up in Trump’s lies on Iran.
Odds and ends:
The supposed explosion of the federal public service looks less explosive if you put it in per capita numbers and draw a line graph back to the mid-80s.
— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2026-03-06T14:36:35.017Z
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