Please Advise! Did Trump’s Bombs Save Alberta’s Budget?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Last week Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner brought in a budget with a deficit of $9.4 billion, even higher than the B.C. budget deficit on a per capita basis.

Premier Danielle Smith claimed the province’s deficit was partly the result of Ottawa’s unchecked immigration policies. Horner’s budget barely mentioned the issue.

What’s the real financial story in Alberta, Dr. Steve?

Signed,

Bud

Dear Bud,

It is no secret that Smith is an admirer of Donald Trump. He’s been a role model for the Alberta premier, politically if not cosmetically. You can hear echoes of America’s Cheeseburger-in-Chief when Smith starts blaming immigrants for everything from shower mildew to ingrown toenails.

But perhaps now we are seeing another reason for all her Trump love. Only days ago, the Alberta budget offered a bleak picture. Alberta can’t get well without its wells, and lately oil prices have been sinking deeper than a drill bit in a dry hole. But just when things looked bleakest, the cry went out: Look! Up in the sky! It’s a drone! It’s a plane! It’s a combined U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran that has destabilized the Middle East, causing a spike in oil prices!

There has been no official response to the U.S. action from the Alberta government. Some of the non-responses presumably included: “Cha-ching!” “Score!” “Diamond-encrusted pickleball racquets for everybody!”

No wonder Smith visited Mar-a-Lago last year. Trump has really done her a solid.

It’s enough to give an Alberta conspiracy theorist a bigger boost than shotgunning a case of Rockstar Recovery Grape. But let’s not get carried away here. If you think this was all part of a plan, you’d have to assume Trump has one. MAGA people claim Trump is playing 4D chess, while Marco Rubio is busy taking the chess pieces away and reminding him they are not made of delicious chocolate. Vladimir Putin plays chess; Trump is more “Hungry Hungry Hippos.”

Yes, what a brilliant tactician Trump is. Having solved the affordability issue with his firehose of tariffs, and brought food prices down by deporting farm workers, he is now reducing gas prices by sowing chaos in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump is to inflation as RFK Jr. is to measles.

And now Trump is doing for world peace what he did for the Kennedy Center. This guy could ruin red velvet birthday cake and sleeping in on Saturday.

But enough about the practical implications. The main thing is, this situation has allowed US Defense Bro Pete Hegseth to flex. “If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans,” Hegseth warned Iran, “we will hunt you down.”

Presumably to sue them for copyright infringement. Killing and threatening Americans? That’s ICE’s thing, man.

Meanwhile off in the wings, Alberta’s Horner breathes a sigh of relief that could topple a redwood. As the old saying goes: “It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good.” That aphorism is often misunderstood — the original meaning was that every bad event, no matter how terrible, will work to someone’s benefit. If oil prices stay high, death and destruction overseas will mean an influx of cash for Alberta. Thanks awfully.

But in the fiscal fog of war, let us not forget Smith’s pre-budget argument about the coming deficit. It was, she said, partly about lower oil prices and partly about the costs created by immigrants. They are to blame.

Since Horner’s budget did not provide any evidence for that claim, we can only assume there was another explanation. Perhaps immigrants rushed into Smith’s office and kidnapped her goldfish, forcing her to do their evil bidding. “Spend yourself into a hole or the fish gets it,” the dastardly foreigners probably insisted, and her government was compelled to comply.

Or perhaps Smith was referring to the large contract given to Edmonton Oiler forward Leon Draisaitl. That’ll cost you.

Most of all, the familiar “Blame the immigrants” spiel is a reminder that Smith functions like a tribute band. She’s the Nearvana of Canadian politics. Surely Alberta would be better off without a low-budget Trump.