The Battle for Alberta & Canada

The Battle for Alberta & Canada

 

Many in the audience jeered at the videos that introduced each of the topics, particularly the section on leaving the Canada Pension Plan in favor of an Alberta plan. Some even pushed back at the premise of the panel. 

 

"Alberta doesn't really want you doing this right now," one man said.

 

-             Tensions high at town hall as Alberta Next Panel faces polarized crowd in Edmonton, CBC News

 

By Gregg Wall (8-16-2025)

 

In many ways the battle for Alberta is no different than the political duopoly battle we see in the United States, between Dems and GOP, and the United Kingdom, between Labour and Tories or Nigel Farage’s Reform party.  The playbook and arguments are very similar and the manner in which voters get sucked into binary narratives, polarization, and tribalism are all very familiar.  Here in Alberta, there’s perhaps a little more at stake in terms of the United Conservative Party’s (UCP) desire to privatize Medicare and import America’s failed for-profit care model.  America is fighting for Medicare for All, whereas in Alberta, the UCP are fighting to destroy it.  Despite a litany of failures and broken promises, Alberta premier Dani Smith’s MAGA base of rural political support, often referred to as Maple-MAGA, appears willing to turn a blind eye, not only to the province’s declining fortunes but their own.

 

Soaring inflation; sky high rents; “free market” utilities (their freedom to rip-off Albertans); attacks on public education; the aforementioned assault on public healthcare, including charging Alberta for COVID vaccine (call it double taxation as Canadians pay for Medicare, annually, at tax time); soaring insurance premiums; privatization scandals; crony-investigations that go unresolved; foodbank foot traffic that has doubled in five years; nearly 33% of Calgary is food insecure, thanks to some of the lowest minimum wages in Canada… just to name some of the Ultra’s Corrupt Party’s growing cacophony of apathy, failures, and mismanagement. 

 

And then, there’s the simple matter of Dani and UCP reversing themselves on the very issues that nearly cost them the ’23 election: sovereignty, an extra shiny new layer of police state bureaucracy (you know, to soak up high unemployment), the attempt to strip the Canadian pension and start an Alberta pension (so UCP can dump money into a lethal fossil fuels industry), and lest we forget, the aforementioned pledge that Alberta will maintain Medicare and Albertans will never incur out of pocket medical expense.  All this, conveniently, Dani and the Ultra Corrupt Party have brought back with a vengeance.  You know, to rally the MAGA faithful, the separatist zealots, the freedom convoy clan, the crew that’s willing to join America tomorrow, despite Trump’s own catalogue of failures.  Gee some of this sounds familiar… soaring inflation, a failure to honor promises, endless gaslighting and lies on how great Trump is, a complete failure to end wars & genocide.   America’s own problems with homelessness & growing poverty, medical bankruptcy, privatization of the state and catastrophic national debt & deficits... very familiar.  But this is who Maple-MAGA looks up to in Alberta and w/in many of the rural areas of BC, Sask., and Manitoba.  Of course, Cons on both sides of the border not only like to discount and ignore their leadership’s glaring deficiencies, endless lies & omissions, but they like to play up their Dear Leader’s fictional achievements… and if all else fails, attack Ottawa and the Liberals.  

 

What’s most interesting about the MAGA-Maple crowd is their nearly rapturous love, bordering on mania, for the Canadian fossil fuels industry who shows them absolutely nothing but contempt.   Maple-MAGA’s endless love affair for an industry that is presently burning Canada to the ground; that has gutted half its workforce over a relatively short span of time (w/ more layoffs on the way); an O&G industry that pays notoriously stingy royalty payments (payments that will undoubtedly decline, maybe even vanish, as the oil glut worsens and the global economy crumbles under Trump’s tariff shock); an O&G industry that buys off governments, installs corrupt politicians; the very industry that expects unlimited welfare & socialism from the state but uses the press organs and its obscene wealth to preach the failed gospel of libertarianism & bootstraps.  But to hear the UCP cult tell it, evil Ottawa is holding the industry back and if only the sacrament of the devil… oil & gas… were allowed to flow freely, all of Alberta’s problems would be over: jobs would rain down from the heavens, and the rugged Western Canadian would show the East Coast Canadians, once and for all.  Sheer madness.

 

These oil & gas industry cucks really love to get their panties in a bunch over the, on average, $20 billion in taxes they pay to Ottawa annually (net of payments received from Ottawa in return).  Conveniently forgetting that their beloved, the Oil & Gas robber barons & utilities, are the recipients of billions and billions in direct and indirect subsides, as well as, externalities paid for by the Canadian taxpayer and general public.  Subsides, externalities, and welfare to O&G that grossly exceed the $20 billion paid into Ottawa.  Trudeau even built them a taxpayer funded pipeline… isn’t the far-right Liberal party nice?  It's really quite the freak show.  In fact, it’s all enough to blow one’s faith in humanity.  And I’m not entirely sure why or what if anything can be done about it, other than to stop voting for mainstream centrist politicians, boycott multinationals, boycott corporately owned parties, organize, strike, and insist upon more direct democracy.  All this explains why conservatives, libertarians, and the oligarchy love to attack college, well-funded public schools, education, science, books, and learning.  After all, a well-educated public is a threat; after all, a well-educated public… not necessarily as measured by degrees, but as measured by critical thinking and knowledge… is a threat to abjectly failed libertarianism.  Which explains why UCP, Canadian Cons, and the Donald all attack education and learning.  A libertarian/laissez-faire ideology that is in reality, and ironically, rejected by the O&G industry and oligarchy, which lives on endless market manipulation, socialism, and welfare from the state.  Oil production costs are among the highest in the world in Fort McMurray, if not the highest, and the profits are realized in the United States, not Canada.  The entire oil sands project is obscene, benefiting the rich exclusively. Certainly, not the Cons and the UCP cult, who pine for the industry’s expansion as North America and the world burns.

