Crazy on the Decline. Alberta a Possible Exception

November 22, 2022

Despite Donald Trump madly clinging to the hope of a return to the White House, his election denying candidates in the midterms were widely defeated and a red wave did not break. It would seem that the crazies are on the decline in US politics. 

Recently on the Daily Show, former President Obama said what many hope: “I like to think that part of what happened in this election is people said, ‘OK, you know what, some of this stuff is getting a little too crazy, It turns out that there is a majority of the country that does prefer normal, not crazy. And that’s a basis for hope.”


Now unless we think Canada was immune to the craziness and polarization that infected politics to the south, think again. The ongoing televised inquiry into the use of the emergency act more than reminded us of how ridiculous and irrational were the beliefs held by the people who led the freedom convoy. 


Take James Bauder, the founder of Canada Unity and author of a wild missive demanding the governor general and Senate work around the elected government to lift COVID-19 health measures. He told the Inquiry that he was told by “God” to start the convoy and accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of “treason.” In tears he told about how he believes the convoy was a worldwide beacon of “love and unity.” 


Then there is the admittedly charismatic “mother hen” of the freedom convoy, Tamara Lich. She was the chief fundraiser and voice of the protest. She called the occupation “the biggest lovefest I’ve ever participated in.” She denied that it was never intended to disturb Ottawa and complained that everyone wanted hugs and money from her. Pat King is a darker character who was the social media guru of the convoy that many wanted out of the leadership because of videos he posted threatening Trudeau’s life. Both he and Lich insisted that the whole thing was one big emotional bouncy castle. “I’ve never seen anything more loving and peaceful in my life,” Mr. King said at the inquiry. “It was Woodstock.”


At the time it was some of this widely reported more threatening and fanciful convoy demands that likely led to the growing impatience of Canadians with the anti-vaccine protests. An Angus Reid poll released on Feb. 14, 2022, showed the public increasingly fed up with anti-vaccine mandate protests. Of those polled, 72 per cent said it’s time for the protesters to go home as they had made their point, and most supported police stepping in to deal with the situation. Interestingly, given the lively discussion about whether the government overstepped in using the emergency act, those who supported some form of action (93% of Canadians) to remove protesters are largely supportive of arrests if demonstrators refuse to leave. Three-in-five (62%) say this should happen.


A recent CBC Opinion piece by freelancer Rahim Mohamed makes an interesting argument about the similarities between the new Premier, Danielle Smith and the defeated election denier for Arizona governor, Keri Lake, a Republican who also was a high profile broadcaster. He argues that demographically Arizona and Alberta are similar with growing large multi-ethnic populations against a past history of being reliably conservative. Both are now more competitive in the ballot box. Alberta went from 44 straight years of Progressive Conservative rule to a single term of New Democrat government (2015-2019).


He says Smith should take Lake's fate as a cue to address her own credibility problem. Smith has invited criticism for dubious statements about Russia's invasion of Ukraine (since apologized for), an argument that cancer is within a patient's control before it reaches Stage 4, and alternative COVID treatments. She is clear that under her there will be no vaccine or mask mandates. Shades of the freedom convoy. She also continues to plan a bizarre “Alberta Sovereignty Act” which would give Alberta power to not enforce federal laws which were not in the interests of the province.  


She has somewhat stepped down from her more egregious polices and views top broaden her appeal. This was evident in a televised speech which announced a series of new financial relief measures including a $600 payment over the next six months for each child under 18 in families with lower incomes, rebates electricity and natural gas and killing the provincial gas tax. Shades “Ralph Bucks”, former Premier Klein’s 2006 vote buying strategy. Easy to see this kind of spending for what it is.       


The speech ended with exaggerated rhetoric against the federal government. Her unworkable “Sovereignty Act” has no appeal to the Albertans not in her base, who will remember her wacky ideas. Today’s Alberta is a far cry from the province she knew a decade ago as leader of the right-wing Wildrose Party. Alberta voters are no longer automatically conservative, and in NDP leader Rachel Notley she faces a formidable and believable opponent. Smith has odd ideas that are offside to the average middle of the road voter. She’ll be under continuing close scrutiny. 


