One is an angry Alberta populist, and the other is, well, just angry. The first was an old-school prairie radio talk show host in Alberta, the other was someone who attended two post-secondary education entities, but left both before graduation. The former is the former leader of the Wild Rose Party in Alberta, about as close as we can get, and it’s pretty damned close, to the red-hatted morons of MAGA. The latter served as a chief advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but was chased out of the party after losing a Conservative Party power play with Eganville’s Ray Novak.
One is Alberta premier Danielle Smith. The other is Pierre Poilievre’s chief strategist and former romantic partner, Jenni Byrne.
Both have their political origins on the far right of the political spectrum, where dystopian anger is the watchword. Both are MAGA acolytes. One kisses Donald Trump’s fat ass, while the other has the red hat and wears it.
Both are dangerous to Canada.
And these are the kinds of people, and they’re not nearly alone, who are either in power or close to power in this country. They represent the same kind of governmental thinking that the American president prefers, when he thinks at all. Sorry, if he thinks at all.
Right now, it’s Smith that presents as the greatest threat, on several levels.
She’s put forward a lengthy list of grievances that she demands the next prime minister submit to or face an Alberta referendum sometime in the undefined future, but she alludes to the idea that it will be sooner rather than later. The fact that Alberta feels aggrieved is nothing new, because Alberta always feels aggrieved, and they don’t like it that they have to follow the rules every other part of the country follows. But that referendum she speaks of hasn’t been defined as to its purpose, leaving me to wonder if there would be any questions related to Alberta sovereignty, or sovereignty-association with Canada, like Quebec tried to pull off in the mid 1990s.
Smith is reckless in terms of both words and actions, and her angry rhetoric against the federal government, of any stripe, is probably the last thing the country needs in the face of a perceived and possible existential threat from the United States. And to be absolutely clear on this, Smith would much prefer a Poilievre Conservative win than a Carney Liberal one. In fact, Carney was in Edmonton last week to discuss stuff with Smith, and she made a big point of not having her picture taken with him. Pretty churlish stuff from a premier of a province, but that’s her, and that’s Alberta. She seems to conveniently forget the federal government diving in to buy the Trans-Mountain Pipeline at significant political cost when she incessantly complains that Alberta is subsidizing every other province with its oil revenue. So much for being part of the family.
With respect to our current situation with the United States, she is adamant in her assertion that Alberta energy, as in oil and natural gas, will not be subject to Canadian tariffs for sales to the United States. This isn’t the best, because of all that this nation has in terms of natural resources, oil and gas are of prominent importance to the American economy and here we have a provincial premier compromising the Canadian bargaining position vis-a-vis the United States, an absolute act and position of extreme irresponsibility.
She actually went to Mar-A-Largo to petition Donald Trump to exempt Alberta energy imports from the American tariff regime. She put on her best First Communion dress and got a couple of minutes with the Blowhard in Chief, but had no problem having her picture taken with him, along with that odious faux-Canadian Kevin O’Leary, who himself was dressed in an all-white suit his wife found at a Miami Vice clearance sale.
Today, she’s again attempting to contact the president to beseech him to offer Pierre Poilievre help in this election campaign, because she’s rightly concluded that public opinion has stampeded to the Liberals in the face of this crisis brought about by a regime with intent to cause harm to us as a country. By helping, I suppose she means for Trump to be more severe with Poilievre, to intentionally slag him in the hopes that Canadians will rally to the little schoolyard punk. A strange manner of help indeed, but notice the president’s recent comments about how Poilievre is not his kind of MAGA, which is hilarious given that 40% of Poilievre’s party and voting base are Red-Hats or Red-Hat sympathizers. It makes one wonder about the varying degrees of MAGAism, but in this, as in most things, Poilievre apparently falls short.
She’s also recently aired her anti-Canada sentiments on none other than Breitbart News, operated by the odious Steve Bannon, the primary architect behind everything Trump says and does. Breitbart makes Fox News look like a responsible and objective news organization.
Smith, by her words and actions, is openly collaborating with the enemy. There’s a word for that, and there were once penalties, significant ones. But in today’s world where everything goes, we tend to either accept this reckless stupidity or look the other way.
