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Winnipeg Free Press
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Making Alberta great again — the Smith method
Opinion Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's current separatist threats are a transparent attempt to garner some gotcha-by-the-root-chakra leverage with Prime Minister Mark Carney. How else can an alienated Western premier outsparkle flamboyant Quebec? Smith is a populist, a Libertarian and a social conservative who is paradoxically agnostic. She's a clever chameleon whose rebellious rhetoric suits the bootstrap tenor of her petrostate. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is masterful at reading the mood of her constituents, Patricia Dawn Robertson writes. In the tradition of William (Bible Bill) Aberhart, a Depression-era Alberta premier, Smith is masterful at reading the mood of her grudging agrarian constituents. Aberhart, son of a German immigrant, was an Ontario-born teacher and principal. The Presbyterian-turned-Baptist led Alberta (1935-1943) under the Social Credit Party he founded, based on the philosophy of British engineer, Major C.H. Douglas. Like Smith, Aberhart gained exposure as a radio host. Aberhart's Sunday sermons were broadcast to the Prairie provinces and the northern United States. As premier, Aberhart's chief aim was to reform the banking sector. But his radical policies were overturned as unconstitutional. So he created the Alberta Treasury Branches (ATB) instead, which is a heady mix of socialism and commerce that continues to serve Albertans today. The Social Credit leader also wanted to reform the newspaper sector with The Accurate News and Information Act. The Act would have forced newspapers to print government rebuttals to stories the provincial cabinet deemed 'inaccurate.' Mercifully, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Aberhart's fascist legislation unconstitutional. I moved to Calgary from Winnipeg in 1997. Alberta's oil and gas culture dominated the well-heeled city where residents of have-not provinces migrated. As an economic refugee, I often misread my precarious place in the regional pecking order where wealthy Albertans celebrate their rural roots and deploy coffee row logic — ideas kicked around at regular small-town get-togethers over restaurant coffee — to extort Ottawa. When I complained about then-premier Ralph Klein's right-wing mindset and relentless Central Canada-bashing, a new friend scolded me: 'I'm so tired of you people coming here and sucking off the hind tit. And then complaining.' Alberta: like it or lump it. Since my departure for rural Saskatchewan in 2004, Alberta has endured numerous political iterations. Who knew that Danielle Smith would make Ralph Klein look like a moderate? Smith will stop at nothing to ensure that fair equalization transfer payments are made to entitled 'oiligarchs.' It's their oil wealth to hoard — not a shared resource. Smith's new list of outrageous demands reads like a rock star's backstage rider exacted from an event promoter: Mr. Carney, remove all of the objectionable Liberal-red M&Ms from the premiers' conference snack bowls and grant Alberta unprecedented access to tidewater energy exports. While you're at it, scrap all electricity regulations, eliminate the emissions cap, abandon the net-zero car mandate … and dispatch outspoken Green Party Leader, Elizabeth May, to Greenland. Just imagine. With complete autonomy, Albertans can finally have Fort McMurray declared a National Historic Site and convert Jasper National Park's scorched earth into a Tailings Impoundment Area, conveniently sourced from nearby Hinton's four coal mines. 'Drill, baby, drill!' will replace Wild Rose Country on the licence plate. The fracking drought will ensure that those iconic ditch roses will gain no moisture, nor purchase, in the Alberta Next era. Preston Manning will enjoy a dual role as an Antebellum secessionist coach and Calgary Stampede grand marshal, which is a nod to his late father, Ernest Manning, who followed Aberhart as Alberta premier. This is the ideal time to establish an oil and gas-friendly theme park to brag to Canadians about Alberta's immense new stature as a sovereign nation. Visitors to HydroCarbon Heritage Village experience coal-fired monster truck rallies and sign up for homemade ammo and F-ck Carney plaque workshops in prepper bunkers. Permanent exhibits include outlier hero Pierre Poilievre, depicted in a feral habitat diorama as a summer student doppelganger furiously digs in cedar shavings. Visitors will be wowed by the Conservative leader's resilience as he readies his safe seat in the Battle River-Crowfoot riding. Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. The real Poilievre will reprise his acclaimed hectoring workshop on 'How to Run-off Your Liberal Neighbours' with the 'shun them, issue nuisance bylaws violations' or burn-them-out system. Smith's workshop on DIY secessionist manifestos is a sure winner. Early summer registrants can complete the course in time for family reunion season. On Earth Day 2026, Smith's ambitions go beyond mere separation from Canada. The Alberta Armed Forces' Spring Offensive into the Okanagan is an expansionist plan for an eventual tidewater occupation. First Peachland then on to Osoyoos for the victory dinner where Smith's ravenous troops can pair a Cabernet Franc with Alberta feedlot beef. Elite observers have crafted our own grim, alternative narrative: how soon before Smith levels up and abandons elections altogether? Patricia Dawn Robertson lives in a conservative stronghold in rural Saskatchewan. You can purchase her new book, Media Brat: a Gen-X memoir at
