From handing out billions to profitable oil and gas corporations that still lay off workers, take their tax breaks, and leave, to taking troubling steps to undermine public health and education to pay for that upwards redistribution of wealth, blowing the separatist dog whistle, spending millions on state-sponsored industry propaganda, letting insurance companies gouge us, as well as making sweeping province-wide changes to Alberta's parks after opposing the NDP's proposed plans to change just one single area, there's pretty well nothing the UCP has done I agree with.
I probably missed a few things too. The barrage since last year's election has been nonstop. Oh yeah, there's that great new Bill 1 from the party that pretends to care about free speech, taking disconcerting steps to drown dissidence.
Even the way Premier Jason Kenney won the party's leadership through the unscrupulous use of a kamikaze candidate, which for some reason we're still waiting on the RCMP to finish investigating, smells foul.
As you can by now no doubt tell, I'm pretty well just appalled by this everything this party, and our government, stands for.
But one has to give credit where it's due. No matter how small or seemingly insignificant.
I could barely believe the eloquently articulate statement made by the premier in the unfolding demonstrations spreading in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in the U.S.
I'll get to the premier's comments later.
Anti-racism rallies have reached far and wide beyond the U.S.'s borders, including right here in Canada's Texas. Or perhaps these days, more like Alabamberta.
And when a young University of Lethbridge graduate decided to organize a rally in Innisfail, which she calls home, initial backlash came fast and furious. People who are definitely not sensitive snowflakes apparently collectively lost their minds, and in their synchronized meltdown, began furiously venting their rage at the insinuation that racism still exists.
Threats were sent, and the organizer decided to postpone.
The same kind of people who pretend COVID-19 is either a hoax or "just a flu" actually had the audacity to wield the virus as an excuse to declare they were scared a plague would be unleashed in the community. Plus, white people confidently assert there's no racism, so obviously it's all good.
But after the story broke, a tsunami of regional support surged from those who want to root out racism and stand in solidarity alongside minorities. Their numbers all but drowned out those who were apparently livid at the idea of listening to minorities and trying to be better people who seek to understand others' lived experience.
Here's where the premier's words come as somewhat a pleasant surprise.
“I commend people for speaking out against racism in this current context."
"If they deny it exists in Alberta, they’re just wrong — they need to listen to the experiences of Black Albertans and people of other minority backgrounds. They need to honour their voices and lived experiences, to reach out and do better.”
He also said, “Racism is always everywhere, it’s a sickness of the soul and must be condemned at every turn."
Clearly, his strategists, who are handsomely compensated, can see the changing societal trends and read the writing on the wall, making me wonder how much this sentiment was scripted, and how much is authentic.
But whether Kenney privately believes a single word he uttered is anyone's guess, what arguably matters most is what he said publicly.
His base is undoubtedly listening, and I can't help but to wonder how they're currently processing his comments.
"Oh my god, Gates and Soros got to him? Or perhaps it was the Deep State Hollywood Satanists running the world from their evil lair! Is no one safe?!"
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