CBC’s At Issue just spent a full segment lecturing Alberta — nationalists and separatists — with a panel of zero Albertans. Chantal Hébert (Montreal), Andrew Coyne (Toronto), Althia Raj (Ottawa), and a BC guest, Rob Shaw from Nanaimo. And as Don Martin put it on Monday: “Toronto Globe, Ottawa-based TorStar and Montreal voices with a guest B.C. radio guest and not even a token Albertan.” Coyne called the separatist faction inside the UCP a “cancer on the party” and framed Smith’s comments as the start of a “purge.” Hébert helpfully informed everyone: “I can’t speak for Alberta, but they are a long way from getting anywhere close to where Quebec is on this.” Notice the “they.” Always “they.” Quebec gets two sovereignty referendums, a federal party dedicated to breaking up the country, and decades of careful, respectful coverage about “distinct society” and legitimate grievances. Alberta gets Eastern commentators explaining that 75% voting to remain just proves the whole exercise was pointless theatre, that the rest of their anger is mostly irrational or party-management, and that the proper response is for the Premier to clean house so Ottawa can move on Raj called it a “huge win for the prime minister” and “vindication” of the strategy. Shaw helpfully noted that Western alienation is “the fuel behind the separation fire” while suggesting Alberta might get something like Quebec’s 1991 immigration accord — as if the double standard isn’t the entire point This is the same tone-deaf Laurentian routine: acknowledge the grievances, then reframe them as failure to understand cooperative federalism, a Premier saving her job, or an issue a referendum can’t settle. Then thank Albertans for the resource wealth and tax dollars that fund the $1.5 billion CBC operation doing the lecturing If this panel had spent 10 minutes talking about Quebec the way they just talked about Alberta, Chantal would have been stutteringly apoplectic. Instead we got four outsiders explaining Alberta to itself with dripping condescension and not a single Albertan in the room Yet another absolute CBC shitshow... on your dime! @brodiefenlon @carter_c @DonMartinCTV

Bob Fife on Danielle Smith telling separatists in the UCP to find another home: "Why didn't she say that at the beginning? This is somebody who has fed them, nurtured them and accommodated them, and now they're coming for her."

Yup, and given the rest of the world is going to continue developing fossil fuels it means for "Marx" Carney to even come close to his goal of 80% remaining in the ground, Alberta will be regulated into extinction. That is what Danielle Smith partnered with.

These morons have never ever understood the anger by Albertans towards Liberal governance dating all the way back to Pierre Trudeau through to his demented psychotic son.

Correction: 53 per cent of those who voted said yes to a series of questions carefully drafted to elicit a yes, after a months-long government-funded hysteria campaign.

My latest: Alberta’s separatists lost badly. Danielle Smith might have lost even worse theglobeandmail.com/gift/a52…