Ralph succeeded because as he put it he figured out where the people were going and got out in front of them. The long list of narcissistic kooks who now seek to take over that party are trying to take people where they want them to go. And they all seem to live in an echo chamber. They had their chance; they made their call; you really what you sow.
Great piece, Ken! Brings to mind the treatise you wrote w/ Sean Speer on Ordered Liberty all those years back. Dispositionally (versus ideologically) conservative is a great way to describe Albertans. I've always found Alberta to be an anomalous mixture of Old (Central/Eastern) Europe and the Wild West but could never find the right words to characterize its political culture. You're bang on here, as usual.
Ken I often agree with you on many issues. I have said for several months that the electorate is starving for an adult who can manage the government properly. I don’t care about your ideology as much as how you handle education or health.
Governments have focused a lot of their time on special interest groups to the detriment of the constituents who elect them. The fact that we have made enemies who support us by indifference is a bigger issue that whether we are politically pure or not.
frankly, I don't hold out much hope for this province. Rural Alberta has a stranglehold on their social conservative garbage ideology and they love their "conservative" MLAs. Never mind that they aren't good for the province; never mind that they are actively working to dismantle health care and education to satisfy social conservative ideological wet dreams (education) and wanna be American fantasies (health) - all that matters is that they say they are conservative. It is incredibly short sighted to continue to vote for a party in bed with big corporate donors. The average citizen is not rich (barely making ends meet in this ridiculous inflation) & conservatives with their corporate obedience just don't care about us. I don't think any other party is so amazing or fantastic for the record, I just think the UCP is an obscenity and a blight on this province being propped up by rural alberta
The health care in Rural Alberta is an embarrasement for a developed country. Wanting to keep on doing the same mediocre public monopoly isn't an option anymore. The doctors are voting with their feet and leaving a system where they have no control over how they run their businesses.
And those of us living in rural Alberta would appreciate having some choices re health care as well. Other countries seem to have been able to come up with a “blended” system but we don’t seem to be allowed to have that conversation in Canada
Yeah... I hope that when you get your wish (and you will because your beloved UCP is actively working to dismantle and sabotage public healthcare) - you are super wealthy to pay for all that care you think you are going to get. LOL
The rest of the developed world seems to be doing better than us. Besides, it probably isn't a bad thing for people to actually have to pay (what they can) for their health care. It's disgraceful for people to continuously seek government to take care of basic needs.
Universal health care is a floor, it shouldn't be a ceiling. I'm not willing to sacrifice my family health for some esoteric ideal of "equality in mediocrity." I'm also not cheap and willing to pay for nice things.
I think we often have either time or money to spend, and blessed people may have both. Our system now requires us all to spend time - lots of it unless you are a pro athlete or important politician. For some reason, allowing those who have it to spend money for procedures is seen as evil and unfair- even if it would reduce wait times for others. I like the idea that the public funding is the floor not the ceiling. To specifics (based on family experiences), I’d start with the so-called elective surgeries- joint replacement, etc. Imagine NOT becoming addicted to pain meds because you didn’t have to wait 1 1/2 years for “urgent” hip replacement. Where would you start?
Yep. Could not agree with you more. It sticks in my craw that I am often labelled Conservative just because I live in the country ... but it's not an unlikely assumption because the VAST majority of my neighbours are sticking to their Conservative guns ... and will, until it kills them. Gr-r-r-r.
Ken is correct, looking at temperament alone, Notley is closer to the average Albertan than Kenney. Many Albertans enjoyed being entertained by him...for a while.
Albertans are entitled and they are cheap. All Canadians are. Just ask anyone who works in tourism outside of Canada. That is why items such as universal no-fee health care are so popular, because you don't have to open your wallet. Canadians will accept a lot of mediocrity just to not have to pay out of pocket. I would even venture that to some Canadians, Albertans can be perceived as selfish which is part of the individualistic ethos of the place.
