Alberta
Graven Images: The Greening Of Calgary
The city of Calgary this week elected the first woman mayor in its history. This is a source of great satisfaction to those citizens who cringe at Calgary’s image as part buckaroo/ part bitumen cowboy. The fact that Jyoti Gondek is of Pashtun origin only deepens the sense of accomplishment for the urban elite of Calgary.
How giddy are the wokesters? A CBC reporter illustrated the story with a tweet showing a long series of emoji men followed by a single emoji of a woman. Because journalistic objectivity at the national broadcaster demands a clever tweet. “Look what we’ve done, world! Woman! Punjabi! Now we can hold our heads up in the polite society of the urban hives.”
The new mayor has a PhD in urban sociology which “furnishes understanding of the complex as well as profound meaning of every urban reality, notably the territorial stabilization of social life, the rise of a space symbol system and culture, and the origin and evolution of human settlements.”
Which sounds like the sort of convoluted stuff that Wokesters toss around when they’re trying to distance themselves from the Stampede crowd. What it means in reality is that Gondek will commit $250 K to declare a climate emergency in Calgary as her first priority as mayor. As this photo below shows, it’s not a moment too soon.
Can she tame the city’s transit snarls and stare down a council bent on destroying the budget? Who knows? Who cares? The natural gas/ petroleum bastards will now have to take a knee to the symbolism of her outreach to Big Climate. And that’s enough.
Okay, it’s just a mayor in a mid-sized Canadian city, but you have to start with small dreams if you’re going to make the world a progressive paradise. Especially when, like Gondek, you spend every working day cloying with guilt over how Calgary’s energy industry is ravaging Mother Earth.
The big Green virtue dreams are the ones about to be dreamt in Glasgow in the next weeks as the world’s guiltiest liberals— aka the IPCC— convene to reconstitute the world economy by killing fossil fuels. If this all sounds familiar it’s because the Al Gores and Neil Youngs have been hard at this project for decades, sending thunderbolts of doom via a captive media. (Sample: 1987: NASA’s James Hansen predicts world 3C warmer by 2020. Reality: average temp only 0.44C higher.) And lots more faceplants.
No matter. The evolution of Green is a litany of half-baked predictions and salacious slanders. Even as European governments scramble to replace their sacred renewable dreams with the realities of nuclear power or, gasp, Russian natural gas, the pious will still party like it’s 1999— when all things seemed possible. There’s a revolution of purity happening here, folks, and a few inconvenient facts isn’t going to harsh the vibe.
The vibe, of course, is not climate change or even first women mayors. The vibe is victim culture, re-fitting Marxism so the uncouth and intemperate opposition can be permanently rendered inert. If Marx’s wealth re-distribution is to happen equity— not just equality— must be achieved. Any weapon at hand— climate, gender, victimization— will serve to get there.
The old Commie’s theories just need a new coat of victim’s paint to make them current. Author Chris Rufo explains how the Left is making the quick flip after their Cold War dreams died in the ‘70s at the altar of capitalist riches. : “… rather than abandon their political project, Marxist scholars in the West simply adapted their revolutionary theory to the social and racial unrest of the 1960s. Abandoning Marx’s economic dialectic of capitalists and workers, they substituted race for class and sought to create a revolutionary coalition of the dispossessed based on racial and ethnic categories.”
Suddenly, it’s all victims, all the time.
Thus the new liturgy, funded by Big Tech oligarchs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Capitalist roaders are failed humans. Writes Christopher Chantrill: “Today’s elites are totally down as Allies of the Oppressed Peoples. Their political power is justified by their untiring support of and advocacy for The Victims.”
Andrea Widburg describes the role reversal in The American Thinker: “In its new iteration, Whites are irredeemably racist and evil. Equality is a trap because White societal dominance means that the other races (and sexualities) will never be able to catch up. Forced equity is the only answer, and one way to pave the way for that to happen is to force Whites to remove themselves from society, from the economy, from politics, and from any other area in which they can be seen to have an advantage.”
Celebrating the ascent of symbolism, not the skill-set of politicians such as Barack Obama (and the removal of statues) is how whites willingly remove themselves from the economy and society. As Rufo tweets, “@LockheedMartin, the nation’s largest defense contractor, sent key executives to a three-day white male reeducation camp in order to deconstruct their “white male culture” and atone for their “white male privilege.”
To the surprise of the Marxists, their old enemies on Wall Street are enthusiastically taking the bait. Now they have only the rump opposition of libertarians and stubborn conservatives left to hammer into shape and the Bernie Sanders revolution, begun in the ‘60s, will be complete.
Calgary will be so proud.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book with his son Evan is called InExact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Alberta
Danielle Smith warns arsonists who start wildfires in Alberta that they will be held accountable
From LifeSiteNews
The Alberta government has created an ad campaign highlighting the fact that most fires are caused by humans and not ‘climate change,’ as many left-leaning politicians claim.
In preparation for the so-called wildfire “season,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith sternly warned anyone caught starting blazes in her province, including arsonists, that they will face charges and be held fully “liable” for all costs associated with the fires.
“As we approach the wildfire season, it is important to understand that 67% of wildfires in Alberta are started by people,” Smith posted Monday on X.
“If you start a wildfire, you can be charged, fined, and held liable for all costs associated with fighting the wildfire.”
Smith made the comments after last year revealing that most of the wildfires in her province (500 of the 650) were caused by humans and not “climate change,” as has been pushed by the legacy media and opposition politicians.
“All I know is in my province we have 650 fires and 500 of them were human caused,” she said, “so we have to make sure that when people know that when it’s dry out there and we get into forest fire season that they’re being a lot more careful because anytime you end up with an ignition that happens it can have devastating consequences.”
