Reflections on Vancouver, British Columbia and other topics, related or not

 

Alberta:
The Gleichschaltung strikes back

Danielle Smith takes a brave stand, at least initially.
But this is the province of lost causes

Greg Klein | February 4, 2024

 

Before the tabulation of votes was completed, telephone calls from New York and London, headlines in newspapers, spot news in broadcasts, had confirmed the slogan of Social Crediters, “The Eyes of the World are on Alberta.”
—The Social Credit Movement in Alberta, by John A. Irving

 

That was the 1935 provincial election in which a monetary reform movement with followers in Britain and Down Under took Alberta in a landslide victory. The province had gone mad, some distant sources claimed, electing adherents of a “funny money” theory to fix the international financial crisis.

Yet the theory never got tested. Ottawa enforced federal power to overturn all of Alberta’s legislated efforts. A federal Social Credit party failed to gain influence and, in an interesting side note, became an almost entirely Quebec group.

Provincial parties held power in Alberta and later won election in B.C., but as Socreds in name only. The movement retained little presence outside of places like Vegreville, even though monetary practices might have benefited from greater public awareness and official scrutiny. Possibly more outrageous than any 1930s funny money theory is the scurrilous scrip of today.

Now the eyes of the world may again be focusing on Alberta. By proposing to limit sex change indoctrination and procedures for children and teens Premier Danielle Smith takes on, if not the entire world, the entire Gleichschaltung.

 

Flakery’s relatively recent arrival bonds
Calgary and Edmonton closer to B.C. and Ontario.
Politically, Alberta has a sharp rural-urban divide.

 

Her plan would still allow official encouragement for mid- and late-teen kids to turn weird, and even ease their grotesque “maturity” with specialized medical services. But this is one of those issues on which the Enlightened allow no compromise. Unprecedented in history and without parallel in other societies, kiddie gender-bending is the most perverse—and therefore most fervent—doctrine of the West’s war against itself.

This one glimmer of hope, however, comes from the province of lost causes. Movements like Social Credit, parties like Reform, issues like separatism, the Triple-E Senate, the Alberta Firewall, pipelines, the rest of the oil and gas industry, transfer payments, the wavering Alberta Pension Plan, legal protection for unvaccinated—they all turn to dust, like prairie soil in that relentless wind. Only Alberta’s Sovereignty Act offers a tentative exception to the demoralizing rule.

Politically, Smith has made colossal miscalculations before. Probably her greatest goof-up happened in 2014, when as co-founder of the Wildrose Party she led several fellow MLAs to join the governing Progressive Conservatives. For all that, the PCs rejected her nomination bid and selected another candidate for what had been her own incumbency riding. That PC candidate, in turn, lost the election to Smith’s Wildrose replacement.

 

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association
enhances public discourse with legal profundity.

 

Now, back in office and leading the PCs-cum-United Conservative Party, she’s challenging the entire Gleichschaltung. The outrage has barely begun. In just a few days it’s come from hundreds of demonstrators in Edmonton and thousands in Calgary, as well as journalists, academics, 47 (instant, tiny, overlapping?) joint-statement groups, male athletes who want to compete with women, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, other SJW legal hustlers, the Canadian Paediatric Society, the Alberta Medical Association, the Alberta Teachers’ Association (only in a Gleichschaltung could this become an education issue), the Alberta Federation of Labour and Canadian Labour Congress (again, only in a Gleichschaltung) and, of course, our radical chic prime minister.

That’s just the beginning. This could be Alberta’s own George Floyd/mass graves experience as all aspects of politics, the judiciary, education, medicine, news and entertainment media, big labour and big business join increasingly disruptive, quite possibly destructive and even violent demonstrators.

Yes, the potential of violence. Just a few relevant examples range from organized labour and SJW attacks on BC Liberal meetings and constituency offices after the party’s 2001 election victory, recurring doxxing of ideological dissenters (with participation from the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Postmedia), big labour sending its boot boys and girls against September’s 1 Million March 4 Children, and of course the “largely peaceful” destruction, violence and (in the U.S.) murder committed by Antifa/BLM.

The potential for violence can’t be discounted. Probably now every UCP MLA, employee and publicly known supporter, and maybe some senior bureaucrats can face attacks at work, at home or anywhere else. Such is the temper of our times.

 

The rise of Alberta’s once-marginal NDP probably owes much
to immigration. Traditionally conservative newcomers often side
with the social revolution for its ethnic/identity spoils system.

 

Another weapon is rhetoric. The Enlightened own the English language, or what’s left of it in public discourse. Any word means anything they want it to mean. So of course Smith is a Nazi pedophile hell-bent on reinstating the denialist lynching colonialism of genocidal MAGA glass ceilingism, or something.

Don’t expect Alberta’s media to counteract any of that. Despite the province’s (inaccurate) reputation as a haven for rednecks, its journalists are as conventional as any other.

Albertan discourse once did have a social conservative voice. That died in 2015 with Link Byfield’s much-too-early passing. Smith’s Wildrose co-founder, Link was best-known as editor of Alberta Report, a weekly news magazine so anomalous that it was almost a phenomenon of dissent.

Some AR alumni remain in MSM jobs, but they’re a sad, sorry lot. (One of them, though, has graduated from churning out incoherent egotistical drivel to writing melodramatic one-sentence paragraphs supporting Smith.) By far Smith’s strongest media defence is already coming from the Toronto-based National Post. In the U.S., Tucker Carlson might lend Smith additional support and/or notoriety.

Apart from the propaganda, apart from the disruption and potential violence, there’s Canada’s shaky rule of law. A court or even a human rights commission might overturn any Albertan legislation. Natives might even get away with a veto. (The abo-alphabet alliance once again suggests the influence of white or other non-native grand viziers.) Ottawa legitimately used the BNA Act to overrule William Aberhart’s attempted reforms. Now, not just the Trudeau constitution but Ottawa’s tyrannical tendencies can twist law whichever way the Gleichschaltung wants.

Ultimately, what it wants is the destruction of normality. It’s driven by people who are to different degrees confused, resentful or emotionally unstable; it’s manipulated by opportunistic hustlers; some aspects might be managed by forces with totalitarian ambitions.

That leaves the public, trying to make a living and raise families in an increasingly confused society under intense ideological pressure and prone to waves of moral panic. Can people like that provide Smith the support she needs?

So will she back down? Get defeated? Or pull off a victory? That last outcome would be miraculous—for not only protecting children but also encouraging optimism amid so much despair.