Globe and Mail
12-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Alberta's separatist angst has bone-deep economic roots. Ottawa cannot ignore it
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian. A radio personality-turned-populist Alberta premier fanning the flames of a constitutional crisis. Many Albertans convinced that central Canadian business and political big shots neither understand Alberta's economy nor the aspirations of its people. This was Alberta in 1935, under the premiership of William 'Bible Bill' Aberhart. It resembles Alberta in 2025, led by populist Premier Danielle Smith, who believes Albertans' livelihoods have been under attack for the past decade. According to Ms. Smith, the federal 'onslaught of anti-energy, anti-agriculture and anti-resource policies have scared away global investment to the tune of over a half a trillion dollars.' After the recent election of another federal Liberal government, led this time by Prime Minister Mark Carney, Ms. Smith has opened the door to a separation referendum in 2026 if, over any 120-day period, 10 per cent of voters sign a petition for one. In 1935, Aberhart wanted a separate Alberta banking system. Some in Alberta now want a separate country. What one has to do with the other is how the Eastern 'big shots,' as Aberhart called them, responded to Alberta's economic angst in the 1930s and why a replay of history could be our national undoing. Aberhart and his Social Credit Party campaigned against the Canadian banking system because the financial pipelines connecting Alberta's farmers and businesses to internal and external markets were inadequate, constraining growth and exacerbating the hardships of the Great Depression. Canada's banking system was designed in the 1870s. Its goal at the time was to generate stability and protect depositors by facilitating mostly short-term credit (a year or less) for merchants and mixed farming in Eastern Canada. Alberta, founded in 1905, needed a different system, one suited to an economy based on large single crops of wheat, oats and barley, or cattle-raising where viable. This farming required longer-term, lower-cost loans to better manage the ebbs and flows of boom-and-bust commodity markets. By 1935, Albertans were demanding change. Moderates wanted a central bank to manage monetary policy and deliver liquidity to a banking system that could then deploy longer-term loans, keeping the banking system stable. Most bankers from Toronto and Montreal were ideologically opposed to a central bank, believing it would be politicized by Ottawa. Albertans were told by bankers their commodity-driven economy was the problem and that they should mimic Ontario's diversification and make do with the economic results. Moderates won the fight to create the Bank of Canada in 1934 and it opened its doors in March the next year. But the battle for changes to the kind of lending banks could do (longer-term credit facilities that better supported Alberta's economy and consumers) was lost. Banks, for instance, were not permitted to finance even insured mortgages until 1954. Using a mix of incoherent, redistributionist assumptions (social credit), underwritten by conspiracy theories about bankers, Aberhart and his Social Credit Party promised voters in 1935 to take control of the loan policies of Canadian banks and give Albertans the credit they needed to thrive. Two years on, Social Credit hardliners wanted action and forced Aberhart's hand. The Credit of Alberta Regulation Act was passed by the provincial assembly in August, 1937, giving the province regulatory authority over the lending policies of Canada's chartered banks operating in Alberta. Legislation was enacted outlawing use of the courts to invalidate provincial statues, a 1930s attempt at what we know today as a 'notwithstanding clause.' The late constitutional expert J.R. Mallory noted that by this legislation, Alberta 'stood committed to a rejection of the financial system of Canada and of the basic assumptions of national unity in matters of national scope.' Canada was faced with a full-on constitutional crisis. John Hugill, Aberhart's attorney-general and a moderate, resigned from cabinet. Banks prepared to close all bank branches in Alberta. Ottawa acted within 10 days and disallowed Alberta's legislation under the Constitution. Establishing the Bank of Canada was considered good enough to address Alberta's concerns about banking in the early 1930s. To do more, to change the kind of banking system the country needed to support Alberta prosperity, was deemed a step too far. What the experience of Alberta and Canada in the 1930s tells us today is this: When there is opportunity for wholesale change, what looks good enough from the perspective of Ottawa and Toronto is not enough. Failure to understand this in the 1930s planted the seeds of Western alienation deep in Alberta's political soil. Failure to understand this today may well uproot Confederation as we know it in the future.
