Does Danielle Smith know we can all see and hear her?
[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opinion/article-does-danielle-smith-know-we-can-all-see-and-hear-her/[/url]
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On Liberation/Burn-the-Global-Economy-to-the-Ground Day, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith posted a grinning photo of herself on social media stamped with a banner declaring, “U.S. Tariff Announcement: Big Win for Alberta and Canada.”
In the accompanying caption, she said, “This is precisely what I have been advocating for from the U.S. Administration for months.”
This raises an important and disturbing question: Does the Alberta Premier know we can see and hear her?
Does she think she’s a ghost, stuck in some restless liminal state between this world and the next, invisible and silent unless she chooses to reveal herself? Should we stage a séance to symbolically free her, so she will understand at long last that she’s made of flesh and bone and that when she says things, everyone else can hear them?
Or I suppose a shorter way to the same idea is: Does Danielle Smith think everyone else is stupid?
Because it sure looks like “precisely what” she’s been advocating for is a sweet deal for her province and it alone – not just in spite of what might befall the rest of Canada, but as a specific strategy of climbing over everyone else to get what she wants.
When Mr. Trump initially launched his tariff threats on the notion that fentanyl and bad guys were pouring across the Canadian border – an obviously ludicrous Congress – Ms. Smith’s response was to say that Canada needed to get its act together.
“We should just say, ‘Yes, we agree, and we’re going to take care of our part of the issue, so you don’t have to worry about us any more,’ ” she told CTV News.
In January, when the premiers met to figure out how to deal with the imminent trade war, Ms. Smith refused to sign the joint statement and issued her own instead, rejecting that energy exports could be any part of the Canadian response.
“We will take whatever actions are needed to protect the livelihoods of Albertans from such destructive federal policies,” she said. When asked what retaliation measures Canada could use, Ms. Smith scolded that it’s not “helpful to negotiate that in public” – after she publicly removed the heftiest negotiating item.
To be sure, Alberta’s citizens and economy would be disproportionately affected by any trade action involving oil and gas. But energy exports are the biggest carrot-shaped stick Canada has to shake at the White House.
And every province and region of this country has its own vulnerabilities on trade – ask an Ontario autoworker’s family how they’re feeling today – but only one premier declared repeatedly that hers cancelled out everyone’s else’s and the collective effort to boot.
When a recent Breitbart News interview with Ms. Smith surfaced, all of the attention was focused on how she said that Mr. Poilievre would be more “in sync” with the Trump administration and that she suggested cooling it with the tariff talk because it was helping the Liberals.
But Ms. Smith also went on at length about how her province is “the Texas of the north,” with its cattle, oil and deep conservative bent. She touted Alberta as the first to “start protecting kids” by banning puberty blockers and transgender surgery, and she highlighted how her government was shutting down fentanyl labs and battling “wokeism” run amok.
When questioned afterward about exactly whose case she was making, Ms. Smith insisted – with the unflappable confidence of the radio host that she used to be – that she had “been on Team Canada from the beginning.”
There’s a plot line in The Office in which an arrogant, insecure schemer named Andy Bernard joins the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin and immediately sets about sucking up to the regional manager, Michael Scott. The person in Andy’s way is Dwight Schrute, Michael’s eternally loyal weirdo henchman.
So Andy – played by Ed Helms – starts talking Dwight down to Michael every chance he gets. He thinks he’s being subtle, but he looks ridiculous and obvious.
“I Schruted it,” Andy tells Michael at one point. “It’s just this thing people say around the office. Like when you screw something up in a really irreversible way.”
Ms. Smith, transparently, has been attempting an Andy Bernard play for the past several months, kissing up to the Trump entourage out of naked self-interest while kneecapping what she decided was her competition: the rest of the country.
Canada did not get sledgehammered as flat as it might have on Wednesday. But with 25-per cent tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles, and plant closings and layoffs already starting, that’s like cheering because someone cut off two of your fingers instead of three. No one but Ms. Smith has declared victory here.
On Thursday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney said, “Although their policy will hurt American families, until that pain becomes impossible to ignore, I do not believe they will change direction. So the road to that point may indeed be long, and it will be hard on Canadians.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said, “Global markets are in turmoil. Our seniors are wondering what will happen to their savings after the tariff madness that came from the White House yesterday. Millions of Canadians woke up to the fear of losing their savings or their jobs.”
The only way to conceive of Wednesday as a hooray moment is if you cared about only a very narrow band of thisin the first place.
Energy products, including oil and gas, are excluded from the U.S. tariffs. Like the Alberta Premier said, “an important win.”
One of the most life-affirming things in politics is when someone is trying to get away with something, but they accidentally tell on themselves. That Ms. Smith did that in skywriting here is something to savour – though she could have spared us all the embarrassment of pretending to be a team player.
So let’s flip what it means to Schrute something. It’s not screwing a thing up in an irreversible way. It’s pulling what you think is a terribly clever manoeuvre everyone else is too dumb to see, when in fact they’re all looking right at you as you make a spectacle of yourself.
Danielle Smith really Schruted this.
?