Conservatism and cheapness overlap on the Venn diagram. The want to be taken care of by an embracing state has heavy overlap with social conservatism as well.
But one point Ken is wrong is on ATB. ATB was created to provide small business banking when the Bay Street banks, famously stingy as they still are, refused to do business in the province. It a tool for provincial autonomy more than socialism. After all, this is a province where even the utilities are mostly privately owned.
I take exception to only the conservatives being able to run the province. The Social Credit party didn't run the province into the ground. And it was successive conservative governments that squandered the Heritage fund started by Lougheed.
I really didn’t say that. I just said that if the UCP doesn’t regain a conservative disposition, the NDP will move the province in a non-conservative way.
I don't know where the author got the idea that conservatives are against high levels of public goods; they are not. They are against high upper-income tax rates to pay for them.
As long as power could be purchased with oil money, and Alberta's richest taxed lightly, good services were fine; Klein savagely cut them not out of conservative dislike of high services, but on fiscal grounds. Taxes stayed down.
The conservatism of Alberta may be proven mathematically:
...where Alberta, Moe's Saskatchewan, and Ford's Ontario have the lowest upper-income tax rates. (The super-low ones in the North were interesting; I think that reflects the difficulty of getting upper-incomes to stay there at all.)
Alberta's conservatism may be further proven by the tax rates under Rachel Notley. The UCP in the article screams "billion-dollar tax grab" because she raised corporate taxes, and some upper-income taxes: but to rates that were still quite low compared to the rest of Canada.
I see this essay as one on temperament, and I agree that Rachel Notley models a conservative temperament. Steady, thoughtful and constant: certainly what I look for in a leader.
Very, very good piece - and not just about Alberta, but about what the meaning of conservatism is and how as an ideology, it's not always in alignment with its ethos and its "disposition".
A quick point about its bank, though, ATB Financial, or the Alberta Treasury Branches as they are called in their enabling Act. It came about in the SoCred days, hummed along placidly for decades providing banking services to the far-flung rural province of old, got swept up in the lending crazes of the 70s and 80s, almost blew up three times - Pocklington's follies, bad loans in the 90s, bad investment in the Financial Crisis - but the province continued to re-up - because eventually, even an innovation like a government-owned bank becomes part of the landscape and, thus, dear to the hearts of the conservatively disposed. Ideological conservatives can't stand the notion, but those who see Alberta as a sum of its history, whose innovations often work when least expected, for whom survival is its own mark of distinction and reason for being, ATB makes perfect sense.
Ken, great piece. My only nit is, "And we won’t recognize Alberta when they’re done." I think that's a bit sloppy and unsubstantiated. Based on her first term, where's the evidence that she'd make AB unrecognizable? We'd still have a CTax without the petty showmanship and wasted legal costs. What will make AB unrecognizable is the how disappointed many younger voters are in the War Room, etc. of the UCP. Under 40's lean AB NDP or left of the AB NDP in spite of what us older Albertans think. If the AB NDP drifts left it will be because younger generations have had a belly full of what they view as UCP antics and are pulling them left. They'll go where the votes are.
I was going to gripe, but 40 years, you'd not recognize Alberta no matter what! The all-paper offices of 1982 were just receiving their first IBM PCs.
Oil will be So Over, half the existing jobs will be automated, and the nonwhite population will be another 30% of the demographic. The last family farm will be not just gone but forgotten, a few pictures in granddad's album. Grandson's AI will be managing 100,000 hectares with drone combines...
