UCP is pandering to its base, not the majority of Albertans
By Lethbridge Herald on June 26, 2025.
Editor,
So, a guy says to the building superintendent: “Hey, Super, I notice you’ve allowed some termites to set up shop down in the basement. Isn’t there some risk here to the integrity of the structure?”
Super says: “It’s outta my hands. Wudderya gonna do? There’s rats in the dumpster and bats in the freaking belfry. I’m just trying to provide for equitable initiative here.”
Cut to the other week at a well-attended confab in Fort Macleod featuring the premier and MLA Chelsea Petrovic. Smith was asked by a concerned citizen why, if she was so intent on facilitating a referendum on separation to appease a noisy gaggle of whiners and shills, she wouldn’t likewise encourage the coming-forward of those who oppose uneconomical and ecologically deleterious coal mining in the Eastern Slopes? She replied: “Well. it’s out of my hands and into the hands of the people. All I’ve done is make it easier for concerned voices to be heard. You can do the same if you like. I’m just trying to provide for equitable initiative here.”
Yes, the premier is trolling us here with her tongue lodged well in her cheek. There’s a reason why people tend not to like politicians, and this is it, right out in the open.
Of course she was being cutesy with the questioner, and the subtext was abundantly clear: the government is greasing the rails for a political base that cannot otherwise get any real traction through conventional means. The fact that the anti-coal lobby or any other partisan group can technically do likewise is entirely beside the conniving point.
Referendum, shmeferendum. It’s a crock. Do your job, Madame Premier. Don’t punt this down the road and pretend it is in any way “the people’s will.” Representative parliamentary democracy is not meant to be a mob process. We elect you to consider deeply our world and our lives, and affect sober decisions accordingly. Pandering to mindless termites is an abrogation of the long-esteemed mantle of good governance and the social contract.
Time to call pest control.
Phil Burpee
Pincher Creek
11-10
With these Reformers it’s always someone else’s fault, that’s all they know. they haven’t a clue as to how to fix any problem. The fact is had they not destroyed everything Lougheed created we would rich like Norway and Alaska and not in this “Horrific Mess” as Lougheed called it.
Dear Mr. Burpee, your exaggerated comments proceeded by your fairy tale do not illustrate how our government operates nor for that matter how any government operates. If you do not believe that the voices of the people(s) should be heard and acted upon, you do not understand basic democracy.
Probably ‘basic democracy’ includes publishing a platform that honestly outlines the UCP priorities: encouraging coal mining; replacing RCMP; grabbing the CPP; ideological tampering with education; privatizing health; politicizing municipal elections; mandating the hand-counting ballots and other conspiracy reactions; freezing out the renewable energy industry; not to mention this ‘sovereignty’ circus.
exactly…and, sadly, you underscore one of the too many pressing issues with our busted democracy. so many promises during campaigns, few carried out that provided the basis given the elected, and then comes all the crap shoved upon us that was never a part of the mandate, often slopped into massive undemocratic omnibus bills.
govts that operate most to serve big corp and the monied elites at the expense of the very many, and to the detriment of the health of the land are hardly practicing democracy. reality check: that is what is known as oligarchy.
great letter.
i recall some real leadership, such as during the era of active and violent separation in quebec. leadership was to stand up, under threat, no less, to the likes of kidnapping, murdering cowards with bombs and guns. then, it was robert bourassa and pierre trudeau; later it was jean chretien. each quebecers, but each foremost canadians.
smitty – gutless, conniving, opportunistic, and, showing she is herself a sep, but too oily to come out and demonstrate leadership even on that.