To go along with Smith’s Monday message, the Alberta government has also created an ad campaign highlighting the fact that most fires are caused by humans and not “climate change,” as many left-leaning politicians claim.
As reported by LifeSiteNews last year, Smith ordered arson investigators to look into why some of the wildfires that raged across the vast expanse of the province had “no known cause” shortly after they spread.
During the campaign of Alberta’s 2023 election, Smith, whose United Conservative Party won a majority government, had to pause to deal with many wildfires that suddenly, out of nowhere, ravaged the province. The fires came on suddenly and uncharacteristically considering the heavy snowfall in the province in early March and rain in April.
LifeSiteNews reported that despite the arrest of multiple arsonists, Canada’s mainstream media and the federal government have been pushing a narrative attributing the recent wildfires to “climate change.”
Indeed, in January, LifeSiteNews reported that a man from Quebec admitted to starting 14 forest fires himself. This put a chill to the legacy media’s push that the fires in the province were caused by “climate change.”
However, statistics from Canada’s National Fire Database show that wildfires have gone down in recent years and peaked in 1989.
As for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he has repeatedly used “climate change” and forest fires as a catalyst for propping up his government’s much-maligned carbon tax, which Smith opposes. He has blamed the fires on “climate change.”
A June 2017 peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician confirmed that most of the recent global warming data have been “fabricated by climate scientists to make it look more frightening.”
Trudeau has been calling for increased bans on Canada’s natural resources, of which Alberta has in abundance.
Smith has vowed to fight Trudeau on his attacks against Alberta’s oil and gas industry.
The reduction and eventual elimination of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.
News release from Free Alberta Strategy
Premier Danielle Smith had a message for Ottawa last week.
Keep out.
On Wednesday, the Premier rolled out her latest weapon in the fight against federal intrusions into provincial jurisdiction.
If passed, Bill 18 – the Provincial Priorities Act – aims to align federal funding with provincial priorities, ensuring that said funding reflects Alberta’s interests.
The legislation stipulates that any agreements between the federal government and any provincial entities – including municipalities – must receive provincial approval to be considered valid.
Smith has already given it a nickname: “the stay-out-of-my-backyard bill.”
It’s an apt description of the legislation, especially considering that’s what the federal government has been doing for years – encroaching into Alberta’s jurisdiction.
The legislation shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
We all know that most deals the Alberta government enters into with the federal government don’t work out for Albertans.
We end up paying more in federal taxes than gets spent in federal spending on the programs.
The programs come laden with restrictive conditions that undermine our autonomy, and are often detrimental to our ability to provide the services.
This is especially true with regard to the recent agreement between Ottawa and the provinces that allows the federal government to nationalize childcare.
The childcare agreement has come under heavy criticism due to funding shortfalls in the deal.
It also applies to housing, where despite Alberta accounting for 12% of the national population and experiencing the most rapid population growth, it received a mere 2.5% of the total $1.5 billion in federal housing funding last summer.
Jason Nixon, Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services, is in charge of housing in Alberta – which is provincial jurisdiction.
On the latest rollout of conditional federal housing handouts, Nixon isn’t buying.
“We will not be bribed, with our own money, to increase the time it takes to get homes built with green energy that makes homes more expensive.”
The theory also applies to the federal government’s latest gambit – doing an end-around provincial negotiations and going directly to municipalities, who seem more interested in taking the money than the conditions attached.
Municipalities are provincial jurisdiction.
Bill 18 mandates that entities within Alberta’s jurisdiction, such as municipalities, universities, school boards, housing agencies, and health authorities, must seek the province’s approval before engaging in, modifying, extending, or renewing agreements with Ottawa.
Agreements between the federal government and provincial entities lacking Alberta’s endorsement will be deemed illegal under this legislation.
That’s Premier Smith’s message.
She’s had enough of it.
“It is not unreasonable for Alberta to demand fairness from Ottawa. They have shown time and again that they will put ideology before practicality, which hurts Alberta families and our economy. We are not going to apologize for continuing to stand up for Albertans so we get the best deal possible.
“Since Ottawa refuses to acknowledge the negative impacts of its overreach, even after losing battles at the Federal and Supreme Courts, we are putting in additional measures to protect our provincial jurisdiction to ensure our province receives our fair share of federal tax dollars and that those dollars are spent on the priorities of Albertans.”
Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver had additional thoughts:
“For years, the federal government has been imposing its agenda on Alberta taxpayers through direct funding agreements with cities and other provincial organizations. Not only does Alberta not receive its per capita share of federal taxpayer dollars, the money we do receive is often directed towards initiatives that don’t align with Albertan’s priorities.
“Albertans from all corners of the province expect our federal share of taxes for roads, infrastructure, housing and other priorities – not federal government political pet projects and programs in select communities.”
The Provincial Priorities Act is based on existing provincial legislation in Quebec – called “An Act Respecting the Ministère du Conseil executif” – which prohibits any municipal body from entering into or negotiating an agreement with the federal government or its agencies without express authorization from the Quebec government.
That’s right – the Quebec government has the same rule!
So, this boils down to the same argument we’ve been making for years – if Ottawa wants to step into our backyard, it must first seek Alberta’s approval.
Enough is enough – we won’t stand idly by as our interests are trampled upon.
It’s time for Ottawa to recognize Alberta’s autonomy and respect our right to determine our own future.
At the Free Alberta Strategy, we know that constant vigilance is necessary – for every fence we put up, the federal government tries to find a way around it.
We’ll continue to bring you information about what’s happening in Alberta’s backyard and fighting to keep Ottawa out.
The Free Alberta Strategy Team
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