I am unsure what exactly is meant by Conservative ideology and disposition? I sure wish the writer had of defined exactly what was intended in their use of those labels. It appears we are all grouped and branded in the new progressive world of Notley, Singh, and Trudeau. Individual thought, decisions, and perspective, has been disallowed and replaced by group think. The advancement of cancel culture if one dares dispute the "science" or the "experts", or the dogma of the progressive idealogues. The follow the leader rules ensuring we all go down with the ship in this group think mentality. This new post national state where unicorns and money trees are abundant in some fantasy land that appears to be contrived and run by children. We need grownups that deal in reality leading this Province. Its due to the lack of reality, commonsense, and sanity, that has brought this country to its knees and why we are seeing massive debt and the corrosion of society and our quality of life. The last thing Alberta needs is a leader who deems the people and the Province as being Canada's embarrassing cousin. In fact the entire story has been turned around as it has been the hard work and tenacity of Albertan's that have brought both prosperity and hope to this now post national state. The last thing Alberta needs is Notley.
Our very own Prime Minister's words of Canada being the First Post National State, where there is no core identity, no mainstream, no normal. Canada is a new kind of country where we are not defined by our history or European national origins, but by a pan-cultural heritage. He has gone out of his way to ensure we have no identity or pride in our once covetted and most admired country. He has denounced our heritage, condoned the removal of our once valued history and demonstrated complete disdain for our Parliament.
He has demonized Canadian's that do feel pride in their country, believe in the Constitution, and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as being criminal, treated as criminals with no trial. Don't go about waving that Canadian flag too strongly or you become a White Supremists in the eyes of the Government funded media, Ottawa, Parliamentarian's, and to the new Post National State.
It is a state all right, a state of destruction, demonization and distrust. This is no longer any form of Canada under the Trudeau/Singh regime. That has been proven with the Emergency Act, forced vacination, (regardless of the "science") to bring forth a new Identity program and to numerate and use facial recognition to identify all who dwell in their Post National State. Pay attention to what they do and not what they and the media say, as it is to distract people from the actions of the regime. In fact the facial recognition has been used by the RCMP and Canadian Forces and will continued to be used for all in our State. Those vaccinations matter as they allow all Canadian's to be identified and numbered. The banking system will soon be digitalized using a number to identify you as well. They will know where you are, who you see, what you buy, and what you do. Soon you will be judged by your carbon footprint as thats next on their horizon.
They will use your Facebook pages to decide if your worthy of being a member in their Post National State or are in need of punishment. They are enforcing a construct of what is acceptable to say, do, and how to act. Compliance above all. Monitoring Canadian's movement by cellphones is a necessary means of holding those who believe their life is there own, to account. The largest tech and telecommunications Corporations and global companies, banks, and police forces are aiding in the passing of information, just as the US Government was exposed of doing and still is today. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and the Truckers for Freedom proved just how totaltarian these regimes are becoming. Compliance above all or else.
This is not a conspiracy theory as they continue to say, as they are in the process of all I have written and those who continue to believe this is a free country have no idea they reside in the First Trudeau/Singh Post National State.
Oh ML, curb the hyperbole. Once again a quote misquoted has a very different meaning.
"‘‘There are shared values — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first post national state.’’
John Ibbitson, probably riffing off of Saul also wrote of it. I've misplaced the link. Post nationalism has and is been in discussion for a long long time.
If you are looking for a state of destruction, demonization and distrust look not further than Texas, Russia, Israel, and Iran.
We know you don't trust/believe science but keep in mind, technology is also science. And no, you are not chipped with the vaccines. But any cool tech like facial recognition is going to be adopted by security forces in a heart beat. They can't help themselves. An awful lot of tech we use daily was first developed for military use then knocked off. Umm banks already use a digitalized number to id you. They have for years. Soon it will be AI everywhere watching what we do. Much more efficient than smart phones.
And you still use FB, I echo?
Have you thought anymore on "Conservative ideology and disposition". I'd point you right back up to the top of Ken's article. A rather wonderful picture of Conservatism. Not everything needs be doom and gloom.
“A propensity to use and enjoy what is available, rather than to wish or look for something else; to delight in what is present rather than what was or may be.”
— Michael Oakeshott’s definition of the conservative disposition
When you look out of your window, what do you see?
