Municipal Round-Up — September 20: On Election Day, We Are All Connected
All the news that's fit to tweet (along with an opinion rant to open the proceedings)
Today, Canadians will cast ballots in our forty-fourth federal election. This election will not purge our partisan pressures, though. The municipal votes are next in Alberta, in mid October, and along with them will come ballots for a referendum question that’s largely aimed at antagonizing a federal system of equalization among provinces. This antagonism will take place while Ontario helps bail Alberta out of its latest COVID-19 nightmare.
Oh Alberta.
But even then, after the voting, will the pressure dissipate? Will these hyper-partisan times that have turned friends into foes and invited bad-faith actors into what we might call mainstream politics — as leaders of “freedom” rallies or as lazy and deadly disinformation memes on Facebook — really be over in Alberta? Not likely.
After all, if one takes these elections and mixes in the intrigue and animus between the geographically separated people contesting them, you can see how they all start to link up — and that these connections all feel flammable. Premier Jason Kenney’s recent adoption of a vaccine passpo … sorry, restriction exemption document … in Alberta was far too late for some and far too much for others. The open suggestion from political insiders is that Kenney’s own caucus is at war, mostly with him, and that snap elections have been threatened. But given it’s all connected, Kenney’s actions haven’t just hurt him. Many suggest they’ve also hurt Conservative Party of Canada Leader Erin O’Toole’s chances today. They’ve certainly made him have to dodge questions.
Others, gauging the anger many feel at the state of our hospitals, say Albertans are about to vote in federal and even municipal elections that they don’t much want but not in the provincial one they do very much want. That sentiment has got to have an effect on all the votes on the table, doesn’t it? And you’d better believe the United Conservative Party will be watching today’s federal vote, as well as the October 18th municipal votes and the referendum results, as barometres for what they may or may not do, for who may or may not jump, or for who may or may not become the Brutus to Caesar.
There may be a revolt before October 18th, of course, or there may not. While we wait on our first election day, let’s get to the tweets.