In case anyone needs a primer in whats happening in Alberta (Im an Albertan):
For context, in Canada we dont directly vote for our leaders at the provincial and federal level. We just vote for who we want to represent us in our electoral district. The leader of the party with the most votes become Premier or Prime Minister. That needed to be explained for the next bit to make sense.
In the last election provincial election in 2019, the United Conservative Party under Jason Kenney won. The UCP was a merger in 2017 of the centre-right Progressive Conservatives and the far-right Wildrose Party. Kenney himself was from the PCs. He became very unpopular during the pandemic. The majority of Albertans felt that the governments response was too lax and the far-right faction of the UCP and their supporters thought it was too strict. Early this year those members called for a leadership review, which Kenney barely won. Seeing that his party was hopelessly divided, he resigned.
In October party members held a vote and selected Danielle Smith (a former leader of the Wildrose) as the new leader by a slim majority on the last possible ballot. During the leadership campaign, Smith promised (among other things) to stand up to the federal government with a Sovereignty Act that would allow Alberta to ignore any federal law the provincial government doesnt like. All of her opponents in the race were united in their opposition of this to the point where they basically told party members to vote for anyone but her, but it resonated with rural Alberta which was enough for her squeak in a win. So now we have a Premier who was barely chosen by a small fraction of the province. Other views of hers are that vaccines dont work, long Covid is caused by the vaccine, antivaxers are the most discriminated against group she has ever seen, cancer patients only have themselves to blame because they didnt follow homeopathic medical practices, abuses and deaths at the residential schools are greatly exaggerated, and Russia had some valid points for its invasion. I wish I was making these up.
After taking office, she gave all but one of the other leadership candidates cabinet posts and they are all now singing the praises of her sovereignty act. This week her government officially introduced the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act as her first bill since taking office. Like she had previously said, this will allow the government to ignore any federal law they dont like. Much to everyones surprise, the way they propose to do this is to give cabinet the power to change laws for up to two years with a possible extension to four years without any vote in the legislature or review. Theyve also amended laws to prevent any group that receives provincial funding from enacting mask mandates (for example schools which are currently experiencing large outbreaks of Covid, Flu and RSV). All of this largely unpopular and she is sitting at a very low approval rating and polls indicate that she would lose an election.
Albertans don't deserve that.
The people who support Smith are low functioning rednecks who feel they aren't represented enough.
They cry poor from inside fully loaded trucks and triple story homesteads.
Unrelateable idiots.
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I'm a man, and I'm a man... I do what I hate and don't understand...