Yes, that speaking of caring, equality, compassion, being there for one another, respect, and working hard is a real knee slapper coming out of King Justin. Certainly must have been someone else’s words that’s for sure as none of that is in this post national state, just ask Alberta and Saskatchewan how it’s worked for them. Priceless. Look at our equality in parliament and the house. The same colonial parliament that the dictator himself despises. No wonder he ignored the rules and laws as he is post colonial and should be so even as a government. The rules don’t apply to thy. Those fairytales spewed by the people who neither practice or do as they preach. Trudeau is the epitome of utter hypocrisy. My advice to you is to hop down off that unicorn and take a long look out that window as what goes around comes around. Trudeau was pitiful enough to take the words of others to pretend they were his own. He is the most horrific leader in the history of Canada. That much I do know is true.
ML, you aren't making a lot of sense. The NY Times Magazine link is the article where JT says his bit about post-nationalism. You didn't read it did you?
What do Alberta and Sask. have to do with post-nationalism? What is not equal in the House or Senate (or crown)? Colonial parliament?
Of course, the idea of post-nationalism is not something JT developed himself. He didn't steal it from JRS. The examples I gave you are only two of the Canadian writer's takes on it. It's not a new concept.
I do not have a unicorn. Fairytales?
What did Trudeau do to you to cause such rabid...dislike. Why do you have such scorn for the shared values we do have? Is it because JT said it? You don't have to agree with anything he says but to attack every word he says is pitiful, intolerant, and ignorant.
So like I said, you aren't making a lot of sense. What happened?
Really? Truly, if you take the time to make such a statement but can’t be bothered to show the world who you really are and use your real name, it’s hardly worthy of commenting at all. Seems it’s you that has something to hide.
Thankfully Alberta is a free province and as such everybody gets an opinion, gets to say it and suffer nothing worse than disagreement in return. That may not remain the case if Trudeau gets his way. Oh darn!! There’s that pesky “blame it on Trudeau” thing. So here’s mine. Ken is completely off base on this one. He windmilled his three pitches and is dragging his bat back to the dug out. The two big cities of Alberta may not be “ideologically” conservative but the rest of it is Blue with a capital B. Sit in a small coffee anywhere rural/small town/small city Alberta and listen. We’re Blue. Period.
ATB will give people a loan when no one else will. It's Alberta's subprime lender, no Bay Street BS required. They also have a reputation for collecting on debts quicker than anyone else so there is that.
Alberta is following the same pattern as Ontario. As it urbanizes, the political centre shifts to the left. Rural areas will still vote on the right, but the urban vote tips the scale. The segment of the province that produces exportable goods and services is still as conservative as it always was but it is getting smaller.
The NDP however has its own ideology which revolves around disparagement of big business, climate change, and unions.
Kenney has failed to bend conservatism to his will in Alberta but Notley has the same problem with the NDP. Rachel is in a province which is highly dependent on oil and gas and the political left wants to keep it in the ground.
Ralph succeeded because as he put it he figured out where the people were going and got out in front of them. The long list of narcissistic kooks who now seek to take over that party are trying to take people where they want them to go. And they all seem to live in an echo chamber. They had their chance; they made their call; you really what you sow.
Reap what you sow. Frig
Click on the three dots beside "Reply" and there's an edit button, a fine substack feature for the thumb-fingered like myself.
Great piece, Ken! Brings to mind the treatise you wrote w/ Sean Speer on Ordered Liberty all those years back. Dispositionally (versus ideologically) conservative is a great way to describe Albertans. I've always found Alberta to be an anomalous mixture of Old (Central/Eastern) Europe and the Wild West but could never find the right words to characterize its political culture. You're bang on here, as usual.
The link to that piece got lost somewhere on the info-highway (do the kids still say that?)
"We need good boring government, not an exciting ideological one. "
That is the most exciting radical political idea I have seen for some time.
