Story by Hamdi Issawi • Yesterday
On her Saturday morning Corus Radio program (Your Province. Your Premier.), Alberta Premier Danielle Smith doubled down on what a caller called asked.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal
On her Saturday morning radio show, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith doubled down on her controversial version of Canada’s history with Indigenous people when a disappointed caller asked her to explain and apologize.
Identified only as Bev from Banff, the caller who dialled into the weekly Corus program (Your Province. Your Premier.) described Smith’s account as disrespectful, referring to a recent video in which the premier shared her vision.
“To me it’s such a slap in the face,” the caller said, adding that Smith’s words compare to an October comment in which the premier described unvaccinated people as “the most discriminated against group” she’s seen in her lifetime.
The video, which was recorded in Ottawa, shows Smith characterizing Canada’s origins as a cooperative effort between overseas settlers and Indigenous people “united to tame an unforgiving frontier, ensuring prosperity for countless future generations.”
‘A genocidal policy’
Smith did not apologize for the comments made in the video, and chose instead to describe and affirm Alberta’s “partnership with First Nations” who the province aims to include in its economic activity.
The answer said nothing of Métis or Inuit people.
“This part of the world would not have been opened up if our First Nations partners had not been willing to trade with us, and show us the routes and develop a vibrant industry,” Smith told the caller. “We would not have been able to settle here if they hadn’t been willing to sign Treaties 6, 7 and 8.”
The account Smith related in the video imposes a kind of “contemporary multicultural narrative” on past centuries that doesn’t align with Canada’s policy toward Indigenous people at the time, said Kim TallBear, a professor in the University of Alberta’s faculty of native studies.
“It was a genocidal policy, because genocide is not only about killing people, it’s about eliminating a nation as a nation,” she told Postmedia in an interview, adding that settlers attempted to clear Indigenous inhabitants from the land and tried to replace their permanent structures, ceremonies and religious lives.
“Children were incarcerated in residential schools,” TallBear added. “This was not multiculturalism. This is settlement replacement — the elimination of Indigenous peoples by eliminating the possibilities for them to exercise their life ways that had developed over millennia in these lands.”
Koren Lightning-Earle, legal director of Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge at the university, took issue with the vision of Indigenous societies and lands described in Smith’s video.
“I don’t know if my ancestors would categorize our land as ‘unforgiving frontier,’” she said. “We lived and we thrived and we had societies before people came across the ocean.”
‘An obligation to Albertans’
Moreover, Lightning-Earle had trouble reconciling the purportedly shared goal of settlers and Indigenous people ensuring prosperity for future generations.
“I’m just wondering where the word ‘prosperity’ comes in when we have a clean drinking water class action (lawsuit) going across Canada — where First Nations communities don’t have access to clean drinking water,” she said. “People rely on the statement she’s making, so she has an obligation to Albertans to apologize and correct her facts.”
In answering the caller, Smith said that while the country has fallen short on living up to its treaty commitments, she believes there are efforts underway to provide historical reparations.
“You will hear me talk a lot about our First Nations partners because I don’t want people to forget that history,” Smith said. “I want people to understand that this is an equal relationship, and we’ve got to do our part to make amends for the errors of the past.”
For TallBear, the history Alberta’s premier evokes is “more whitewashing” that barrels over Indigenous perspectives on history, and flies in the face of reconciliation.
”Reconciliation is about non-Indigenous Canadians learning about Indigenous peoples, learning about their history, and changing the way that they think about and treat Indigenous people.”
Lightning-Earle referred to a free Indigenous Canada course offered online by the University of Alberta.
On her Saturday morning radio show, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith doubled down on her controversial version of Canada’s history with Indigenous people when a disappointed caller asked her to explain and apologize.
Identified only as Bev from Banff, the caller who dialled into the weekly Corus program (Your Province. Your Premier.) described Smith’s account as disrespectful, referring to a recent video in which the premier shared her vision.
“To me it’s such a slap in the face,” the caller said, adding that Smith’s words compare to an October comment in which the premier described unvaccinated people as “the most discriminated against group” she’s seen in her lifetime.
The video, which was recorded in Ottawa, shows Smith characterizing Canada’s origins as a cooperative effort between overseas settlers and Indigenous people “united to tame an unforgiving frontier, ensuring prosperity for countless future generations.”
Smith did not apologize for the comments made in the video, and chose instead to describe and affirm Alberta’s “partnership with First Nations” who the province aims to include in its economic activity.
