Kelly McParland: How decades of Liberal indifference created Danielle Smith

Taxslave2

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The liberal elite have always been terrified of the West becoming independent. All turdOWE is doing is carrying on the anti-western prosperity his father started in the 70s. Which was really a continuation of abuse since confederation. The Crow freight rate being the most obvious and offensive.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Trudeau is facing poll numbers so catastrophic that there’s been few precedents in his lifetime. For months, every sit-down interview with Trudeau has begun with a battery of questions as to why he’s even bothering to remain prime minister — and Jespersen’s was no exception.

The host was careful to note that not only are the Liberals facing a “bloodbath” at the next election, but that Trudeau’s personal likeability is in free fall. Against all this, Trudeau did not once concede that the polls might have a point, or that his government should change course.

The surveys were either wrong (“polls had me behind in 2015,” he said), or they were driven by partisan ignorance. Said Trudeau: “people have realized it is easy to instrumentalize anger and outrage, and get people to vote in ways that are not necessarily in their best interest.”

It’s not unusual that a Liberal prime minister would find themselves at odds with Alberta. But when the likes of Pierre Trudeau or Jean Chretien got into it with the province, it was usually over an issue that they openly acknowledged was intended to prioritize the national interest at Albertan expense.

But Trudeau argued at length to Jespersen that he is more attuned to Alberta interests than its own industries or even its own government.
“I don’t think the oil industry has had the back of oilsands workers,” he said. He also accused Premier Smith’s government of “ideological opposition against doing things that are good for workers.”

The gist of Trudeau’s claim is that oil is fast becoming an unprofitable commodity, and that Alberta won’t have a prosperous future unless they sign onto his vision of net-zero. “It’s not a plot by eastern bastards, it’s a focus on, ‘where are the investors coming from, what are they looking at?'” he said.

The prime minister also implied that Albertans would voluntarily be abandoning oil extraction for alternative energy if not for their provincial government standing in the way. “Governments should get out of the way of Albertans innovating and creating that better future. If you can build a pipeline for oilsands oil, you can build a pipeline for hydrogen,” he said, etc…

A running theme in the interview is that Canadians oppose Trudeau or his government largely due to misinformation. “Everyone out there is blaming us for everything that’s going wrong, including Putin deciding to invade Ukraine, or climate change or what have you,” he said at the interview’s outset, before blaming right-wing politicians who are getting people “riled up.”

In the interview’s final minutes, Trudeau spoke of a “deliberate undermining of mainstream media” by “conspiracy theorists” who are out to “prevent people from agreeing on a common set of facts.”

Oh, the “fringe minority with unacceptable views…”…been a while since that one was used.

The prime minister didn’t go into details about the common facts, but he said his government was unwittingly “compromising” the mainstream media by constantly representing the “mainstream” fact-based view. As such, when the media repeats these views, they look like government “mouthpieces.”

“There are massive changes that need to take place in our media landscape, and government can create conditions and incentives for it to happen,” he said.

Oh, I’m sure there Justin, even though you claim that’s not the intention of C-11 & C-18.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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The host was careful to note that not only are the Liberals facing a “bloodbath” at the next election, but that Trudeau’s personal likeability is in free fall. Against all this, Trudeau did not once concede that the polls might have a point, or that his government should change course.
I'd credit his guts and integrity for doing what's right instead of what's popular. . . if that was what he was doing.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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I'd credit his guts and integrity for doing what's right instead of what's popular. . . if that was what he was doing.
Trudeau? Seriously? It’s a sales pitch. He snuck in to the province, and out again before the Alberta government knew he was there. Definitely not an announced visit.

Do you really think his best interests are Alberta? It’s not like he’s got a lot of seats there or he’s ever going to have a lot of seats there…. So it’s a sales pitch, not even for Alberta, but for his base, which isn’t in Alberta.
1708723742426.jpeg
You might be able to sell a car by telling the uneducated that it’s got an upgraded flux capacitor and new muffler bearings, but not to a mechanic…& when it comes to the oil field, Alberta is the mechanic that his sales pitch is not aimed at.

The sales pitch is division, and it’s aimed at Ontario and Quebec to show that Alberta is ungrateful, pack of rubes, etc…& it worked before.
 
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Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
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While the PM had no time for a get-together with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, he and his staff did manage to find time for a 30-minute sit-down with “progressive” Edmonton podcaster, Ryan Jespersen.

It was the Jespersen interview that created the greatest anger among Albertans. Trudeau was at one and the same time arrogant, delusional, dismissive and insulting.