Ken I often agree with you on many issues. I have said for several months that the electorate is starving for an adult who can manage the government properly. I don’t care about your ideology as much as how you handle education or health.
Governments have focused a lot of their time on special interest groups to the detriment of the constituents who elect them. The fact that we have made enemies who support us by indifference is a bigger issue that whether we are politically pure or not.
frankly, I don't hold out much hope for this province. Rural Alberta has a stranglehold on their social conservative garbage ideology and they love their "conservative" MLAs. Never mind that they aren't good for the province; never mind that they are actively working to dismantle health care and education to satisfy social conservative ideological wet dreams (education) and wanna be American fantasies (health) - all that matters is that they say they are conservative. It is incredibly short sighted to continue to vote for a party in bed with big corporate donors. The average citizen is not rich (barely making ends meet in this ridiculous inflation) & conservatives with their corporate obedience just don't care about us. I don't think any other party is so amazing or fantastic for the record, I just think the UCP is an obscenity and a blight on this province being propped up by rural alberta
The health care in Rural Alberta is an embarrasement for a developed country. Wanting to keep on doing the same mediocre public monopoly isn't an option anymore. The doctors are voting with their feet and leaving a system where they have no control over how they run their businesses.
And those of us living in rural Alberta would appreciate having some choices re health care as well. Other countries seem to have been able to come up with a “blended” system but we don’t seem to be allowed to have that conversation in Canada
Yeah... I hope that when you get your wish (and you will because your beloved UCP is actively working to dismantle and sabotage public healthcare) - you are super wealthy to pay for all that care you think you are going to get. LOL
The rest of the developed world seems to be doing better than us. Besides, it probably isn't a bad thing for people to actually have to pay (what they can) for their health care. It's disgraceful for people to continuously seek government to take care of basic needs.
my biggest concern is the poor and vulnerable. People like me who make relatively ok money can likely get by but what about the poor and the disabled.
Universal health care is a floor, it shouldn't be a ceiling. I'm not willing to sacrifice my family health for some esoteric ideal of "equality in mediocrity." I'm also not cheap and willing to pay for nice things.
Who do you include in the developed world?
With respect, I think you just proved my point about not being able/allowed to have the conversation.
The "conversation" as you call it is on going, and not just in Alberta.
Just out of curiosity what would you like to see as public health care and what under the private label?
I think we often have either time or money to spend, and blessed people may have both. Our system now requires us all to spend time - lots of it unless you are a pro athlete or important politician. For some reason, allowing those who have it to spend money for procedures is seen as evil and unfair- even if it would reduce wait times for others. I like the idea that the public funding is the floor not the ceiling. To specifics (based on family experiences), I’d start with the so-called elective surgeries- joint replacement, etc. Imagine NOT becoming addicted to pain meds because you didn’t have to wait 1 1/2 years for “urgent” hip replacement. Where would you start?
Alternatively, they are leaving because this government is toxic poison and treats them like garbage but - we can agree to disagree.
Yep. Could not agree with you more. It sticks in my craw that I am often labelled Conservative just because I live in the country ... but it's not an unlikely assumption because the VAST majority of my neighbours are sticking to their Conservative guns ... and will, until it kills them. Gr-r-r-r.
Ken is correct, looking at temperament alone, Notley is closer to the average Albertan than Kenney. Many Albertans enjoyed being entertained by him...for a while.
Albertans are entitled and they are cheap. All Canadians are. Just ask anyone who works in tourism outside of Canada. That is why items such as universal no-fee health care are so popular, because you don't have to open your wallet. Canadians will accept a lot of mediocrity just to not have to pay out of pocket. I would even venture that to some Canadians, Albertans can be perceived as selfish which is part of the individualistic ethos of the place.
Conservatism and cheapness overlap on the Venn diagram. The want to be taken care of by an embracing state has heavy overlap with social conservatism as well.