 

 

 

None of this is to say, Liberals and Ottawa haven’t done significant damage to their relations with rural voters and their derision from the conservative community isn’t earned.  Liberals, after all are the mirror image of the conservative party on the economy,for the most part, and play opposite rolls on culture wars and social issues (Libs, Dems, and UK Labour have all continually drifted further right, with no left-wing parties to anchor them and only right-wing parties to drag them further away from the public and labour).  Liberals and conservatives fully embrace top-down economics, deregulation, globalization, and neoliberalism … they’ve flooded Canada with immigrant labour for the benefit of commercial enterprise, while making no effort to maintain healthcare, housing, and infrastructure.

 

That’s right, Trudeau hate has been replaced by Carney hate.  And Carney is already giving Canada issues to be angry about: a failure to rein in corporate greed, high unemployment, a depressed Canadian dollar (that only exacerbates the inflation crisis, but is a Canadian exporters dream), endless kowtowing to Trump (turning Canada into a vassal state), Carney’s refusal to address the conservative provinces’ channeling federal dollars into privatized medical care and charging Canadians for healthcare services (most likely in violation of the Canada Health Act); and then, there’s the simple matter of a burning Canada (All Summer Long).  Carney has gone silent, only offering band-aids to put out fires, but making zero effort to address the arsonist, fossil fuels.  And let’s not forget the private equity chair’s countless conflicts of interest.  One would think our newly minted leader, as the former head of GFANZ, would take advantage of the disaster/opportunity of Canada burning all summer, the second worst inferno season so far, to take on the fossil fuels industry.   But Carney is more of a wallflower, a banker, a caretaker for a dying, failed neoliberal status quo… that is to say, he falls flat... hanging his hat on the trade war and the erratic and scary Trump to keep his approval rating propped up. Trump, of course, is a constant reminder that he got Carney elected, and so Carney obviously feels some obligation to Trump?  No?  Which may or may not explain Carney’s reluctance to take Trump on.  From Carney backing off on the highly modest digital service tax, to a failure to retaliate on tariffs with export taxes on energy… even proceeding to buy the pathetic American F-35 (?)… Carney, so far, is getting mauled by Trump.  And so far, his political base of support holds with their support, unwilling or simply too tired to hold the private equity chairman accountable, responsible.

 

As for the economy and failed neoliberalism, the former private equity chair isn’t going to change a thing… relying more on choreographed events, omission, platitudes, and silence… to avoid discussing the very real bread & butter issues that will likely drive Canadians into the arms of conservatives by the time the next election rolls around.  Soaring inequality, an economy that only works for a predatory few, declining public services, low wages, and unaffordable housing, unaffordable LIFE could impact the future permanence of the Liberal party.

 

 

 

I’d like to think the West – America, Canada, and the EU -- somehow pulls up from its nosedive. That somehow the public sees through the failed political duopoly, the endless class warfare, and given time, I think it’s entirely possible for that epiphany to occur.  We are, however, running out of time, running out of runway.  Wouldn’t it be great: if empathy and love ruled over humanity’s heart, instead of division, fear, greed, hate, and all too often nescience? 

 

But given our failed duopoly leadership, the billionaire class, and special interests, that doesn’t appear likely any time soon.  Labour and a public faced with manufactured precarity, scarcity, and declining standards of living appear to have little chance to learn about the many ways they are attacked by the West’s failed duopoly and the oligarchy they report into… and many, like Alberta’s UCP faithful, simply do not appear to show any interest in learning, instead wallowing in a sea of anger, denial, ignorance, dismissing any information that doesn’t fit their narrative as “fake news.”  Their entire identity appears to be wrapped up in a deadly and lethal industry and hating Ottawa.  Ironically, the solutions… education, technology, and resources… are all at our fingertips, but our leadership is often too corrupt to use them for the betterment of humanity and seem intent on cordoning off education from the public (with increasingly insurmountable barriers to entry, primarily college tuition & whitewashing curriculum).  Gen Z is now dumping college for the trades, perhaps a smart move in the Age of AI.  Meanwhile, political leadership, Cons and Libs, ride the beast, divide and conquer… distract, manipulate, and dissemble (or just passively ignore massive human suffering, pretending it’s not there or acceptable collateral damage for a libertarian economy).  And leadership, all too often, especially conservatives, feed their base of support a steady diet of bile, fear, grievance, and hatred -- victim status and rage -- while doing absolutely nothing to improve the lot in life of the Canadian people (instead, preserving a failed economic paradigm and enriching themselves and the 1%).  What a world, so much energy directed at attacking each other, instead of our oppressor: political duopolies and the multinationals & oligarchy that owns them.

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2025