DELEGATES to the UCP AGM - This party is doomed

DELEGATES to the UCP AGM, Nov 27-29, Calgary:

This party is doomed.

Your movement is not.

Whoever is setting the agenda for the AGM it shouldn’t be Danielle Smith, any current MLA or Bruce McAllister.

The UCP won’t exist in a year, and this AGM is a wasted opportunity if you leave it to the current batch of incompetents to run the show. Look what happened at the federal Conservative AGM last time: they re-elected Poilievre and now they’ve lost 2 or 3 years because of it.

Don’t waste this chance; you still have a lot of support.

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But you don’t know whether you’ll come out of this with one Party, or two, or who knows?

You’ve got a lot of leaders, but no one we’re really impressed with.

You’ve got a lot of factions, but many of them are unelectable.

This is the time to get everyone in a room and figure out what you’re going to do. And I mean everyone.

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You should invite your whole rainbow: the Separatists, the Christian Nationalists, the anti-abortionists, the Private Schoolers, 51st Staters, gun lovers, anti-vaxxers, doomers and preppers…all of them. You should let all of them have Voice, and share the spotlight that this AGM will create. Don’t exclude people.

You should invite Thomas Lucaszuk and Peter Guthrie and allow each of them to give a presentation.

You should invite First Nations and Metis people from every Treaty that shares land with this province.

You should invite an environmentalist or two and let them lead a breakout session, maybe something about releasing tailing pond water into rivers. Let’s get used to the idea of governing alongside other stakeholders who have different priorities than us.

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There are some people you shouldn’t invite.

Certainly Cory Morgan has had enough to say, he won’t say anything new, and he’s a spotlight hog.

Same goes for Berta Proud Dad.

Don’t give Danielle a speech.

A panel facilitator role or something like that, but speeches are for the future, and she’s not it.

Do not invite David Parker.

He’s the hill the UCP died on.

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You need new leaders. You need to resolve your factions. You need to set priorities. You need to get off the internet. You need to think long term.

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Here’s some other things you might consider:

At the VERY least, give an update on the Mentzelopoulos affair. Far better would be releasing the information that has been asked for. This is being hidden now, and yes, it’s a bit of a bomb and it will fade into a fart by the time it goes off, and no one will notice or care anymore. I think that’s a wasted opportunity. Coming clean now would build trust, and you guys are in short supply.

I think you should bring the records on UCP ad-spend for influencers that you put off revealing for two years. This would show respect to the electorate, and incidentally be a favor for Berta Proud Dad: it may potentially clear his name.

The UCP is corrupt, no one’s hiding it anymore. But that’s fine, because you have no stake in redeeming it. You are not the UCP anymore: the UCP is Danielle’s weighted corpse, and its only value is that it brought you together for this AGM. This isn’t about putting a spit-shine on the UCP and preparing it for the next election: the UCP is done - it’s not going to exist in a year. You guys would gain massive cred with a quick information dump as you vote Danielle Smith out the door, and then get back on your feet with some sensible people and ideas. None of you want to cart Danielle’s baggage into the next election. And any current MLA that wants to keep their job needs to jump ship NOW.

Danielle is going to lose this referendum, and then she’s going to lose everything.

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You should think about money. I don’t know how party finance works, but you need to realize that there is no support for the conjoined “UCP +Separatism” as a brand; it’s dead. And that means no one outside of America is going to donate to it.

That means by the time this AGM is over you should have a new party (or new parties) and new leaders, or at least make some solid progress toward that, because those are the the parties that are going to be asking for money from now on.

The alternative is wasting the next two years. If you’re thinking the only option now is to vote Danielle back to limp along and see what happens, then you shouldn’t even be a delegate. Alberta’s Right needs a message. Is it MAGA? Are you just going to outsource your entire strategy to Donald Trump and ride that wave? Of course not. Because you are the side that has absolute claim to the top message in the province, if you can just handle it like grown-ups, and the message is this:

“WE are the party that is 100% dedicated to Alberta’s Energy Industry; no if’s and’s or but’s. We will advocate for Alberta’s energy industry at all times and at all levels, and will be proud of it.

“We are happy to share the joys of this industry with Canada. Indeed, we recognize that we NEED Canada to do this. We know we can’t just claim a stretch of BC coastline or drop an LNG terminal on Hudson’s Bay by ourselves. There are too many parties involved. We know that we need a federal government to work with everyone to make these things happen.

“Alberta’s energy industry can and will be good for us, for Canada, for Indigenous people, for all our future generations and honestly, for the whole world, too. We acknowledge that we need Canada (and the First Nations) to do this right, but make no mistake, ALBERTA is going to run it, not Ottawa. ”

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That’s your biggest chunk of votes right there. In Alberta, that’s often enough.

But sometimes you need more. Where do you go scrounging for a few more votes when you need them? You get a few percent with God, a few more with abortion, then you put some more people in jail, cut some taxes, cut some programs. We know, we’ve been there. And every time you hoover up these votes on the Right you lose even more from the center.

So do you want to start grabbing some serious chunks of centrist or even center-left voters? Here are some ideas you might be able to swallow:

Make the oil industry accountable.

Forget about who dropped the ball or kicked the can down the road in the past. We are where we are, and the orphan well problem is a disgrace. The current problem needs to be funded and dealt with, and future problems need to be funded and enforced, and the oil industry needs to pay for it, not the taxpayer. And no, we’re not going to let them empty tailings ponds into rivers or wash selenium downstream; the oil industry needs to pay to clean up its own mess, even if that is hella expensive. Someone should show up in Calgary with some proposals ready on this. This is responsible governing.

Stop picking on gays and teachers.

Maybe we can’t educate our children together, maybe you do have a right to send your kids to schools where queer children and immigrants aren’t allowed. Maybe we have to give way on that somehow and let you see if you can set up another school system and recruit teachers for it and write your own curriculum and all that. And then maybe we can stop the winner-take-all mentality we have now where the Woke and the MAGA take turns demanding how to teach our children within a single department.

Maybe we could mandate new building codes with lots of different bathrooms….

Maybe we could place an Indigenous director on the board of every big energy company.

Maybe we could start with the new pipeline we own 45% of.

Carney is a conservative, the world is in chaos, oil is needed, and we can see that big projects need to happen. This time, let’s put Indigenous people right at the center of all the decisions, listen to them, and give them their due.

You should be talking about things even now amongst yourselves. Then show up in Calgary as colleagues and friends, as listeners, ready to talk and form alliances. You are the Right, and right now you are standing in a lake of shit, but it isn’t all that deep. Don’t waste your time trying to rehabilitate Danielle and the UCP: their brand isn’t just worthless, it has negative value.

First thing you need to do is start off with “Ok, Separatists, over there! Everyone else, over here!” And then you see where it goes.

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Danielle is talking about mandates. She doesn’t have any. The UCP doesn’t have any. She’s going to lose this referendum. The Separatists are going to lose this referendum. Then you’re supposed to show up in Calgary for what? To give her a mandate? Be serious.

What you guys need to do at this AGM is figure out what kind of mandate you’re going to ask Albertans for AFTER the UCP is gone. And you can do it. You have a lot to work with. You have a whole country to work with.

We’re on the same side. Good luck.