But one point Ken is wrong is on ATB. ATB was created to provide small business banking when the Bay Street banks, famously stingy as they still are, refused to do business in the province. It a tool for provincial autonomy more than socialism. After all, this is a province where even the utilities are mostly privately owned.
I take exception to only the conservatives being able to run the province. The Social Credit party didn't run the province into the ground. And it was successive conservative governments that squandered the Heritage fund started by Lougheed.
I really didn’t say that. I just said that if the UCP doesn’t regain a conservative disposition, the NDP will move the province in a non-conservative way.
Fair enough
I don't know where the author got the idea that conservatives are against high levels of public goods; they are not. They are against high upper-income tax rates to pay for them.
As long as power could be purchased with oil money, and Alberta's richest taxed lightly, good services were fine; Klein savagely cut them not out of conservative dislike of high services, but on fiscal grounds. Taxes stayed down.
The conservatism of Alberta may be proven mathematically:
https://www.nerdwallet.com/ca/personal-finance/provincial-tax-rates
...where Alberta, Moe's Saskatchewan, and Ford's Ontario have the lowest upper-income tax rates. (The super-low ones in the North were interesting; I think that reflects the difficulty of getting upper-incomes to stay there at all.)
Alberta's conservatism may be further proven by the tax rates under Rachel Notley. The UCP in the article screams "billion-dollar tax grab" because she raised corporate taxes, and some upper-income taxes: but to rates that were still quite low compared to the rest of Canada.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/alberta-ndp-introduces-bill-to-hike-taxes-on-corporations-and-wealthy-1.2429427
...she just didn't DARE raise taxes to BC levels; Alberta is conservative that way. It's about upper-income taxes, not about service levels.
I see this essay as one on temperament, and I agree that Rachel Notley models a conservative temperament. Steady, thoughtful and constant: certainly what I look for in a leader.
Very, very good piece - and not just about Alberta, but about what the meaning of conservatism is and how as an ideology, it's not always in alignment with its ethos and its "disposition".
A quick point about its bank, though, ATB Financial, or the Alberta Treasury Branches as they are called in their enabling Act. It came about in the SoCred days, hummed along placidly for decades providing banking services to the far-flung rural province of old, got swept up in the lending crazes of the 70s and 80s, almost blew up three times - Pocklington's follies, bad loans in the 90s, bad investment in the Financial Crisis - but the province continued to re-up - because eventually, even an innovation like a government-owned bank becomes part of the landscape and, thus, dear to the hearts of the conservatively disposed. Ideological conservatives can't stand the notion, but those who see Alberta as a sum of its history, whose innovations often work when least expected, for whom survival is its own mark of distinction and reason for being, ATB makes perfect sense.
We'll see if it survives crypto.
I can't wait for the first guy on TV to say "They'd better keep their government hands off my ATB!"
Ken, great piece. My only nit is, "And we won’t recognize Alberta when they’re done." I think that's a bit sloppy and unsubstantiated. Based on her first term, where's the evidence that she'd make AB unrecognizable? We'd still have a CTax without the petty showmanship and wasted legal costs. What will make AB unrecognizable is the how disappointed many younger voters are in the War Room, etc. of the UCP. Under 40's lean AB NDP or left of the AB NDP in spite of what us older Albertans think. If the AB NDP drifts left it will be because younger generations have had a belly full of what they view as UCP antics and are pulling them left. They'll go where the votes are.
I was going to gripe, but 40 years, you'd not recognize Alberta no matter what! The all-paper offices of 1982 were just receiving their first IBM PCs.
Oil will be So Over, half the existing jobs will be automated, and the nonwhite population will be another 30% of the demographic. The last family farm will be not just gone but forgotten, a few pictures in granddad's album. Grandson's AI will be managing 100,000 hectares with drone combines...
Thanks Roy. You nailed it. There'll be more changes by 2030 than we can imagine, no matter which parties we elect.