Jenni Byrne is another die-in-the-wool Reform Party holdover, someone who exists today but comes from another time. She’s been involved in backroom politics for her entire adult life, and actually before that when her father got her involved in anger politics way back in the hinterland of Fenelon Falls, Ontario.
Jenni attended college, but didn’t graduate, ostensibly because she was spending all her time organizing for the far-right politically. She then attended the University of Ottawa, but again was stymied when it came to graduating, opting instead to spend all her time doing the same thing she did in college, which was not to go to school, but to be a campus rabble-rouser for Reform, which is an Alberta protest party at its core.
She may not have graduated — glad I wasn’t paying for her education, maybe taxpayers did through OSAP — but she did come to the attention of the newly-united Conservative Party, fresh off jettisoning the “Progressive” from their title. She was scooped up and placed in incrementally more serious and important roles within the far-right political movement.
She’s not a stupid woman, and instead is a decidedly crafty one, and that makes her someone worth taking note of. She played an instrumental role in the Stephen Harper majority government win in 2011, but was shown the door after a nasty power struggle during the 2015 federal election when Harper lost to Trudeau. She openly feuded and presented obstacles to campaign chair Guy Giorno, who’s by no means a nice guy himself, but he was the guy wearing the brightest party hat. When Harper’s most trusted advisor, Ray Novak, was sent to soothe things out between the two, she dumped on Novak as well. In the eyes of Stephen Harper, nobody touches Ray Novak, who once lived in the prime minister’s garage. Byrne was shown the door.
She resurfaced in a similar role with Dough Ford’s Tories in the 2018 Ontario provincial election and managed to insinuate herself into the hierarchy of Ford Nation, becoming an advisor to the premier himself, until again stepping on too many of the wrong toes. Again, she was shown the exit.
Her timing was good, because the federal Conservatives were having a miserable time winning elections against Trudeau, with both Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole failing to wrest power away from the Liberals. Scheer because he’s an asshole, and O’Toole because he wasn’t angry or hard-right enough for the MAGats. A leadership race ensued, and Byrne was right there to lend a hand for the nail-spitting Poilievre, who, like her, never had a job having anything to do with anything other than politics. The two were absolutely made for one another in temperament, and perhaps in other ways, as they were romantically involved at some point in the past, an image I find difficult to accept, but there it is. It’s also something his actual wife, Anaida, seems okay with, but no surprise there, since Anaida has been a Conservative staffer and political animal in her own right.
Byrne’s scorched-earth approach to politics meshed well with Poilievre, and the two shared all kinds of opinions, including the use of “dirty tricks” to take down political opponents, something fellow leadership contenders Jean Charest and Patrick Brown can attest to. If there’s anyone in that party who comes close to being reasonable and responsible, other than O’Toole, it would be Charest and Brown, but both were targeted and harassed by Poilievre’s team publicly and behind the scenes. The decision to do this, and the tactics employed, are all Jenni Byrne.
She remains with the Slogan Train to this day, again as Poilievre’s key advisor. She would have all sorts of influence over the the campaign strategy of employing Dr. Seuss rhymes to convey simple yet misleading points. I’m sure most of that nonsense is originated by his communications guy, Sebastian Skamski, and what a terrific name that is for a political communications operative.
But I’m not here to Slam the Skam. I’m here to Burn the Byrne.
For the record, Jenni likes the Red Hats. In fact, she owns one. In fact, she posted a picture of herself wearing one on her social media, something she may now regret, but only to a political degree, not to any change in sentiment.
Of these two women, one has power and the other wants it, even if she is to be the power behind the throne. We can’t do much about one, because she’s the premier of a province, and it’s entirely unlikely that Albertans can be counted on to do the right thing politically. As a province, they prefer to place every single egg of theirs in the same basket, to their never-ending detriment.
We can send Byrne packing by sending Poilievre packing, but from my experience, these types end up resurfacing somewhere else and presenting an even bigger problem. But for now, she’s right in front of us, standing by her man. We can deal with her now, but even if the Conservatives are handily defeated federally, watch for her to pop up somewhere else to continue her love of anger politics.
Both are a threat to Canada and Canadian unity. They should be regarded as such.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 