City Notebook: Canada on the cusp, will Alberta dig in
By Collin Gallant on March 8, 2025.
Time flies in politics, with change coming in the blink of an eye or staying exactly the same as the years can whiz by. Wasn’t it just 12 years ago that Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau took selfies with a giddy crowd at the Medicine Hat Golf and Country Club? Or nine years ago that he shut down Second Street appearing as Prime Minister during a local byelection? Others will recall that same month in 2016, the now soon-to-step-down Liberal leader introduced the carbon tax in the middle of the campaign to fill the vacant seat here. That policy took a lot of the guessing out of the Glen Motz vs. Stan Sakamoto horserace for MP. Conservatives from Foremost to Cardston gladly got out of bed on voting day to let their thoughts be known. They haven’t let up for nine interrupted years. Your author recalls talking to a Calgary radio call-in show at the time – that host being Danielle Smith. This week, just up the street at the provincial building, the now Premier and local MLA Smith gave one of the her more consequential addresses to the media. A pivot from her previous soft-touch stance on the threat of avoiding American tariffs to a stronger-looking but strikingly similar message of gaining greater cooperation and integration with the American energy industry. That, of course, is only on the table once this entire tariff issue is settled, said Smith. For the record, she also wants new pipelines to all coasts, removing interprovincial trade barriers, fewer barriers for resource projects – all pretty standard fare from the conservative policy book. The woman whose political revival is based on driving for a stronger Alberta in a looser confederation is now facing widespread calls for a stronger, more coordinated country. Her supporters will argue that common sense doesn’t change, but can come in and out of style. Currently there’s verve to expand domestic energy supply and use. Alberta and Saskatchewan want to seize on it after years of lobbying. One big question among many big questions is whether Alberta will be bringing anything new to the table – or taking anything off – when premiers discuss greater cooperation and a more national view. Smith sidestepped the question posed by the News, but this province is still actively pursuing a provincial pension that many Canadian say would capsize the Canadian Pension Plan. Conservative voters here also still want action on equalization, and that’s a dance that Smith and federal Conservative leader Pierre Pollievre will have to have with voters now that Trudeau is gone. Politics, Part II You may not have noticed, but the next federal election and Alberta municipal elections are set to take place on the same day – Oct. 20 – this fall. At the same time, does anyone believe that will happen? Mightn’t the Liberals look to capitalize on the quick step of selecting a new leader (it happens this weekend)? Or, the vote could be legally extended to 2026 if other party support for the minority government could survive a full five-year term. Lot’s of people have mused city council wouldn’t last theirs, but here we are and with a new can-do attitude in 2025. This week, the News detailed how some councillors are driving their issues on to agendas using “notices of motion.” The field in the municipal race is still wide open with only a few names being bandied about, current council members tight-lipped, and one name on the official nomination list. A look ahead The Liberal Party Leadership contest concludes with voting ending over night into Sunday and the release of results from the first round voting at about 4:30 p.m. MST. The Alberta Legislature resumes sitting on Monday. 100 years ago An Alberta Provincial Police posse scoured the countryside after trainman Jimmy Caulkins was shotgunned to death at Walsh, the News headlines blared on March 9, 1925. The body had been found in the bunkhouse after the station agent heard breaking glass and swearing at about 4 a.m. The manhunt had left Medicine Hat on a special train. The Monarchs would face the reigning Abbot Cup champion Calgary Canadians is an exhibition tune ups ahead of Calgary’s appearance in Winnipeg to play for the Memorial Cup (a first for an Alberta team) against Owen Sound, Ont. Alberta’s deficit would be $621,000 in 1925, according to the recently passed budget, which also made it compulsory for municipalities to levy property tax assessments on land improvements. Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of topics for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com. 33-32
Our family spent countless hours volunteering for the Lougheed and Getty governments. A brother in-law voluntarily flew the government plane for them in his spare time. Lougheed’s energy minister Bill Dickie was a brother in-law of one of my uncles and dad donated $30,000. to the Alberta Conservative Party over the years.
Yet along came Ralph Klein whom our family had known since 1960 and knew what a jerk he was. In true Reform Party Fashion he deliberately began destroying everything that Lougheed had created for the good of the people and nothing has changed these Reformers are still doing it. While Alaska has created a $80 billion savings account and paid every man, woman and child $52,000. each in total annual oil dividend cheques, Alberta has a pathetic $21 billion in theirs and received $1,000. In oil revenue. We have an $85 billion debt and a $260 billion oil well cleanup mess to contend with and Norway has $1.4 trillion in their savings account.
It’s no surprise that the American Oilmen working in Alberta that I was involved with called us the dumbest people on the planet for letting Ralph Klein
give away our oil wealth and corporate taxes the way he was doing and these Reformers are still doing it.There is certainly nothing Conservative about Danielle Smith or Pierre Poilievre is there?