Western Standard - CORY MORGAN： Premier Smith is flirting with political suicide

00:00:00.000 be sure to hit those like buttons and subscribe and all of that it really helps the algorithms

00:00:12.320 and keep these productions going and spreading out to other people so we can bypass that nasty

00:00:17.400 old legacy media and get straight to you lots going on as always this week uh hard to tell

00:00:25.300 where to begin well of course i know where to begin i've got a ranting monologue i'm going to

00:00:28.840 start into momentarily. So let's see. Oh, well, there's CB fixes all says I ran the 400 billion

00:00:37.260 through AI and everything I can think of and what AI suggested came out 10 billion max. Okay,

00:00:41.220 that's a good discussion is about what I'm gonna start talking about in just a moment. And yes,

00:00:46.940 it is related to Premier Daniel Smith getting up and saying that becoming independent would cost

00:00:51.460 $400 billion. So I mean, Premier Daniel Smith, she's been maintaining something of a delicate

00:00:57.320 balancing act between satisfying the provincial sovereignist element within her party base and

00:01:02.760 most albertans at large who lean towards the federalist side of late though the premier's

00:01:07.240 decided to fall solidly onto one side of the debate and it may lead to some pretty dire

00:01:11.320 consequences for the ucp in the future and it can be understand understood why the premier is

00:01:16.280 maintaining a stance on the federalist side of the debate she never claimed to be a supporter of

00:01:20.200 albert independence and she didn't campaign on a platform supporting it she certainly has the right

00:01:24.760 to express where she stands on the issue too but when she went into a tirade with hyperbolic

00:01:30.520 economic assumptions claiming that the transitional cost of independence would be over 400 billion

00:01:35.480 she sounded much like former premier jason kenny has lately since he donned the cloak of being

00:01:40.440 kept in canada now premier smith would be well served to remember why the word former is used

00:01:45.000 when speaking of jason kenny's premiership well some of the leading figures in the independence

00:01:49.880 movement have always had that chip on their shoulders with the premier they were tempered

00:01:53.480 by the majority of independent supporters who accepted her federalism as long as they could

00:01:57.340 get a referendum out of the deal. With the courts blocking the ability for citizens to initiate a

00:02:02.080 referendum on sovereignty, independent supporters became a little more upset with the status quo,

00:02:06.300 but many still grudgingly accepted the watered-down word salad of a referendum question

00:02:10.880 the Premier added to the ballot for this fall. They took the Premier at her word that this was

00:02:15.620 the only option available for people to express themselves on a referendum right now. With the

00:02:20.060 premier now in an open campaign, though, against the option number two in the question,

00:02:24.740 independent supporters are going to be sorely tempted to give up on the referendum and direct

00:02:28.440 their resources and energy into unseeing the premier. And this is not a threat to be dismissed.

00:02:34.040 No conservative premier has managed to remain in power beyond a single term since Ralph Klein,

00:02:38.460 and it's tended to be party members who take them down, not the electorate.

00:02:42.340 In needlessly provoking a segment to the UCP member base who number in the thousands,

00:02:46.680 Smith could start a chain of events leading to her political career,

00:02:50.240 meaning the same nasty ending her predecessors enjoyed.

00:02:54.000 Rather than going to war against the independent supporters,

00:02:56.220 the Premier should be focusing on accomplishments

00:02:57.820 that may undercut the strength of the independence campaign.

00:03:01.100 Where did that plan for a provincial pension plan go?

00:03:03.560 When are we going to formally announce an end to the RCMP contract plan

00:03:07.220 with a full provincial police force?

00:03:09.820 How about bringing home the collection of provincial taxes

00:03:11.880 and keeping energy royalties within provincial institutions

00:03:14.720 rather than using eastern-based banks.

00:03:17.320 With three years in office, Premier Smith has talked a really good game

00:03:20.160 when it comes to provincial sovereignty initiatives,

00:03:22.200 but her delivery has been terrible.

00:03:24.020 If the intention is to make Alberta more sovereign within Canada,

00:03:26.740 it would be refreshing to see a tangible indication of it.

00:03:29.660 Smith's ongoing negotiations with Mark Carney

00:03:31.700 appear to have involved a lot of capitulations from Alberta on carbon taxes

00:03:34.760 and questionable carbon tax initiatives

00:03:37.540 with no concrete commitments from the government to approve projects.

00:03:41.400 She's set multiple deadlines with the Prime Minister

00:03:43.580 since he was elected, only to do nothing when the deadlines were ignored. Remember that Grey Cup

00:03:47.580 deadline? Yeah, that was a long time ago since the Grey Cup. The Premier is appearing weak on Ottawa

00:03:52.120 and harsh against Alberta regionalists. This is creating an ugly formula which will lead to a

00:03:57.780 populist uprising against her, and no amount of threats that it's going to lead to another term

00:04:01.480 of the NDP might cool that. A referendum is on the horizon that presents independent supporters

00:04:06.140 with half a loaf to be satisfied with. Premier Smith should stay clear of the campaign and let

00:04:10.980 citizens deal with it from here on in. She made her federalist inclination clear and doesn't need

00:04:15.540 to keep pressing it. It's changing the sentiment among independent supporters from frustration

00:04:19.800 with the premier to rage. The 7,000 people who sat through blizzards and endured abuse from

00:04:25.240 federalists last winter to get the referendum signatures are dedicated, hardworking Albertans.

00:04:30.140 The premier really doesn't want to have them dedicate their hard work towards removing her

00:04:34.100 from power. Nobody expects the premier to adopt a pro-independence stance. She doesn't need to go

00:04:39.100 want to campaign against independent supporters either. Like you see, media and Eastern elites

00:04:44.160 are going to label her as separatist anyways. We've been seeing that. It doesn't matter what

00:04:47.080 she does. What Smith must do is show some victories for Alberta within the Federation,

00:04:51.720 and she's running out of time to do that.

Western Standard - June 08, 2026

CORY MORGAN： Premier Smith is flirting with political suicide

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