Dark clouds were hovering over Alberta when 2022 arrived. Ignoring mounting calls for a leadership review, former premier Jason Kenney remained at the helm of an often toxic, bullying UCP government that disrespected and alienated the grassroots..Although some weak efforts were made, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s smug assault on everything Alberta — from the energy industry to gun grabs to equalization payments — went virtually unchallenged..Alberta Health Services (AHS), pals with the World Economic Forum, seized control of people’s lives keeping churches, schools, businesses, and grandma in lockdown. AHS officials, their own fat paycheques secure, callously punished almost 1,700 health workers who refused the COVID-19 vaccines, placing them on unpaid leave. Throughout Alberta, workers in all professions were coerced into taking the jab to keep their jobs to feed their families..The unvaccinated were treated like lepers. Kenney’s government afforded them no protection and in fact, piled on with contempt and fines. Trudeau called them “racist and misogynistic extremists” then lied and said he didn’t. Everyone walked around like zombies wearing mandated masks, deemed useless by many medical experts. Yet the disdained AHS, that had people gritting their teeth under their masks, was allowed to arrogantly carry on mismanaging the pandemic and crushing rights and freedoms..Grim times. All was so oppressive and seemed utterly hopeless..Then before January’s end, the horns started honking..And hope peeked through those dark clouds..Hundreds of thousands of fed-up Canadians emerged from isolation to line up on highways and overpasses in sub-zero temperatures to cheer Freedom Convoy 2022 — truckers honking for them — all the way to Ottawa to protest crippling mandates..It has since been revealed how alone these Canadians stood and how much Kenney was aligned with Trudeau, forsaking Albertans. In a teleconference hours before the Liberals hammered Canadians with the Emergencies [War Measures] Act on February 14, Kenney offered feeble protest to the extreme, unwarranted tyranny. He said “folks at the core of this movement are not rational.”.Kenney and Trudeau both refused to even talk to protesters. Trudeau fled Ottawa to hide from the peacefully protesting Freedom Convoy truckers. Kenney ran away when 200 Albertans, many of them part of the February two-week blockade at the Sweetgrass-Coutts border to protest mandates, waited outside a Southern Alberta’s Nobleford Hall to talk to him..Meanwhile, the initial nine constituency associations (CA) wanting a review of Kenney’s leadership grew to 30. Calls for a review escalated to calls for him to resign immediately by MLAs and sitting and former UCP CA board members. A letter circulated among the highest UCP ranks demanded Kenney’s resignation because he didn’t have the “moral authority or trustworthiness to lead the party into the next election.”. Sad KenneyJason Kenney questioned the conservative credentials of those who voted against him during the UCP leadership review. .In May, a Mainstreet Research poll commissioned by the Western Standard asked if Kenney should resign immediately. Some 55% of respondents said yes. A total of 37% of people “strongly” felt the same, with 18% of respondents saying they “somewhat” felt that way..And so, a leadership review was held. On May 18, after receiving 51.4% of the vote, Kenney announced he would step down as leader when his replacement was chosen and in place months later..But it wasn’t just Kenney with whom many UCP members were disenchanted during that long goodbye. They wanted better UCP board representation. Many nomination and annual general meetings (AGMs) were a tangled mess rife with problems. Challengers to Kenney insiders were branded racist and disqualified on flimsy grounds. Letters to the board protesting it was too subservient to Kenney and bent too many rules were answered with anger, sarcasm or simply ignored. Members, believing they’d never get fair representation, swore they were giving up on the party. And they might have, had Kenney establishment board members not been given the boot in October’s election at the AGM and replaced by pro-freedom members..In an unprecedented sweep all nine spots open on the board were won in landslides by candidates endorsed by Take Back Alberta (TBA.) The conservative group founded by David Parker to challenge Alberta’s ruling elite that abused power. TBA travelled Alberta for almost a year holding meetings in parking lots and halls, listening to and engaging with the Albertans UCP brass shut out..But what about the problematic AHS?.Enter Premier Danielle Smith who won the seven-way leadership race on Oct 6 on the sixth ballot, securing 53.77% of the votes. She was sworn in as premier October 11..On November 14, Smith fired Alberta’s chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw who earned a salary of $363,634 and got $227,911 in “cash benefits” in 2021. While beleaguered Albertans struggled, $2.4 million in extra pay was dished out to 107 employees in management positions, a reward for their COVID-19 work. Four days later Smith fired the entire AHS board and appointed Dr. John Cowell full-time official administrator. She announced immediate actions to reform AHS aiming to lead to faster EMS times, decreased emergency room wait times, and reduced surgical wait times..Former health administrator Tony Dagnone threw a hissy fit and called Smith "unhinged” in an open letter to Albertans posted on Twitter a day after she dropped the axe. Unable to defend AHS’s failures he stooped to a thinly-veiled misogynistic attack saying Smith was “the bleakest of role models for women who aspire it’s hard to be accepted in positions of influence and leadership.”.Huh. Just two weeks earlier a letter signed by 1,600 health professionals and other concerned Albertans called out AHS leadership saying they “mismanaged the pandemic” with an “abhorrent abuse of authority.” They applauded Smith and raised concerns about AHS management’s relationship with the WEF..“We wonder if AHS management’s partnership with the WEF allowed global interests to override not only the rights and freedoms, but also the interests of ordinary Albertans.”.Smith called out the WEF for what it is. “WEF is an anti-democratic group of woke elites that advocate for dangerous socialist policies that cause high inflation, food shortages and a lack of affordable energy, which in turn leads to mass poverty, especially in the developing world. There is no question what their agenda is: they want to shut down our energy and agriculture industries as fast as they can.”.Smith just stop, stop, punching punch more holes through those dark clouds!.She said it was time to reset Alberta’s relationship with Trudeau when the Alberta Sovereignty Act was passed earlier this month..Smith explained one of her priorities is to “ensure Alberta’s freedoms and interests are protected from federal intrusions — the federal oil and gas emissions cap, fertilizer reductions, and the firearms confiscation program.”.Predictably, NDP leader Rachel Notley and others cried the sky was falling, that the message Smith was sending to the investment world was that under her leadership Alberta is a “chaotic place” and Alberta’s future was in jeopardy..Notley called the Sovereignty Act a “pile of goo.” How profound. One never hears flippant nonsense like that uttered by Smith..Alberta Jobs, Economy and Northern Development Minister Brian Jean wondered if Notley was “applying for a job as Justin Trudeau’s second-in-command.”.Meanwhile, Smith outlined a “push back strategy” against Trudeau’s mass gun confiscations..When Notley was posing under a massive portrait of herself unveiled at the Legislature in October, Smith was absent. She attended an important meeting with Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council about a memorandum of understanding between the province and the council on mental health and addiction supports. Priorities..Earlier this month, while pharmacy shelves were laid bare, the government at Smith's direction secured five million units of children’s pain and fever medications — from foreign suppliers to share with the rest of Canada — during a global shortage..It goes on..Bottom line — Smith, surrounded herself with strong people loyal to Alberta and hit the ground running, accomplishing much, or setting wheels in motion to do so. With each move she brings more hope to Albertans who have been beaten up so badly..That has her opposition very worried, very afraid..What’s that accumulating over Notley’s NDP and Trudeau’s Liberals? Looks a lot like dark clouds.
