Western Standard - September 19, 2026


Calgary-Shaw EXPOSED Danielle Smith’s biggest problem

Has Canada LOST CONTROL of immigration？ MARTY UP NORTH： Is Carney flirting with the EU a good idea？

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

130.45

Word count

1,497

Sentence count

73

People

Also mentioned:
Danielle Smith Alberta Federalists Sometimes Alberta Peter Lougheed Kyle Campbell Rachel Notley Jason Kenney Clay Shaw Corey Hogan Mike Derry Lloydminster

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 The New Democrats' win in Calgary-Shaw has triggered an immediate debate over what went wrong for Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party.
00:00:09.080 Calgary-Shaw was not supposed to be an NDP seat.
00:00:12.680 In the last election, then-MLA Rebecca Schultz won it handily.
00:00:17.360 On Monday, NDP candidate Kyle Campbell defeated UCP candidate Mike Derry 7,461 votes to 6,879 in the unofficial count,
00:00:28.760 flipping a South Calgary constituency that has been held by conservative parties for decades.
00:00:34.880 There is a lazy interpretation of the results,
00:00:38.720 a line of thinking that suggests that the Smith government faltered purely
00:00:42.380 because the premier catered to fringe independence advocates.
00:00:47.880 This, in turn, drove pragmatic center-right voters to abstain or split off and vote progressive Tory,
00:00:54.600 handing the new Democrats an unexpected victory in a reliably right-leaning riding.
00:01:01.320 That is exactly former Premier Jason Kenney's way of thinking,
00:01:05.260 one that I have no doubt dominates the mindset of nearly every senior government communications official in the Alberta legislature,
00:01:13.040 and it certainly fits with a fired politician whose single-minded mission to protect Canada from what he calls mouth-breathing separatists
00:01:20.840 has led him to devote far more energy to campaigning alongside former NDP Premier Rachel Notley
00:01:26.680 and current Liberal MP Corey Hogan than to any other endeavor.
00:01:32.520 The fact that he has the gall to attack the government position while literally teaming up with the opposition
00:01:37.460 should make his interpretation completely invalid,
00:01:41.100 not to mention the fact that it's an interpretation that completely misses the mark. 1.00
00:01:45.720 Smith's problem is that she has positioned herself in a political middle 0.50
00:01:49.960 that is becoming far too narrow to hold the United Conservative Coalition together.
00:01:54.720 On one side are centrist progressive Conservatives and committed Canadian Federalists
00:01:59.160 who are deeply uncomfortable with Alberta independence.
00:02:02.720 On the other are wild-rose reform and increasingly independence-minded Conservatives
00:02:07.440 who believe that the existing Canadian Federation has repeatedly failed to accommodate
00:02:12.380 Alberta's economic and political interests.
00:02:16.060 Smith is attempting to stand between them.
00:02:18.980 The difficulty is that neither side has much reason to be completely satisfied
00:02:24.920 Federalist conservatives see a government that is prepared to facilitate an independence referendum
00:02:30.080 And worry that the NDP is legitimizing the breakup of the country
00:02:33.900 Independence-minded conservatives hear Smith repeatedly insist that she wants Alberta to remain in Canada
00:02:40.000 While watching Ottawa retain enormous influence over questions they consider fundamental to Alberta's economic future
00:02:47.760 Smith herself has been explicit.
00:02:50.360 In her May address to Albertans on the independence debate,
00:02:53.260 she said, quote-unquote, I support remaining in Canada.
00:02:57.920 That leaves her government trying to occupy a space
00:03:01.240 between two increasingly dissatisfied constituencies.
00:03:05.560 Meanwhile, the vitriol coming from the Federalist side
00:03:08.400 creates an adverse reaction within the party.
00:03:11.640 Hardened independent supporters become more averse
00:03:14.000 to showing up to support the UCP.
00:03:17.040 the federalist group is well represented in the legislature offices they want to defeat
00:03:23.600 the independent supporters they want them out of the party this creates an environment in which
00:03:29.680 the establishment including the overpaid bums in the premier's communications office effectively
00:03:36.240 get fed an echo chamber of commentary from sources who consistently ridicule independent supporters
00:03:43.020 In turn, this creates an environment where the bulk of the decision-makers in the party
00:03:47.100 make decisions designed to shut independent supporters out of the decision-making funnel.
00:03:52.780 This creates a feedback loop.
00:03:55.460 It's a sad situation.
00:03:57.320 It appears that the United Conservative Party as a whole has fallen victim to a serious case of dome disease. 0.86
00:04:04.460 The real dividing line in Alberta politics isn't necessarily between Federalists and Separatists.
00:04:11.100 It is increasingly between people who believe Alberta can secure enough power within Confederation to govern itself meaningfully,
00:04:19.500 and people who have concluded that it cannot.
00:04:22.820 However, there is an obvious problem with simply telling Albertans that the answer is greater provincial autonomy.
00:04:29.220 We've been trying that for more than 120 years.
00:04:32.680 Alberta entered Confederation in 1905 without even possessing the same control over its natural resources enjoyed by the original provinces.
00:04:41.180 Ottawa retained the crown lands, mines, minerals, and royalties within the new province.
00:04:46.040 Alberta governments objected almost immediately.
00:04:49.760 It took another quarter of a century of negotiations before the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement
00:04:54.740 finally transferred those resources to Alberta in 1930.
00:04:58.540 The agreement itself explicitly said that Alberta was being placed on an equal footing
00:05:02.900 with the other provinces in the administration and control of its natural resources.