[url]https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opinion/article-does-danielle-smith-know-we-can-all-see-and-hear-her/[/url]
?
On Liberation/Burn-the-Global-Economy-to-the-Ground Day, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith posted a grinning photo of herself on social media stamped with a banner declaring, “U.S. Tariff Announcement: Big Win for Alberta and Canada.”
In the accompanying caption, she said, “This is precisely what I have been advocating for from the U.S. Administration for months.”
This raises an important and disturbing question: Does the Alberta Premier know we can see and hear her?
Does she think she’s a ghost, stuck in some restless liminal state between this world and the next, invisible and silent unless she chooses to reveal herself? Should we stage a séance to symbolically free her, so she will understand at long last that she’s made of flesh and bone and that when she says things, everyone else can hear them?
Or I suppose a shorter way to the same idea is: Does Danielle Smith think everyone else is stupid?
Because it sure looks like “precisely what” she’s been advocating for is a sweet deal for her province and it alone – not just in spite of what might befall the rest of Canada, but as a specific strategy of climbing over everyone else to get what she wants.
When Mr. Trump initially launched his tariff threats on the notion that fentanyl and bad guys were pouring across the Canadian border – an obviously ludicrous Congress – Ms. Smith’s response was to say that Canada needed to get its act together.
“We should just say, ‘Yes, we agree, and we’re going to take care of our part of the issue, so you don’t have to worry about us any more,’ ” she told CTV News.
In January, when the premiers met to figure out how to deal with the imminent trade war, Ms. Smith refused to sign the joint statement and issued her own instead, rejecting that energy exports could be any part of the Canadian response.
“We will take whatever actions are needed to protect the livelihoods of Albertans from such destructive federal policies,” she said. When asked what retaliation measures Canada could use, Ms. Smith scolded that it’s not “helpful to negotiate that in public” – after she publicly removed the heftiest negotiating item.
To be sure, Alberta’s citizens and economy would be disproportionately affected by any trade action involving oil and gas. But energy exports are the biggest carrot-shaped stick Canada has to shake at the White House.
And every province and region of this country has its own vulnerabilities on trade – ask an Ontario autoworker’s family how they’re feeling today – but only one premier declared repeatedly that hers cancelled out everyone’s else’s and the collective effort to boot.
When a recent Breitbart News interview with Ms. Smith surfaced, all of the attention was focused on how she said that Mr. Poilievre would be more “in sync” with the Trump administration and that she suggested cooling it with the tariff talk because it was helping the Liberals.
But Ms. Smith also went on at length about how her province is “the Texas of the north,” with its cattle, oil and deep conservative bent. She touted Alberta as the first to “start protecting kids” by banning puberty blockers and transgender surgery, and she highlighted how her government was shutting down fentanyl labs and battling “wokeism” run amok.
When questioned afterward about exactly whose case she was making, Ms. Smith insisted – with the unflappable confidence of the radio host that she used to be – that she had “been on Team Canada from the beginning.”
There’s a plot line in The Office in which an arrogant, insecure schemer named Andy Bernard joins the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin and immediately sets about sucking up to the regional manager, Michael Scott. The person in Andy’s way is Dwight Schrute, Michael’s eternally loyal weirdo henchman.
So Andy – played by Ed Helms – starts talking Dwight down to Michael every chance he gets. He thinks he’s being subtle, but he looks ridiculous and obvious.
“I Schruted it,” Andy tells Michael at one point. “It’s just this thing people say around the office. Like when you screw something up in a really irreversible way.”
Ms. Smith, transparently, has been attempting an Andy Bernard play for the past several months, kissing up to the Trump entourage out of naked self-interest while kneecapping what she decided was her competition: the rest of the country.
Canada did not get sledgehammered as flat as it might have on Wednesday. But with 25-per cent tariffs on steel, aluminum and automobiles, and plant closings and layoffs already starting, that’s like cheering because someone cut off two of your fingers instead of three. No one but Ms. Smith has declared victory here.
On Thursday, Liberal Leader Mark Carney said, “Although their policy will hurt American families, until that pain becomes impossible to ignore, I do not believe they will change direction. So the road to that point may indeed be long, and it will be hard on Canadians.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said, “Global markets are in turmoil. Our seniors are wondering what will happen to their savings after the tariff madness that came from the White House yesterday. Millions of Canadians woke up to the fear of losing their savings or their jobs.”
The only way to conceive of Wednesday as a hooray moment is if you cared about only a very narrow band of thisin the first place.
Energy products, including oil and gas, are excluded from the U.S. tariffs. Like the Alberta Premier said, “an important win.”
One of the most life-affirming things in politics is when someone is trying to get away with something, but they accidentally tell on themselves. That Ms. Smith did that in skywriting here is something to savour – though she could have spared us all the embarrassment of pretending to be a team player.
So let’s flip what it means to Schrute something. It’s not screwing a thing up in an irreversible way. It’s pulling what you think is a terribly clever manoeuvre everyone else is too dumb to see, when in fact they’re all looking right at you as you make a spectacle of yourself.
Danielle Smith really Schruted this.
?
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