For the first time in 117 years, Alberta has a premier who promised to protect our interests, individual freedoms, rights, prosperity, and self-determination.
Congratulations, Danielle Smith, on winning the UCP Leadership contest and now, upon being sworn in as premier of Alberta. Here at the Alberta Prosperity Project, we have just one major request of Ms. Smith: Please honour the commitments you made during your campaign.
In particular, Ms. Smith promised the constitutionally legal establishment of an Alberta Provincial Police Force, taking control of pensions, employment insurance, immigration, and provincial tax collection to the benefit of all Albertans. Don't wait. This should start immediately and be completed within 18-24 months, to demonstrate both competence and commitment. The bureaucrats tasked to do it must be committed to success, armed with the knowledge they will be replaced if they don't hit required performance milestones. More studies are not required.
Alberta Health Services (AHS) and the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPSA) deserve special mention. The corruption by these two institutions requires a complete restructuring the incoming premier and her government must deal with immediately. Several other UCP Leadership candidates also expressed the need to replace AHS management and the CPSA, as well as fix health-care, which currently functions in the lowest quartile of quality at the highest quartile of cost.
While improvements to education have been made by the UCP, more is needed to reinforce parents as the moral, social, and cultural pillars of society, able to pass on principles, beliefs, values, morals, ethical behavior, accountability, knowledge, and critical thinking to future generations.
Parents must always be informed on any matter relating to their children. Woke teaching, critical race theory, and multiple gender education must be expunged from the curriculum.
Further, the UCP has a mandate from Albertans to end equalization. Accordingly, once the UCP passes some version of the Alberta Sovereignty Act in the legislature, the premier and caucus have a moral and economic obligation to honour the successful Oct. 18, 2021, referendum to end equalization.
That will fail simply because it will be impossible to overcome the five hurdles to open and change the 1982 Constitution Act. For the benefit of Albertans, the provincial government must then ask the people for a mandate to negotiate with Ottawa from a position of strength which, since its 1905 incorporation into Canada, Alberta has never been able to do. Danielle Smith’s government should therefore not be afraid to ask the public in a referendum for Alberta independence. This does not mean Alberta will leave Canada. A successful referendum on Alberta independence simply permits the Alberta government to negotiate with the federal government and the other provinces from a position of strength, and solve every issue of concern at the same time.
A successful referendum gives Alberta the leverage needed to chart a new path forward.
The legal pathway for a province to leave Canada is defined in the Clarity Act, which states: “negotiations might lead to secession,” which also means negotiations might lead to Alberta remaining in Canada if negotiations resolve the outstanding problems.
Regardless of the outcome of negotiations, an Alberta constitution that protects the individual freedoms, rights and prosperity of Albertans must be created and will always trump the Canadian Constitution if individual freedoms, rights, and prosperity are to be protected.
Finally, Ms. Smith and others in the UCP know it will require a complete restructuring of the province's economic relationship with Canada to definitively protect Albertans. This means in addition to ending equalization, Alberta constitutionally takes control of federal taxation, ends equalization, ends the carbon tax, ends the pipeline and tanker bans, ends the Canada Health Act — which restricts innovation in health-care delivery — does not implement any restrictions on freedom of speech, does not confiscate legally owned and used firearms and does not implement the WEF-UN promoted digital ID, central programmable digital currency or a social credit score based on environmental, social or governance compliance metrics.
Will Ms. Smith be the “Iron Lady” to save Alberta and, in the process, restructure confederation within or without Alberta? We don’t have too much time to find out before we cross the Rubicon and Trudeau destroys Alberta altogether, along with ourselves.
In the meantime, APP will continue educating Albertans on the need for our provincial government to have the leverage necessary to negotiate on our behalf from a position of strength.