As will the chief pretender to the federal prime ministership, Conservative leader Pierre Poliviere, known for his hard to explain support for the freedom convoy. He has explained in detail that “I support those peaceful and law-abiding protesters who demonstrated for their livelihoods and liberties, while condemning any individual who broke laws, behaved badly or blockaded critical infrastructure…I think it’s possible to support the overall cause of personal free choice in vaccination and the overall cause of respecting the truckers’ ability to earn an income, while holding individually responsible anyone who behaved badly, broke laws, or blockaded key infrastructure.”


Hard to make a convincing clip of this and his overall ambiguity and the fact of his open support during the occupation will be a sharp arrow in the Liberal election quiver come the next federal campaign. Again, a cloud of craziness shadows him.


Our own Conrad Black is one person who was probably the most eloquent and consistent supporter of Trump in all his craziness. Trump pardoned him, resulting in a glowing tome A President Like No Other that Black published in 2018.


In a recent detailed piece in the Star on Black’s Trump sycophancy historian Andrew Cohen penned: “Days after this month’s midterm elections, Black did the unthinkable: he broke with Trump. No longer was Trump presumptive president, as Black predicted — now he was past president. In a betrayal for the ages, Black has turned on Trump.”



As Obama intoned – there may just be an end to craziness and hope for moderation, even from Conrad Black. 


by Patrick Gossage


Patrick Gossage Insider Political Views

Well-meaning Assault Weapons Ban and Buyback victim of poor timing and major opposition

By Patrick Gossage • April 14, 2026
In contrast to US inaction after almost weekly mass killings, it took one horrible shooting rampage at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal, in 1980, to start the drive for public policy changes around gun control. But years delays between the mass shooting outrage and actual policy to rid the country of assault rifles doomed the eventual gun buyback program. The polytechnique horror was huge news in our relatively massacre-free nation. That December day, 25-year-old Marc Lépine stalked the hallways and classrooms of the École Polytechnique de Montréal with a semi-automatic rifle and murdered 14 women and injured another 13 people before killing himself. A year later, the Coalition for Gun Control was formed to push for stricter gun laws, led by survivors of the Montreal massacre. Later that year, the federal government passed Bill C-17, which imposed safety training and a mandatory waiting period to get a firearms licence-- not an effective means of controlling automatic rifles. Much later, in1996, Parliament passed the Firearms Act, Bill C-68, driven in part by a push for stricter gun laws following the Montreal massacre. The act created a national firearms registry and imposed new rules for obtaining a gun licence, including background checks. The former Conservative government, under prime minister Stephen Harper, abolished the long-gun registry, which it said placed an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners. Quebec subsequently created its own provincial registry to replace it. It took another horrific killing nine years later in Nova Scotia to force Ottawa to take real action on miliary-style guns. On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at 16 locations, killing 22 people before he was killed by the RCMP. On May 1, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, following through on a 2019 campaign promise, announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of assault weapons.. The Canadian government sought to follow New Zealand's lead when at the same time it announced the ban it promised a plan to force gun owners to surrender military-style firearms. But while New Zealand acted quickly, in 2019, Ottawa only launched a long awaited buyback program in 2026. In contrast, the government of then New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda announced its firearms buyback program shortly after a white supremacist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch in March, 2019. In order to move quickly, New Zealand set up mobile units where firearm owners could get refunds in exchange for their firearms. They worked hard to get co-operation from gun owners. Meanwhile, here, the firearms industry and individual gun owners vigorously opposed the project, and it was delayed for years. The program was finally initiated this year with little of the sense of urgency it could have had right after the Nova Scotia killings. It has not been going well. In April, the federal public safety minister's office said more than 67,000 assault-style firearms have been declared by 37,869 firearm owners across Canada. That's just under half of the 136,000 firearms the government had budgeted for when it set aside aside $248.6 million for the program. The precise number of banned firearms in Canada is unknown due to the end of the long-gun registry in 2012. There are other deeper problems. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have indicated they will not assist with the program, meaning police are not co-operating as in New Zealand. Conservative MPs and firearm owners say the buyback is a wasteful exercise that targets law-abiding citizens. The original gun-control advocacy group, PolySeSouvient, blames “weak political leadership” for what it calls “poor participation” in the compensation program. It looks like Ottawa - to put it mildly - has blown the opportunity to really reduce the number of people-killing guns in this country.

