Look Over There! Danielle Smith’s Distraction Blitz

This is a frenzied moment for Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party cabinet and caucus as they attempt to pacify the party’s influential and unhappy separatist faction and distract from both the failure of the separation referendum and the metastasizing health care corruption scandal that appears to be back on the front burner again.

Accordingly, there have been so many performative announcements to distract voters, keep rebellious MLAs in line and shore up the party base that at times it appears to be an exercise in throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks. From the look of it, at least some has.

At any rate, Smith and her allies in the party appear to have fended off an attempt by separatist cadres to take over the UCP by requiring all candidates for the party board at next month’s annual general meeting to sign a loyalty oath to the leader before they can run.

OK, it’s not an oath. It’s just a declaration. But seriously, potayto-potahto.

Smith’s wrathful intramural arch-foe, separatist leader and UCP member Jeffrey Rath, circulated a copy of the form on the social media site previously known as Twitter. The pledge states that the signer acknowledges they understand the party’s returning officer “will not certify me as a Candidate” unless they agree to abide by the decision of voters for Alberta to remain in Canada.

On Wednesday, the Globe and Mail reported that UCP president Rob Smith sent an email to party members stating that “there will be NO UCP leadership review before our next general election.” He also said at least 65 of 87 UCP constituency associations have passed motions stating their loyalty to the premier.

That “at least” from the Globe’s report is doing a lot of work, seeing as a minimum of 22 constituency associations votes are required to force a leadership review. Five constituency associations are known to have voted for a leadership review. So don’t bet against the possibility that a couple more pledges will have been signed by the close of business today.

So, no separatist takeover and no leadership review.

Meanwhile, a couple of separatism-tinged UCP MLAs also appear to have been persuaded to walk the plank. Leastways, Red Deer-South MLA Jason Stephan, who had admitted he voted for Option 2 in the premier’s separatist referendum, the let’s-have-a-binding-vote option, announced a week ago he wouldn’t be seeking re-election.

And Tuesday, Lac. Ste. Anne-Parkland MLA Shane Getson, a Convoy supporter and COVID skeptic, announced he was quitting immediately for personal and family reasons. He too hadn’t been planning to run again, but for some reason accelerated his departure schedule.

With a provincial election scheduled next year, a byelection in the riding won’t be required by law, but this does give the premier an opportunity to call one in a constituency northwest of Edmonton that is unlikely to elect a New Democrat.

Attacking the BC tanker ban

On Monday, the premier and Energy Minister Brian Jean published a joint statement demanding that Ottawa repeal the Oil Tanker Moratorium Act. “Repealing the ban would open the door to crude-by-rail exports through Prince Rupert, giving Alberta another route to reach customers around the world,” the statement says, side-stepping the UCP’s real goal of getting a pipeline to the North Coast approved. This was timed to coincide with the introduction in Parliament today of a Conservative MP’s Private Member’s bill calling for the same thing. But it clearly picks up on the election of a Conservative government likely to be more sympathetic to pipeline development in British Columbia on Saturday.

The federal Liberals will probably be more cautious, since they appear to actually want to get oil flowing through B.C. and not just pick a needless fight with some of the First Nations Smith snubbed on Monday by not attending the historic Ottawa meeting of first ministers and First Nations leaders.

And waging culture war

Meanwhile, Tuesday, it was time for the UCP to announce it will declare culture war on what the political right likes to call Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies. This will be done to ensure white guys who already hold all the advantages get preferential treatment when it comes to being hired for public sector jobs. Or, as the government described that concept in its news release, “to ensure hiring and promotion decisions in public institutions are based on merit.”

The legislation proposes that the enforcement of these “fairness” rules — which we all understand are not intended to be fair in practice — will be enforced by the province’s Human Rights Commission, which in future will presumably therefore need to be printed in scare quotes and preceded by the words “so-called.”

If this reminds you of the Trump administration’s use of U.S. civil rights legislation to target legal protections against discrimination and promote bogus claims of “reverse discrimination” against white bros, there’s probably a pretty good reason for that.

This policy is part of a broader attack by the political right on social justice research and programs that include social justice education in the academy.

Distractions from the health scandal?

We can expect more of the same soon, as the UCP will now need to scramble to distract from the latest reports in the Globe and Mail about corruption in health-care procurement.

In stories Tuesday, the Globe reported that the RCMP is investigating “fraud, breach of trust and money laundering” in its probe into the procurement scandal, and that Smith is determined to prevent a real judge-led public inquiry into the circumstances.

The information seems to have come to light in a letter filed by lawyers for former Alberta Health Services CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos, who was fired last year when she tried to investigate political interference and dodgy contracts in procurement work at AHS and is now suing for $1.7 million in damages for wrongful dismissal.

The premier argues that there has already been a judge-led public inquiry, the only problems with that being that the judge in question had retired and lacked any power to compel testimony and most of his work wasn’t conducted in public.

Indeed, in his report, Raymond Wyant, late of the Manitoba Provincial Court, said he was unable to clear the government of any wrongdoing.