Time and again his answers betrayed his inner belief that his government’s current unpopularity isn’t its own fault. Poor polling has little to do with Liberal policies – carbon tax, EV mandate, inflation, housing and immigration – and everything to do with how others, notably the opposition Conservatives and online journalists, are being mean to them.

In Trudeau’s mind, everything is a “comms” (communications) problem.

You can witness that thinking in last summer’s cabinet shuffle, which changed no Liberal policies only the mouthpieces attempting to communicate them to voters. And you can see it with the recent rebranding of the Climate Action Initiative Payment to the Canada Carbon Rebate. Surely the only reason 100% of Canadians aren’t behind the Liberals’ noble scheme is that they were too stupid to recognize what the old name was when they saw it on their bank statements.

Then Trudeau turned to insulting the intelligence of Albertans specifically.

In a patronizing tone that lasted throughout his Jespersen conversation, Trudeau said Albertans were being fooled by their own government and by online sharpies into disagreeing with his efforts to decarbonize Canada’s economy.

He insisted we were being duped into not seeing how he was the true defender of our best interests, rather than the oil companies or Danielle Smith’s government. For their own electoral and commercial self-interests, Trudeau claimed, these evil forces were conning people “to vote in ways that are not necessarily in their best interest.”

Yet listeners had to wonder who was playing the fool?

Trudeau insisted oil was rapidly becoming an unprofitable commodity, so Albertans’ best chance for a prosperous future was to get behind such grandiose ideas as his net-zero power grid and his belief that pipelines are things of the past.

However, the International Energy Agency expects world oil demand to grow by a million barrels a day this year and to continue to grow until at least 2040, perhaps 2050.

In the working lifetimes of most Albertans, alternate energies will not provide the employment benefits of good old oil and natural gas. So who truly has Albertans’ best interests at heart?

Even while insisting he wasn’t one of the “eastern bastards,” Trudeau told listeners that Albertans were being manipulated by “conspiracy theorists” and pedlars of misinformation.

That’s shorthand for “Hey, you hicks. I’m smarter than you.” You need me and my government to guide you and regulate what you see online to keep you from harming yourselves, the planet and democracy.
 

Taxslave2

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Aug 13, 2022
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Trudeau is facing poll numbers so catastrophic that there’s been few precedents in his lifetime. For months, every sit-down interview with Trudeau has begun with a battery of questions as to why he’s even bothering to remain prime minister — and Jespersen’s was no exception.

The host was careful to note that not only are the Liberals facing a “bloodbath” at the next election, but that Trudeau’s personal likeability is in free fall. Against all this, Trudeau did not once concede that the polls might have a point, or that his government should change course.

The surveys were either wrong (“polls had me behind in 2015,” he said), or they were driven by partisan ignorance. Said Trudeau: “people have realized it is easy to instrumentalize anger and outrage, and get people to vote in ways that are not necessarily in their best interest.”

It’s not unusual that a Liberal prime minister would find themselves at odds with Alberta. But when the likes of Pierre Trudeau or Jean Chretien got into it with the province, it was usually over an issue that they openly acknowledged was intended to prioritize the national interest at Albertan expense.

But Trudeau argued at length to Jespersen that he is more attuned to Alberta interests than its own industries or even its own government.
“I don’t think the oil industry has had the back of oilsands workers,” he said. He also accused Premier Smith’s government of “ideological opposition against doing things that are good for workers.”

The gist of Trudeau’s claim is that oil is fast becoming an unprofitable commodity, and that Alberta won’t have a prosperous future unless they sign onto his vision of net-zero. “It’s not a plot by eastern bastards, it’s a focus on, ‘where are the investors coming from, what are they looking at?'” he said.

The prime minister also implied that Albertans would voluntarily be abandoning oil extraction for alternative energy if not for their provincial government standing in the way. “Governments should get out of the way of Albertans innovating and creating that better future. If you can build a pipeline for oilsands oil, you can build a pipeline for hydrogen,” he said, etc…

A running theme in the interview is that Canadians oppose Trudeau or his government largely due to misinformation. “Everyone out there is blaming us for everything that’s going wrong, including Putin deciding to invade Ukraine, or climate change or what have you,” he said at the interview’s outset, before blaming right-wing politicians who are getting people “riled up.”

In the interview’s final minutes, Trudeau spoke of a “deliberate undermining of mainstream media” by “conspiracy theorists” who are out to “prevent people from agreeing on a common set of facts.”

Oh, the “fringe minority with unacceptable views…”…been a while since that one was used.

