UCP is heading towards the crushing of Democracy as we know it.

Time to stand up and yell!!

Hi all.

I’ve been in hiatus mode for quite awhile so far as actually writing a piece, but recent events in our Alberta government are frankly unspeakable, prompting me to voice.

I’m sure many will have heard of UCP Justice Minister, Mickey Amery announcing his newly introduced Bill 14. This bill is directed toward citizen initiative petitions such as Forever Canada and the even more recent MLA recall petitions. If passed, Bill 14 will remove the authority of Elections Alberta to allow (or not) citizen initiative petitions to be enacted, which has been up to their discretion until now. The torch of that authority will be passed to the Justice Minister himself (or herself), leaving Elections Alberta in the Minister’s wake.

One of our legal experts, Nigel Banks, has had a look at Bill 14 and says this:

“The UCP is projecting third reading by next Wednesday. All that the Bill needs to enter into force after that is royal assent which could happen as soon as the same day or the next.”

Is this an all too familiar scenario of events we see on a regular basis with the current administration in the US?

For me, this is the biggest authoritarian slap in the face that this government has projected to date. How can politicians like this be so brazenly cold to usurp the power of the citizenry and spit in the face of Democracy as we know it?

Why is our provincial government making every effort to emulate the autocratic machinations which are occurring in the United States of America?

As citizens of Alberta, citizens of Canada, we cannot just stand by and allow this deterioration of our values, our beliefs, our nation building, and our humanity, to be trampled upon by the few that see tyranny as the better choice over Democracy.

I fly a Canadian flag and I fly it proudly. I wish that I could say the same of the Alberta flag, which of late seems to have become the trending statement for separation. I found the same thing when the Freedom Fighters of Canada claimed our Nation’s flag in a most disrespectful way. I don’t want to have to guess why a person is flying either of those flags. I want them to have the historical meaning which they were designed to have, one which we can all be proud of.

Whether it’s flags or the people, we as citizens need to see the integrity of our values upheld. We are a Democratic Province within a Democratic Nation and we cannot allow that to become eroded by a select few. Please, if you reside in Alberta, write or call your MLA, the Premier and Minister and raise holy hell over this. We must let them know that we do not accept this.

(I really wanted to write that last bit all in uppercase but alas….that’s just too Trump like)

Thanks for reading.