Maybe it’s Danielle Smith that’s finally going to get to the bottom of this chemtrail business.
At a town hall for UCP members in Edmonton held on September 28 Danielle Smith responded to a question on chemtrails by saying, “The best I have been able to do is talk to the woman who is responsible for controlling the airspace, and she says no one is allowed to go up and spray anything in the air.”
When the crowd started to hoot and boo at this, Smith said, “That’s what she told me.”
While the identity of this person Smith was talking to was not revealed it’s comforting to know the premier of our province is looking into it. She then went on to say that if anyone was doing it, it was the US Department of Defence.
“I have some limitations in what I can do in my job, I don’t know that I would have much power if that is the case, if the US Department of Defence is spraying us,” said Smith.
You can watch Danielle pandering to the conspiracy theorist UCP member here.
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having your ear bent by someone who believes in chemtrails let’s summarize. Since the late 1990s the Art Bell set has believed that the US government is putting… something, into the air. Either to control us or poison us or both.
Press Progress checked in with NORAD and the Department of Defence. They deny it but of course that’s exactly what they would say if they were spraying mind control chemicals in the air in order to make us more subservient.
But the Premier’s indulgence in conspiracy theories isn’t just the stuff of funny videos and embarrassing sound bites. She puts the resources of the Alberta government into this stuff, and it’s costing us all a lot.
Take the recent announcement by the UCP that they will ban electronic tabulators from municipal elections. Municipalities are estimating the move will cost them an extra $10 million for the next round of municipal elections in 2025. People are still going to be voting with pencil on a paper ballot but now poll workers won’t have the ability to use the same technology the province uses to mark provincial achievement tests, think of a Scantron, to speed up the process.
There is no newly-discovered problem with electronic tabulators. But voting machine conspiracy theories have been big among Alberta’s Trump-obsessed right wing ever since American conservatives started spreading hoaxes about the machines as part of their claims that the last American election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Or take the upcoming anti-trans legislation that’s about to come up in what is likely going to be the worst session of the Alberta legislature ever starting in late October. The policies, which have not officially been introduced but have been coming since February, include restricting access to gender-affirming health care for youth, requiring parental consent and/or notification changes to pronouns and names in schools and more.
These policies will lead to more dead trans youth. A recently released peer reviewed study published in Nature Magazine found a clear link between anti-trans legislation being introduced in US states and increases in suicide attempts by young transgender and non-binary people. Danielle Smith is going after trans people and trans youth because that’s what her base wants, and she’s going to give it to them in advance of this leadership review.
And I could write a whole other newsletter on how the premier’s indulgence in COVID conspiracy theories means we still don’t have the latest vaccine. Resources are being stripped away from public health campaigns and fall vaccination campaigns can’t even use the word COVID in their promotional promotional materials.
Danielle Smith’s conspiracy theory pandering is leading to death, a health care system on the verge of collapse and massive amounts of wasted public resources. The constant international embarrassment of the province we all live in is just a nice little cherry on the top.
Sundries
The number of orphan wells is set to double as a complex bankruptcy case involving the daughter of an oil and gas magnate, Chinese owned companies that went bankrupt and crappy gas wells sold for $1 has come to a close. The number of orphan wells could easily double again once other bankrupt companies like Razor Energy and Tallahassee Exploration are picked clean and their remaining assets are dumped onto the Orphan Well Association’s books.
On Monday, hundreds of people marched through the streets of Calgary and to the site where Jon Wells was killed by Calgary Police. Wells’ family is calling for a thorough and transparent investigation into his homicide. Wells was a member of the Kainai Nation, which will be filing a complaint against the officers that killed him. The details of Well’s killing are particularly horrific as he was unarmed and repeatedly told the officers “ I don’t want to die” before he was tased multiple times, injected with a sedative by paramedics, and a spit bag was put on his head before being restrained to death by multiple officers.
Alberta’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse and faces extremely low morale. This is before the fall and the expected surge in COVID and flu patients.
A coalition of 10 groups in Edmonton are asking for the halting of encampment sweeps and real action on homelessness as winter approaches. The amount of unhoused people in Edmonton has increased by 47 per cent in 2024 according to Homeward Trust’s most recent data. This steep increase in homelessness comes on the heels of data showing a spike in amputations and frostbite injuries for people with no fixed address last winter. Homelessness related deaths in Edmonton spiked to 421 last year, the highest number ever. The municipal, provincial and federal governments as well as the police signaled no plans to change anything on this file as sub-zero temperatures approach. This is social murder.
The Calgary Police Commission saw how bad the Edmonton Police Commission were at doing their jobs and decided to step into the arena. The Calgary Police Commission has an idea to cover the cost of a $13 million cost overrun on a new firearms range that is being built: take it out of the bucket of money that’s supposed to fund crisis response and diversion.
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