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Whither Alberta and Its Cynical Populism by Bill Lee

What with all the illegal shenanigans of the former president of the USA seeming to be coming to some moment of truth (at least, most of us hope that is what’s happening) and getting huge coverage, we should not let some of our own Canadian stories of vile leadership be forgotten. I’ve been musing on the disappointing, but hardly unexpected, results of the recent election in the Province of Alberta. For what it is worth, there is one thing I think we have learned (or should have learned) in the months that have gone by since the alt-right of conservative minded politicos in the UCP got rid of the already cynical, right-wing Premier, Jason Kenny.i Smith and her UCP, true believing adherents have demonstrated that they are among those arrogant ignoramuses who think they can create their own truth, like climate change is a hoax aimed at beggaring, specifically, the whole population of Alberta, for example. They neither understand, nor show the slightest interest, in learning about the profound beauty, or the existential importance of, the social and the common good. Their fevered brains, such as they are, have become clogged with the noxious muck dredged from the fetid sewer of the Ayn Rand ideology of untrammelled, i.e. selfish, me first, toxic individualism. They have totally committed themselves to the cynical populism of some of the grungiest politicians of the day.

Their models are the “strongman” and neo-fascist, Victor Orban in Hungary, the now gone and unlamented, Boris Johnson in Great Britain, the already mentioned Trump - Drache & Frose (2023) equate his antics with those of premier Smith - and the ex-president’s poor son, Trump Jr. and Ron DeSantos (in the US). They subscribe to the honouring of all manner of zany Qanon conspiracy theories; from denial of the climate change crisis to belief that the covid vaccine is means to install chips in our bloodstream. And let’s not forget the “great replacement” nonsense. They are proponents and practitioners of the small-minded, mean-spirited Johnsonian/Trumpian approach to politics where innuendo and the big lie stands in for policy development.ii

Of course, other provinces, like Ontario, have a kind of similar practitioner of the dark arts of blatant dishonesty, sleight of hand and horrible policy trajectories. Here in Ontario Doug Ford in effect does practically nothing to address the climate crisis. He also lies like a rug and shrugs off or deflects any charges that he has broken his word (he has decided to sell off sections of the sensitive green belt in the GTA for example) and is beholden to his rich buddies among the totally amoral crowd of developers. But Alberta seems to stand alone in the depth and breadth of its preparedness to accept cynical populism. Besides lying about the NDP increasing tax rates to astronomical heights, Smith has claimed, in the face of an incriminating recording, to not have attempted to influence the justice system, on behalf of a UCP supporter who is an evangelical minister, who peddles fears about the Covid inoculation.

She clearly is planning to pick ridiculous and expensive fights with the Federal government which will have implications for the rest of the Federation (that would be us). It is important for me clear that all this is not only a crazy game. “It’s been whipped to a frenzy by political leaders who seek to profit from the chaos that it incites via social media”. (Drache & Frose 2023) Yet the majority of the voters seemed to welcome that chaos and chose to maintain the UCP in power.”

The evidence shows that no plea citing compassion, fairness, ethics, reason or science can hope to produce the least effect on these single “minded”, true believing ideologues who, as the Old Testament observed, have been “wilfully deaf to all good counsel and advice.” We can see what chaos and pain that kind of thinking (and the actions that emanate from it) has wrought in other countries, the US and Hungary, for example. How much damage will they do in Alberta and to the rest of this country as a whole as well?

Good luck Alberta, and good luck to the rest of Canada.

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Resources
Drache, D. & Frose, M. (2023). Smith, Trump and the Paranoid Populist Assault on Democracy. The Tyee. https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2023/06/02/Smith-Trump-Paranoid-Populist-Assault-Democracy/. June 2.

i The strum and drang (German for storm and stress) seemed to go on for ever, from almost just after he won power in April 2019, until he became a spent force in the party he created, long before the date of his actual departure, October 2022. ii (In fairness they are not without like “minded” politicos on the Federal scene, chief among them the CPC leader, Pierre Pollievre.

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