The prime minister didn’t go into details about the common facts, but he said his government was unwittingly “compromising” the mainstream media by constantly representing the “mainstream” fact-based view. As such, when the media repeats these views, they look like government “mouthpieces.”

“There are massive changes that need to take place in our media landscape, and government can create conditions and incentives for it to happen,” he said.

Oh, I’m sure there Justin, even though you claim that’s not the intention of C-11 & C-18.
I guess turdOWE missed the fact that in the last Provincial election, Albertans resoundingly voted in favour of a government that opposes his warped view of resource industries.
 
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Taxslave2

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Trudeau is facing poll numbers so catastrophic that there’s been few precedents in his lifetime. For months, every sit-down interview with Trudeau has begun with a battery of questions as to why he’s even bothering to remain prime minister — and Jespersen’s was no exception.
Could be right up there with Joe Who federally and the BC dippers in 2001, who went from majority government to 2 seats.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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“Canada is becoming irrelevant,” the premier reports, matter-of-factly. “We have the ability to supply the world with everything they need, and we really could be a leader. But we have a federal government that chooses not to, that chooses to work against the national interest rather than advance it.”

For Smith, stepping up includes waving the provincial flag in Washington, D.C.
Getting the attention of American politicians in an election year isn’t easy. Smith knows she needs to pitch forward-thinking ideas, in person, with folks on both sides of the aisle in the U.S. Capitol. Justin Trudeau’s gang are a poor shill for Alberta’s energy sector and the aspirations of its citizens.

It’s election year in D.C.; she met with people close to Biden and people close to Trump, she reports, “so regardless of who’s in the White House after the election,” Alberta’s US$161-billion worth of trade, most of that energy, remains relevant.

And like every Alberta premier before her, she reminded Americans of the province-next-door: “I think the Americans spend a lot of time looking at what OPEC is doing, and I had to tell them, we give more product to the United States than all the OPEC nations combined.

Pragmatic messages from a straight-shooting western Canadian premier. Except, there’s one big problem — all that flailing in Ottawa. “It’s showmanship for their own extreme environmental base,” she sighs, “because the rest of the world is very practical about this. Even the agreement that was signed on COP28 recognizes natural gas as a transition fuel.”

One thing for certain, this premier isn’t trusting Ottawa to advocate on Albertans’ behalf. If we want to tell our own story, provinces have to do it ourselves, she asserts. “So you look at Quebec, I think they’ve got 34 trade offices around the world. We’ve got 16. I believe that Ontario has 17.”

“I think that we used to have a federal government that we could trust to advocate for our interests on the international stage, and I think we’re all coming to the conclusion, one by one, that it’s not the case. We’ve got a federal government that is actually working against interests in different ways in different provinces.”
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Yeah…that caught me too. There are many fronts, and some are in better or worse shape than others.
Canada is beyond any doubt a vast well of natural resources. It would be a great, great thing if y'all (maybe with some consultation with the rest of the world) could work out a plan, or even a set of principles, for exploitation that would provide resources to the planet, ensure fair compensation to the lucky bastards sitting on the treasure, and be sustainable for the long haul.

Naaaah! Rip, tear, slash, grab, sell, and hoard! Learn NOTHING from the collapse of the Atlantic fishery!
 

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
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Canada is beyond any doubt a vast well of natural resources. It would be a great, great thing if y'all (maybe with some consultation with the rest of the world) could work out a plan, or even a set of principles, for exploitation that would provide resources to the planet, ensure fair compensation to the lucky bastards sitting on the treasure, and be sustainable for the long haul.

Naaaah! Rip, tear, slash, grab, sell, and hoard! Learn NOTHING from the collapse of the Atlantic fishery!
We learned that the feds did not know there was a Pacific fishery until they destroyed the Atlantic fishery, and were casting about for a new job creation scheme.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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Regina, Saskatchewan
Bring back whaling.
I’d be happy with relatively inexpensive Cod. Makes me miss the 70s.

Our issue with our eastern fishery was that we were not enforcing our territorial limit, so we had large commercial foreign factory vessels raping the Grand Banks while we had limits on ourselves.

By the time we did anything about it, it was a day late & a dollar short.
 
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petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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I’d be happy with relatively inexpensive Cod. Makes me miss the 70s.

Our issue with our eastern fishery was that we were not enforcing our territorial limit, so we had large commercial foreign factory vessels raping the Grand Banks while we had limits on ourselves.

By the time we did anything about it, it was a day late & a dollar short.
Spain and Portugal if memory serves me well.

Seals that used to get bashed upset the balance too.
 
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