00:05:07.060 For virtually the entire history of this province, Alberta has found itself arguing that the Federation gives Ottawa too much control over decisions fundamental to Alberta's economic future
00:05:19.100 Natural resources was just the original fight
00:05:23.260 Later came battles over energy policy, taxation, federal spending, representation, equalization, environmental regulation, and the constitutional balance itself
00:05:33.720 Sometimes Alberta has one
00:05:36.220 Resource control in 1930 was a delayed and yet profound victory.
00:05:41.560 The constitution still gives the provinces substantial areas of exclusive jurisdiction,
00:05:46.400 even though the federal government seems to want to interfere in that jurisdiction,
00:05:50.320 and Alberta remains one of the most economically powerful subnational governments in the world.
00:05:55.960 Maybe not as powerful as Quebec.
00:05:58.380 The recurring dispute, however, has never disappeared.
00:06:02.580 This is why telling a frustrated Albertan that Canada is a federation
00:06:06.260 and Alberta should simply demand a better deal is no longer as persuasive as it once was.
00:06:12.440 Peter Lougheed fought Ottawa over control of Alberta's energy wealth.
00:06:16.820 The reform movement emerged from Western demands for institutional change and greater regional influence.
00:06:22.660 The so-called firewall letter proposed using existing provincial constitutional powers more aggressively.
00:06:29.800 More recently, Alberta has revisited provincial policing,
00:06:33.400 pensions, equalizations, and other mechanisms
00:06:35.740 intended to increase provincial autonomy.
00:06:38.420 The Fair Deal panel itself was created to examine ways
00:06:41.200 of securing a stronger Alberta voice within Confederation.
00:06:45.580 Yet nothing has changed.
00:06:48.180 How much control should Alberta possess over its own affairs
00:06:52.360 and what happens when Albertans conclude that Ottawa possesses too much?
00:06:56.960 Canada was deliberately constructed as a federation rather than a unitary state.
00:07:02.840 The Constitution divides legislative authority between Parliament and provincial legislatures.
00:07:08.440 Section 91 establishes Parliament's jurisdiction over federal matters,
00:07:12.580 while Section 92 gives provinces exclusive authority over subjects including municipalities,
00:07:18.080 property and civil rights, provincial institutions, and matters of a local or private nature.
00:07:24.460 That division exists for a reason.
00:07:26.960 Federalism is supposed to permit dramatically different regions of a very large country
00:07:31.520 to govern themselves in substantial areas while sharing a national government for genuinely national purposes.
00:07:39.160 This creates political room for Alberta to be Alberta, for Quebec to be Quebec,
00:07:43.920 and for Newfoundland and Labrador to be Newfoundland and Labrador without requiring any of them to become independent countries.
00:07:50.980 When that arrangement functions properly, independence has considerably less oxygen.
00:07:57.320 But Alberta's history also explains why a growing number of people have become skeptical that simply invoking federalism will solve the problem.
00:08:05.460 They have heard versions of that argument before, for more than a century.
00:08:12.300 Most Alberta Federalists do not want their province to become politically subordinate to Ottawa,
00:08:17.760 and most Alberta independence supporters did not begin with some abstract desire
00:08:23.060 to create an international border at Lloydminster.
00:08:27.380 Remaining in Canada is not by itself a political program capable of satisfying voters
00:08:32.740 who believe the status quo of federation gives Alberta insufficient control over its own affairs.
00:08:39.980 At the same time, simply allowing the independence question to remain alive
00:08:43.820 does little to reassure Federalist Conservatives who want to know where the government intends to take the province.
00:08:50.480 That leaves Smith vulnerable from both directions.
00:08:54.340 The temptation after Calgary Shaw will be to include that Smith needs to move towards the political center.
00:09:00.540 However, my message to political decision makers in Edmonton is this.
00:09:04.720 A political coalition cannot survive indefinitely by defining itself merely as the halfway point between two dissatisfied groups.
00:09:14.980 The better question should be what those groups actually have in common.
00:09:20.760 I think the answer is considerably more obvious than it appears, so obvious that it should be smacking the Premier's office in the face.
00:09:28.640 Both sides want Alberta to possess meaningful control over Alberta.
00:09:33.200 The disagreement is over whether that can still be achieved inside Canada.
00:09:39.340 That creates political space between unconditional acceptance of the status quo and immediate independence.
00:09:45.860 But it is not enough to simply promise another round of negotiations with Ottawa.
00:09:51.060 After 120 years, Albertans are entitled to ask what would actually be different this time.
00:09:58.180 More provincial autonomy.
00:09:59.540 A clearer division between what belongs to Ottawa and what belongs to Edmonton.
00:10:06.280 A legitimate willingness to defend provincial jurisdiction when Ottawa intrudes upon it.
00:10:13.300 Tangible results rather than another declaration that Alberta deserves a better deal.
00:10:19.800 If Alberta possessed enough authority within Confederation that Albertans genuinely believed they controlled their own economic and political destiny,
00:10:28.540 much of the independence movement would lose its reason for existing.
00:10:34.900 Daniel Smith's challenge is not merely keeping Federalists happy
00:10:38.440 while preventing separatists from leaving the UCP.
00:10:41.920 It's giving both groups a reason to believe
00:10:44.600 that the same political project can deliver what they ultimately want.
00:10:51.280 A strong Alberta with meaningful control over its own affairs.
00:10:58.540 Thank you.