Municipal election a good time to weed out ‘termites’
By Lethbridge Herald on August 27, 2025.
Editor,
Alberta has been a conservative province for many years. This all changed when Jason Kenney and Brian Jean campaigned to merge the Progressive Conservative Party and the Wildrose Party in October of 2017 to form the United Conservative Party of Alberta or UCP. This was done in part, to unseat the ruling NDP.
Fast forward to 2025 and we now have, in my view, a party that is no longer proclaiming social conservatism and social values, which includes national patriotism. We have a governing party that wants to interfere with local government, that threatens to separate our province from Canada if the federal government doesn’t address their demands and, adds an extra financial burden onto Albertans who require the COVID vaccine to remain safe.
That’s just a small list of the extreme right-wing changes by the UCP government that have been thrust upon Albertans. The one thing that really concerns me, however, is the threat of separation of our province because, there are internal government people who are sympathetic to this movement. I call these people “termites” as they are eating away at the fabric of democracy in our province. The vast majority of Albertans are proud Canadians and these termites are causing anxiety and anger amongst people and businesses.
We must stand in solidarity against such a movement. With civic elections coming in October, one can expect that separatists will try to infiltrate local government. This is not an alarmist view of things to come; this is happening right in front of our eyes with petitions of separation from Canada coming about and senior government officials, or termites, making it easier to achieve a referendum on the matter.
And let’s not forget the proposals to redefine the electoral boundaries in our province to, in reality make it easier to elect a UCP candidate.
So, let’s all stand vigilant and weed out those candidates who are not interested in promoting inclusiveness of our cities, towns and villages in the province of Alberta, Canada.
Kent Perry
Lethbridge
10-9
Kent you are dead wrong.
It all started with Liberal Ralph Klein who brought Preston Manning ‘s Reform Party Stupidity to the table when he became our conservative premier. Even members of his own family were furious with him for what he did to us. His daughter Angie was disgusted with him for cutting our corporate taxes from 16% to a pathetic 10% and putting us in financial ruin. She urged us to vote for NDP because she wanted her father kicked out. Yet Albertans weren’t smart enough to do it.
Notley knowing she had to increase corporate taxes and oil royalties back up to the Lougheed levels to help get us out of the mess these Reformers had put us in, but the oil industry crash of 2014 destroyed her plans.
She did increase corporate taxes back up 2 % to 12% and when Jason Kenney was elected he cut them by 4% down to 8% costing Albertans the loss of billions more in revenues.
I had known Ralph Klein personally since 1960 and knew what a jerk he was, yet Danielle Smith has nothing but praise for what he did to us and with this Reform Party stupidity we now have a soon to be $500 billion oil well cleanup mess, a $88 billion debt, and a $20 billion deficit to repair roads and bridges, and build 60 new schools we desperately need.
Lougheed’s energy minister Bill Dickie was a brother in-law of one of my uncles and I haven’t forgotten how disgusted Lougheed and his MLAs were with what these Reformers were doing to the people.
What was so stupid was the fact that the peope accepted it and showed no concern for what it would do to our children and grandchildren’s wellbeing. It has destroyed their future. Where is the intelligence in that?
Couldn’t agree more on protecting municipal governance from the current assault on democracy. Manipulating government to represent one voice is the definition of oppression.
Weeding works only a little bit on such an invasive weed.
We need to stand up and use other pest control methods!.