Two Opposites – Mark Carney and Donald Trump

By Patrick Gossage • March 12, 2026
One of the major differences between these two men is that Carney understands the value of well-thought-out strategy, abundantly clear in his Davos speech, which laid out one for middle powers to deal with the end of a rules-based international order and the rise of hegemony. Trump's lack of strategic understanding is clear in his bumbling attempts to justify the billion-dollar-a-day Iran war. His overall tactic of “flooding the zone” – mounting a new initiative or major announcement every day, or even several times a day to ensure press and opposition can never catch up. This tactic has served him well – confusing the world and his would-be opponents into submission under a valley of activity and harsh opinions from the leader of the world. Contrast this approach to leadership from Carney. He is systematically building a nation less dependent on US trade by travelling the world building new alliances and trading partners. And in the scare of Australia giving substance to his idea of alliances with middle powers. All laid out in the Davos speech. It is instructive to appreciate how much Trump was irritated by the Davos speech. Carney got a standing ovation; Trump’s rambling lengthy diatribe did not. He won’t soon forget being so upstaged. He surely recognized an intellectual power he could never match. Carney is a realist and pragmatic when he stated recently “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He is dealing with the world that is being reshaped by an irrational power-mad president, a world the powerful Stephen Miller said “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” Does Carney sometimes err on the side of supporting Trump likely to ensure that critical talks on free trade and tariffs have some chance of finding a sympathetic ear? Yes; first he seemed to fully support Trump’s war with Iran. He later made his support more nuanced, saying Trump’s actions were against the rules-based international order. He now says we will not get involved unless a NATO ally is threatened. But generally, Carney is highly rational in contrast to Trump’s self-centered irrationality. Take Trump’s bizarre ill-informed letter to the Prime Minister of Norway, who had no role in deciding if he got the Nobel Peace Prize: “I no longer feel obligated to think purely of Peace (he subsequently engaged in an ever expanding war against Iran). He then reiterated his demand for “complete and Total Control, of Greenland. Thank you!”. His late-night rants, complete with caps, on social media show a mind out of control. Thay are dutifully reported on US news media and often astonish with their non sequiturs and nastiness. One of his more unpresidential quotes came as he fingered White House drapes: “I chose these myself. I always liked gold." The big question for Canadians who are more and more disillusioned with the antics of the President: could these two opposite ever sit down and do a deal that works for Canada. The two do text, and Carney has admitted that in private Trump does listen. But there is also evidence that the trade people in the White House do not like Canada, and as Trump has said, we owe our very existence to the US. And we are “difficult”. They have said that the current trade deal is not good for the US and could be trashed entirely and -deals with Mexico and Canada could be separate and the current trilateral deal may be dead.  Canada was at the brink of reducing the heavy sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and lumber when Premier Ford’s unfortunate ads during the Rose Bowl that featured President Reagan speaking against the usefulness of Tariffs led To Trump suspending talks. They only recently resumed. So can our world-renowned businessman and banker hope to sit down with the unpredictable and unstable President and cut a deal? Some hope that if we extend talks, the President, weakened by the midterms, the bad economic fallout from an unpopular war, and the fragmentation of the MAGA movement may be easier to deal with. On the other hand he may badly need a “win,” bullying big concessions out of Canada and reaping so-cabled benefits from a weaker free trade deal. There is a scenario where Trump gets a black eye if Carney simply walks away with the conviction, perhaps easily shared with an increasingly nationalistic and confident Canada that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” In any case, what a decisive and challenging future we face with Canada at play. Can Carney win for Canada against his opposite by losing a deal?"
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