And 2062, even more O;
I am unsure what exactly is meant by Conservative ideology and disposition? I sure wish the writer had of defined exactly what was intended in their use of those labels. It appears we are all grouped and branded in the new progressive world of Notley, Singh, and Trudeau. Individual thought, decisions, and perspective, has been disallowed and replaced by group think. The advancement of cancel culture if one dares dispute the "science" or the "experts", or the dogma of the progressive idealogues. The follow the leader rules ensuring we all go down with the ship in this group think mentality. This new post national state where unicorns and money trees are abundant in some fantasy land that appears to be contrived and run by children. We need grownups that deal in reality leading this Province. Its due to the lack of reality, commonsense, and sanity, that has brought this country to its knees and why we are seeing massive debt and the corrosion of society and our quality of life. The last thing Alberta needs is a leader who deems the people and the Province as being Canada's embarrassing cousin. In fact the entire story has been turned around as it has been the hard work and tenacity of Albertan's that have brought both prosperity and hope to this now post national state. The last thing Alberta needs is Notley.
ML. I don't believe that we are in a post-national state. Why do you?
Our very own Prime Minister's words of Canada being the First Post National State, where there is no core identity, no mainstream, no normal. Canada is a new kind of country where we are not defined by our history or European national origins, but by a pan-cultural heritage. He has gone out of his way to ensure we have no identity or pride in our once covetted and most admired country. He has denounced our heritage, condoned the removal of our once valued history and demonstrated complete disdain for our Parliament.
He has demonized Canadian's that do feel pride in their country, believe in the Constitution, and our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as being criminal, treated as criminals with no trial. Don't go about waving that Canadian flag too strongly or you become a White Supremists in the eyes of the Government funded media, Ottawa, Parliamentarian's, and to the new Post National State.
It is a state all right, a state of destruction, demonization and distrust. This is no longer any form of Canada under the Trudeau/Singh regime. That has been proven with the Emergency Act, forced vacination, (regardless of the "science") to bring forth a new Identity program and to numerate and use facial recognition to identify all who dwell in their Post National State. Pay attention to what they do and not what they and the media say, as it is to distract people from the actions of the regime. In fact the facial recognition has been used by the RCMP and Canadian Forces and will continued to be used for all in our State. Those vaccinations matter as they allow all Canadian's to be identified and numbered. The banking system will soon be digitalized using a number to identify you as well. They will know where you are, who you see, what you buy, and what you do. Soon you will be judged by your carbon footprint as thats next on their horizon.
They will use your Facebook pages to decide if your worthy of being a member in their Post National State or are in need of punishment. They are enforcing a construct of what is acceptable to say, do, and how to act. Compliance above all. Monitoring Canadian's movement by cellphones is a necessary means of holding those who believe their life is there own, to account. The largest tech and telecommunications Corporations and global companies, banks, and police forces are aiding in the passing of information, just as the US Government was exposed of doing and still is today. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and the Truckers for Freedom proved just how totaltarian these regimes are becoming. Compliance above all or else.
This is not a conspiracy theory as they continue to say, as they are in the process of all I have written and those who continue to believe this is a free country have no idea they reside in the First Trudeau/Singh Post National State.
Oh ML, curb the hyperbole. Once again a quote misquoted has a very different meaning.
"‘‘There are shared values — openness, respect, compassion, willingness to work hard, to be there for each other, to search for equality and justice. Those qualities are what make us the first post national state.’’
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/magazine/trudeaus-canada-again.html
But JT did not invoke Canada as a post national state first. John Ralston Saul and John Ibbitson both published their ideas long before JT did.
2000 John Ralston Saul: https://archive.gg.ca/media/doc.asp?lang=e&DocID=1357
John Ibbitson, probably riffing off of Saul also wrote of it. I've misplaced the link. Post nationalism has and is been in discussion for a long long time.
If you are looking for a state of destruction, demonization and distrust look not further than Texas, Russia, Israel, and Iran.
