Danielle Smith, in The Estranger.
Alberta remains under siege, presenting an unprecedented threat to Canada, and an attack pattern roadmap for countries around the world.
Alberta’s United Conservative Party introduced a Citizen Initiative Act in 2021, which claims to enable regular citizens to propose legislative and policy changes, and referendum questions. While this may appear to be a laudable motivation, the decades of Western democracy has revealed a severe flaw: the politician.
Specifically, Politicians who have been incentivized to seek re-election at the expense of all else - including the voters who they presumably should focus on. Politicians have increasingly become self-interested players with no meaningful regulation, and this self-interest allows them to focus entirely on changing the goal posts for their re-election. In the event of controversy or scandal, politicians have been expected to offer their resignations - immediately limiting any fallout damage from conflicts of interest. Such an action however, is a “convention”, or an expectation. There’s nothing that actually requires the Politician to take this action.
Danielle Smith
Such an event indeed unfolded before Canadians in the form of CorruptCare. Then AHS CEO, Athana Metzelopoulous, a whistleblower, turned the public spotlight to a cluster of healthcare related procurement contracts at a time when there was a brief shortage of children’s pain medication across Canada in and around 2021. During this time, the allegations suggest that political interference, from those in Premier Smith’s orbit, directed the AHS procurement process in favour of a local businessman, Sam Mraiche.
Such allegations were explosive, and normally should be career ending events. But Premier Danielle Smith has thrown the game, refusing to follow convention, and instead engaging in a campaign of lawfare against Canadians. She insists on the barest minimums in terms of accountability to run her term, and to impose a new set of policies that the UCP simply did not run an election for.
CorruptCare expanded to further revelations from the Melewka Homes litigation that Mraiche engaged in profiteering on building projects that are intended to one day become recovery centres. Recovery centres, by the way, that are part of the UCP’s Compassionate Intervention Act plans. I generally refer to these plans as Residential Schools 2.0.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-alberta-construction-company-alleges-sam-mraiche-played-hidden-role-in/
https://albertapolitics.ca/2024/08/lakeside-recovery-community-clearly-intended-to-be-showpiece-for-ucps-controversial-alberta-recovery-model/
In the wake of CorruptCare, the Auditor General, then Doug Wylie, was appointed in 2018 for an 8 year term. The UCP declined to extend Mr Wylie’s term to permit him to conclude his investigation into the CorruptCare cluster of contracts. But, perhaps alarmingly, the UCP were highlighted to essentially control all facets of any accountability that they could be subject to.
As noted by the CBC’s Michelle Bellefontaine, in “Alberta government ignores AG’s offer to stay on 2 more years, starts search for replacement”,
The motion to begin a search for an auditor general was passed by the five UCP MLAs who make up the majority on the standing committee on legislative offices that overseas the office of the auditor general, the chief electoral officer, the ombudsman and public interest commissioner, the ethics commissioner and the information and privacy commissioner.
Committee member Scott Cyr, who is the MLA for Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul, introduced the motion to set up an auditor general search committee near the end of a contentious meeting.
Cyr, and four of his UCP MLA colleagues — Nolan Dyck from Grande Prairie, Chelsae Petrovic from Livingstone-Macleod, Jackie Lovely from Camrose and Chantelle de Jonge from Chestermere-Strathmore — voted in favour of the motion.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/auditor-general-wylie-alberta-9.6965562
Alberta’s main offices to hold the Politician accountable are essentially all disarmed on their face, leaving the administration of any kind of public justice in a state of disrepute. With an active RCMP investigation, a disrupted Auditor General investigation, a half-measured investigation carried out by the Wyant Investigation, and dubious intimidation tactics upon a journalist and other involved parties, one may imagine that the Justice Minister may have some concern.
But, as it turns out, Justice Minister Amery may have some conflicts of his own. By closing ranks, and refusing to follow the political convention of resigning in the face of scandal, the UCP has elevated the Politician to become more powerful than anyone in Canadian society ever intended.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11069826/rcmp-probe-alberta-health-services-allegations/
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-danielle-smith-ucp-government-rcmp-searches-ahs/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/athana-mentzelopoulos-ahs-lawsuit-9.7166738
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-alberta-justice-minister-has-personal-relationship-with-man-whose/
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-alberta-justice-minister-sam-mraiche-investigation/
Indeed, there are indirect indications the UCP acknowledge the conflict of interest is real. From Global News’ Phil Heidenreich, “Well-known conservative operative quits Alberta’s UCP, says party is ‘allergic to transparency’”,
“Let me be clear: this is no longer the party I helped build.”
Davies had also been a key player in the Wildrose Party before its members merged with members of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta (PC) to form the UCP. He also spent time as co-campaign manager for Jeff Callaway in the 2017 UCP leadership race.
“(The party) is addicted to power and allergic to transparency,” Davies wrote on Thursday. “We are not witnessing leadership — we are witnessing damage control.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11149912/alberta-ucp-letter-cameron-davies/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/marshall-smith-defamation-lawsuit-ahs-globe-1.7537552
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/alberta/article-ahs-investigations-danielle-smith-marshall-smith-home-sam-mraiche/
https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/04/16/UCP-Tried-Kill-Health-Story/
Danielle Smith - The Estranger
The Edmonton Journal’s Rob Breakenridge, who rightly raises the alarm that Premier Smith’s UCP, heavily conflicted with the above career ending scandals, has mothered and steered a petition for Alberta separation.
It would be quite a lurch for Danielle Smith to go from celebrating a major win-win for Alberta and Canada to then unleashing a referendum on breaking up the country.
It would be problematic, too, given the necessary consultations with First Nations if this new pipeline project is to proceed. Disregarding a court ruling aimed at protecting treaty rights could complicate those efforts, to say the least.
The premier previously said she did not intend to be the one to put separation on the ballot, since, as she put it, “My position is we should remain in Canada. That’s the position of our government.” And, in fairness, her pursuit of an energy agreement with Ottawa has helped to bolster that position.
Smith hasn’t necessarily changed her mind here, but she seems less unequivocal in the face of last week’s court ruling, which halts the separatist petition effort.
If the petition can’t be the spark for a referendum, it’s clear the separatists see the premier as their backup plan. And, so far, she’s not closing the door on that option.
That’s the wrong response. Whatever pressure Smith is facing to ensure a referendum proceeds, and whatever one thinks of this court ruling, she should not be the one to call such a vote. It undermines what she’s trying to accomplish, and she arguably lacks a mandate.
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/breakenridge-danielle-smith-doesnt-owe-separatists-referendum
https://archive.ph/9UrjT
Smith, facing a scandal of enormous public and personal consequence in CorruptCare, has become the family estranger. She’s gone to the Canadian family, instigated emotional abuse, personality clashes, neglect, trauma, and selectively favours some over others.
A Warning For the West
The separatist petition is a farce, babied and nurtured every step of the way by the UCP. Now, the Europeans express concern that the US may interfere with their own elections. As Alberta endures its siege, let the world bear witness to how the US can indeed interfere with its allies.
https://www.stl.news/experts-caution-that-alberta-is-highly-susceptible-to-foreign-interference/
https://www.eunews.it/en/2026/07/29/eu-now-fears-us-interference-in-european-elections/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/eby-alberta-separatism-9.7066320
