Alberta premier Danielle Smith held a televised address last night to announce that the province would be holding a non-binding referendum on whether to hold a binding referendum on separation. No, seriously. After the separatists’ petition was tossed by the Court of King’s Bench, and the Forever Canada petition was unsuitable for the purposes of such a referendum on separation, Smith decided to try and be too-clever-by-half, and sit on that fence as hard as possible so that she can try and throw the separatists a bone without looking like she is actively campaigning for them (in spite of the fact that she has given them absolutely everything under the sun to make their lives easier, including a referendum with no democratic mandate).
https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mmfrqdahts2x
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T01:00:14.133Z
While I will write about this in more depth in my weekend column, let me say for the moment that this was Smith’s choice, and it does nothing but prolong the uncertainty, make it more likely to give the separatists leverage because it can be shrugged off as a non-binding vote that will become the repository of the grievances that Albertans have been marinating in since the eighties, and spiral out of control like Brexit did. But Smith refuses to confront the separatists, and nobody will actually say the words “Normal people can buy UCP memberships and drown out the separatist loons trying to take control of the party.” No one person has even suggested that. Instead, we’re pretending that referendums are democracy when they are in fact just elite-driven fuckery dressed up in democratic clothes, and ignoring the crisis in grassroots democracy that has created this crisis in the first place. It’s absolutely damning about the state of the province.
Jen Gerson: "The momentum here right now is on the side of people who treat the idea of the Republic of Alberta as a kind of religious movement. It's a millenarian movement … heavily influenced by the kind of nihilism that infects a lot of the broader MAGA movement."
— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) 2026-05-21T21:03:33.190Z
Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre was asked about a potential referendum earlier in the day, and he said he would fight for Canada, but did so in the most tepid way possible while he continued to grind on the invented grievances that have helped get us to this point, because he is both a coward and intellectually bankrupt. Yes, it’s important that we have conservatives be the voices for national unity in the province, but if you’re going to do it by carrying on the fictions that somehow the Liberals were responsible for the oil crash in 2014, you’re not actually helping. And if someone suggests Jason Kenney be that voice because he is now an enemy of the separatists after they ate his face after he brought them into the “united” party, then they deserve a smack upside the head. Kenney created this mess, and he refuses to take responsibility for that fact, and until he does, he shouldn’t be any kind of voice of moral authority here.
https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mmeymnle2k2j
"Unblock the resources." Oil production is at record highs. Alberta has the highest per capita incomes in the country. Just mouthing along with the invented grievances of the bad faith actors who put us in this position.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-21T19:44:20.395Z
Ukraine Dispatch
Here is a look at all of the Russian energy sites that have been attacked by Ukrainian drones over the past couple of weeks.
Good reads:
- Anita Anand says that the Canadians on the intercepted flotilla bound for Gaza are being deported to Turkey, where Canadian officials will meet them.
- The government will be re-launching its “Canada Strong Pass” programme for discounted VIA Rail travel and museum and federal part admission.
- The government has outlined their plans to decommission and offload the aborted Nanisivik deep water port on Baffin Island after it never got off the ground.
- Senior officials in the Privy Council Office met with the mayor of Ottawa about our abysmal transit system hampering plans for civil servants to be in the office more.
- DND has confirmed that nearly $30 million was spent on upgrading the Snowbirds jets, but with bookings being two-years out, they couldn’t be confident of airframes.
- The CRTC has determined that large streaming giants should pay 15 percent of Canadian revenues into a content fund for Canadian productions.
- As more groups push back against the lawful access bill, the RCMP union claims it’s not about expanding surveillance, then says they need it to do just that. (Seriously?!)
- Oh, and telecom companies will likely pass on the compliance costs for these lawful access capabilities to consumers, because of course they will.
- The Pentagon is continuing their bullying of Canada, demanding a “spending road map” to meet the 3.5% spending target and a decision on the F-35s.
- CBC took the last election results and mapped them onto the proposed maps from the Alberta electoral boundary commission, and lo, the UCP map is gerrymandered.
- BC is renaming the Site C dam after late premier John Horgan, even though he didn’t like the project and wouldn’t like being named after it.
- Philippe Lagassé contemplates the question of whether Canada can get to the 3.5% of GDP defence spending goal, and further whether we can sustain it.
- Jen Gerson lays into the referendum situation in Alberta and the fact that the UCP have become “a party of snivelling, weak little thieves who operate by night.”
Odds and ends:
"This bill is not about expanding surveillance."If you are mandating companies to build in capabilities that they don't have so that you can use it for surveillance, it is BY DEFINITION about expanding surveillance. Do you think that we're all credulous numpties?www.cbc.ca/news/politic…
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T01:33:12.742Z
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With respect to spinning 456 thousand Forever Canadians as somehow WANTING a referendum on separation, since when has renewing one’s marriage vows been the same thing as a desire for re-negotiating (much less risk ending) the marriage itself?
Because while I cannot speak for others who gathered signatures, OUR most common comment from those signing was to the effect of: “WHY are we even HAVING to do this!?! What is wrong with these (insert less than flattering descriptive variation of someone having given somewhat insufficient thought to the subject matter)?”
Our “Dictraitor” Separatist Premier is running fast and loose with the truth again, and it is – as always: expensive, divisive, destructive, self-serving, and evidence of more RULE rather than representation.
What wrong did I do in a past life that I keep having to hear about this again and again.
The weird language from CPC people like PP or Dimitri Soudas or others on how it’s the LPC’s fault is silly. The Reform “The West Wants In” Party and the BQ were formed and the BQ became the official opposition under the Mulroney and Campbell governments. It just plays into this being sore losers nonsense post election and how the solution to any of Alberta’s problems by the people in power is to just vote Conservative.
Shachi Kurl, was on about the long history of Alberta grievances and yet acts as if there was not a decade of the Harper government in there. Alberta wouldn’t even leave the CPP and now convoy brain trust 2.0 is where the guy who thinks he’s the target of an assassination plot led by Charles III is the least wacky person it has. The Maverick Party totally flopped out yet every news story acts like this never happened. I just remember some political panel where Michelle Rempel-Garner was doing the whole “Do it for Alberta” pitch and the woes of her province and Lenore Zann was the other talking head was pointing out Nova Scotia’s unemployment rate is double that of Alberta and the problems of Nova Scotia and Michelle Rempel-Garner just seemed so dumbfounded.
Alberta has dumb referendums like the one on equalization payments or the one on senate elections. Everybody seems to think those mix-member proportional representation referendums in Ontario and BC would pass and didn’t.