Things in Alberta continue to go poorly for people who care about things like democracy and accountability, while separatist leaders are encouraging their followers to all take out UCP memberships so that they can nominate separatist candidates for the party in advance of the next election, so that they can further push Danielle Smith to ensure that they get their referendum, and everything they want to go with it. The party is de facto separatist already, as they control the bulk of the UCP grassroots mechanism, and this would just be completing the takeover provided that no centrist normies also take out memberships to stop them. That is, if they consider the UCP actually worth salvaging.
"I never thought leopards would eat MY face," sobs politician, who encouraged leopards to keep eating faces and hold province-wide vote on face-eating
The fact that when he created the party, Jason Kenney didn’t provide for any adequate failsafe mechanisms to prevent hostile takeovers is not unsurprising, considering how he crowed about how this would be a “grassroots party,” but then he chased out the centrist normies who would have provided a check on the absolute loons that came to dominate the membership. Of course, Kenney thought that he could control these face-eating leopards, while they noticed that this face was right there, so they ate it. And now Smith continues to believe that she too can control these leopards, even though they’ve fully backed her into a corner and she is doing their bidding rather than the other way around, and it’s only a matter of time before her face is fully eaten as well, while the province goes to absolute shit because she was too self-interested to do the right thing at any point in time.
Meanwhile, as the voter list leak scandal rolls along, it sounds like the UCP staffer that attended the Centurion Project webinar was the caucus executive director (which is an odd title), but she didn’t pass along any information to Smith’s office about the fact that they doxxed Jason Kenney and Rachel Notley as part of the demonstration. That’s kind of embarrassing for Smith, given that she chastised Naheed Nenshi for not informing her about what happened, while her own staffer was there, watched what went down, and thought it was a-okay and not worthy of reporting. That’s not good.
Ukraine Dispatch
As attacks resumed on Ukraine, president Zelenskyy noted that Russia has no intention of ending the war. Ukraine has is making drone deals with some twenty countries, including Canada.
Good reads:
- It’s Census Day! If you haven’t filled out yours, you should do so today.
- The federal government announced plans invest in Telus building three digital asbestos data centres in BC. (Why does Telus need the help?)
- National Defence has been buying up plots of land for radar stations needed as part of NORAD modernisation, including some near Barrie, Ontario.
- General Jennie Carignan says that National Defence needs more civil servants to help manage the planned influx of new military personnel.
- Canadian Forces in Latvia are conducting exercises involving new ground-based drones that have become a factor in the war in Ukraine.
- NSIRA is looking for a greater role in the oversight of the proposed lawful access regime, as information could be 19 months old before they receive it.
- The Bank of Canada says that counter-tariffs on US goods pushed up prices by about six percent last year.
- Here is a look at how long it can take to revoke someone’s citizenship if they obtained it fraudulently. (It should be hard to revoke, guys. You need due process).
- Farmers are concerned about rising fuel and fertilizer costs as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.
- MPs and senators plan on reducing travel to Washington as part of parliamentary exchanges, given everything going on.
- At the justice committee, MPs have amended the bill to ban sexualised “deep fakes” to also include nearly-nude images.
- Steven Guilbeault isn’t taking questions about his political future.
- Marty Patriquin looks at how Hydro-Québec has slowly been moving into other forms of energy, like wind and solar (because hydro is affected by drought).
- Anne Applebaum explores how Putin’s imperial nostalgia is crumbling around him, and how his Victory Day parade shows everyone else how diminished he is.
- Susan Delacourt ponders the hardening attitudes toward the census by those who are wary of giving government too much information.
- Paul Wells pokes into more of the incoherence of Carney’s speech at the Global Progress Summit, and other weirdness about the whole thing.
Odds and ends:
THAT'S RIGHT, MOTHERFUCKERS, I WON A WEBBY AWARD. Here's my 5-word speech. #webbys
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