We know you don't trust/believe science but keep in mind, technology is also science. And no, you are not chipped with the vaccines. But any cool tech like facial recognition is going to be adopted by security forces in a heart beat. They can't help themselves. An awful lot of tech we use daily was first developed for military use then knocked off. Umm banks already use a digitalized number to id you. They have for years. Soon it will be AI everywhere watching what we do. Much more efficient than smart phones.
And you still use FB, I echo?
Have you thought anymore on "Conservative ideology and disposition". I'd point you right back up to the top of Ken's article. A rather wonderful picture of Conservatism. Not everything needs be doom and gloom.
“A propensity to use and enjoy what is available, rather than to wish or look for something else; to delight in what is present rather than what was or may be.”
— Michael Oakeshott’s definition of the conservative disposition
When you look out of your window, what do you see?
Yes, that speaking of caring, equality, compassion, being there for one another, respect, and working hard is a real knee slapper coming out of King Justin. Certainly must have been someone else’s words that’s for sure as none of that is in this post national state, just ask Alberta and Saskatchewan how it’s worked for them. Priceless. Look at our equality in parliament and the house. The same colonial parliament that the dictator himself despises. No wonder he ignored the rules and laws as he is post colonial and should be so even as a government. The rules don’t apply to thy. Those fairytales spewed by the people who neither practice or do as they preach. Trudeau is the epitome of utter hypocrisy. My advice to you is to hop down off that unicorn and take a long look out that window as what goes around comes around. Trudeau was pitiful enough to take the words of others to pretend they were his own. He is the most horrific leader in the history of Canada. That much I do know is true.
ML, you aren't making a lot of sense. The NY Times Magazine link is the article where JT says his bit about post-nationalism. You didn't read it did you?
What do Alberta and Sask. have to do with post-nationalism? What is not equal in the House or Senate (or crown)? Colonial parliament?
Of course, the idea of post-nationalism is not something JT developed himself. He didn't steal it from JRS. The examples I gave you are only two of the Canadian writer's takes on it. It's not a new concept.
I do not have a unicorn. Fairytales?
What did Trudeau do to you to cause such rabid...dislike. Why do you have such scorn for the shared values we do have? Is it because JT said it? You don't have to agree with anything he says but to attack every word he says is pitiful, intolerant, and ignorant.
So like I said, you aren't making a lot of sense. What happened?
All that, and you still use FB?
Really? Truly, if you take the time to make such a statement but can’t be bothered to show the world who you really are and use your real name, it’s hardly worthy of commenting at all. Seems it’s you that has something to hide.
And, like I said. Everyone gets an opinion. Even you.
Thankfully Alberta is a free province and as such everybody gets an opinion, gets to say it and suffer nothing worse than disagreement in return. That may not remain the case if Trudeau gets his way. Oh darn!! There’s that pesky “blame it on Trudeau” thing. So here’s mine. Ken is completely off base on this one. He windmilled his three pitches and is dragging his bat back to the dug out. The two big cities of Alberta may not be “ideologically” conservative but the rest of it is Blue with a capital B. Sit in a small coffee anywhere rural/small town/small city Alberta and listen. We’re Blue. Period.
Try sell the idea of privatizing the ATB in rural Alberta… Or bringing out health care system in line with other provinces… Good luck to you!
ATB will give people a loan when no one else will. It's Alberta's subprime lender, no Bay Street BS required. They also have a reputation for collecting on debts quicker than anyone else so there is that.
Alberta is following the same pattern as Ontario. As it urbanizes, the political centre shifts to the left. Rural areas will still vote on the right, but the urban vote tips the scale. The segment of the province that produces exportable goods and services is still as conservative as it always was but it is getting smaller.
The NDP however has its own ideology which revolves around disparagement of big business, climate change, and unions.
Kenney has failed to bend conservatism to his will in Alberta but Notley has the same problem with the NDP. Rachel is in a province which is highly dependent on oil and gas and the political left wants to keep it in the ground.