Latest news with #constitutionalcrisis
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
WA governor accuses Trump of ‘constitutional crisis.' GOP leader calls that ‘hysterical'
In a brooding speech made Thursday to fundraisers, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson blasted the Trump administration for its alleged assault on the U.S. Constitution. 'I'm pretty careful about the words I use, okay,' Ferguson told a room full of 200 Tri-City Democrats at a Richland hotel on Thursday night. 'So I don't throw around terms, like 'constitutional crisis,' casually. But — but — we are, in our country right now, in the midst of a constitutional crisis. That is a fact, that is a reality,' he said. He was in the Tri-Cities all day on business — his first visit to the region since being elected governor. He spoke to the Richland Rotary Club, signed 11 bills into law and met with officials with the plumbers and pipefitters union Local 598 before breaking bread with Democrats. Treasurer Mike Pellicciotti and Lands Commissioner Dave Upthegrove were also there. In his speech, Ferguson touched on the state's budget woes, election gains he made in the Tri-Cities over Jay Inslee's 2012 campaign, the impact of rising tariffs, and how he strives to create a government that cuts back on red tape and 'works for people.' At the same time, he also was critical of legislative Democrats' fiscal spending and called on more 'responsible' budgeting. The Legislature recently finished its 2025 session, which included patching a $16 billion budget shortfall with new taxes. Then, Ferguson tried to rally Tri-Citians to contribute to campaigns, organize protests, defend democracy and to fight for the rights of others as Democrats push to retake Congress next year. 'I want you to know that there is no governor in the country more prepared to defend your freedoms against this president than I am,' he told the room. He called Trump's actions 'anti-democratic,' alleging the MAGA president 'ignores' court orders. Ferguson wasn't specific, but he claimed Trump's antagonistic attitudes toward the judiciary are the 'very definition' of a constitutional crisis. Ferguson made parallels to a book his son was reading about how democracies die, which he said claims they perish 'not by some big revolution, typically — but by a gradual erosion' of liberties. In a phone interview with the Tri-City Herald, a leading Washington Republican responded to Ferguson's comments by calling them 'hysterical' and 'not reality based.' 'We're not in a constitutional crisis,' said Republican Party Chair Jim Walsh. 'It's irresponsible stuff. And why? Because Democrats don't have a good challenger to Trump — and Trump's not going to run again.' 'Gov. Ferguson needs to not mind the splinter in Trump's eye and tend to the plank in his own eye,' Walsh continued. He was referring to a case involving a state trooper who died in a crash allegedly caused last year by an undocumented immigrant in Snohomish County. Political and constitutional experts have been hesitant to claim that the U.S. is experiencing a constitutional crisis. Some Harvard Law professors in a February panel said while Trump's actions were 'deeply troubling,' they didn't meet the definition of a constitutional crisis. But a YouGov poll sponsored by Elon University found that 67% of U.S. adult respondents in April were 'very' or 'somewhat' concerned about a 'crisis' arising from disagreements between the executive and judicial branches. It's clear rhetoric between the two major U.S. political parties continues to flare. Walsh pointed to a since-deleted social media post by former FBI Director James Comey. He's being investigated by the Secret Service after sharing photo of seashells that spelled out '86 47' — 86, a slang term meaning 'to remove,' and Trump is the 47th president. Liberals say the phrase is meant to support ousting the sitting president, but conservatives have interpreted it as an incitement of political violence. 'That's not a joking matter,' Walsh said.
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.