The answer said nothing of Métis or Inuit people.
“This part of the world would not have been opened up if our First Nations partners had not been willing to trade with us, and show us the routes and develop a vibrant industry,” Smith told the caller. “We would not have been able to settle here if they hadn’t been willing to sign Treaties 6, 7 and 8.”
The account Smith related in the video imposes a kind of “contemporary multicultural narrative” on past centuries that doesn’t align with Canada’s policy toward Indigenous people at the time, said Kim TallBear, a professor in the University of Alberta’s faculty of native studies.
“It was a genocidal policy, because genocide is not only about killing people, it’s about eliminating a nation as a nation,” she told Postmedia in an interview, adding that settlers attempted to clear Indigenous inhabitants from the land and tried to replace their permanent structures, ceremonies and religious lives.
“Children were incarcerated in residential schools,” TallBear added. “This was not multiculturalism. This is settlement replacement — the elimination of Indigenous peoples by eliminating the possibilities for them to exercise their life ways that had developed over millennia in these lands.”
Koren Lightning-Earle, legal director of Wahkohtowin Law and Governance Lodge at the university, took issue with the vision of Indigenous societies and lands described in Smith’s video.
“I don’t know if my ancestors would categorize our land as ‘unforgiving frontier,’” she said. “We lived and we thrived and we had societies before people came across the ocean.”
‘An obligation to Albertans’
Moreover, Lightning-Earle had trouble reconciling the purportedly shared goal of settlers and Indigenous people ensuring prosperity for future generations.
“I’m just wondering where the word ‘prosperity’ comes in when we have a clean drinking water class action (lawsuit) going across Canada — where First Nations communities don’t have access to clean drinking water,” she said. “People rely on the statement she’s making, so she has an obligation to Albertans to apologize and correct her facts.”
In answering the caller, Smith said that while the country has fallen short on living up to its treaty commitments, she believes there are efforts underway to provide historical reparations.
“You will hear me talk a lot about our First Nations partners because I don’t want people to forget that history,” Smith said. “I want people to understand that this is an equal relationship, and we’ve got to do our part to make amends for the errors of the past.”
For TallBear, the history Alberta’s premier evokes is “more whitewashing” that barrels over Indigenous perspectives on history, and flies in the face of reconciliation.
”Reconciliation is about non-Indigenous Canadians learning about Indigenous peoples, learning about their history, and changing the way that they think about and treat Indigenous people.”
Lightning-Earle referred to a free Indigenous Canada course offered online by the University of Alberta.
Premier rejects NDP claim oilwell cleanup help is linked with her leadership campaign
Story by The Canadian Press • Saturday
EDMONTON — Alberta's premier is rejecting Opposition claims her planned $100-million pilot project for cleaning up old oil wells was influenced by her United Conservative party leadership campaign, arguing that federal money to get the job done missed many of the province's worst sites.
Speaking on her province-wide radio call-in show Saturday, Danielle Smith noted the worst wells have been inactive for decades and repeated her argument that government shares some of the blame for the fact regulators let companies off without fulfilling their responsibilities.
Smith said many of the companies that left those wells without cleaning them up aren't around anymore.
"Because we're targeting it so closely on the worst wells, we're looking at sites, for instance, that have been inactive for 20 years that were drilled prior to 1990, so these are kind of the worst of the worst sites," Smith told listeners Saturday after being asked about the NDP's claims the program is linked with her leadership fundraising.
"Now we're left with somebody holding the bag that may not have been responsible for the initial liability. We have regulators who allowed for those transfers to occur. We have regulators in the past who didn't require cleanup."
"I think we have to take some of the responsibility as government for the fact that we didn't manage it the way that we should have historically."
NDP Energy critic Kathleen Ganley said Friday it's a "huge concern" that before Smith re-entered politics, she lobbied for an oil well cleanup bailout that she made a government priority when she became premier.
The sources of the $1.3 million Smith raised for her leadership campaign last year have not been revealed, and her office has not responded to requests to address questions about how her campaign fundraising has affected her governing priorities.
The Liability Management Incentive Program proposes to give $100 million in royalty breaks to companies that fulfil their legal obligations to restore old oil and gas wells. A royalty is the price Alberta charges a company to develop a resource.
Analysts with Scotiabank said in a report that the proposal "goes against the core capitalist principle that private companies should take full responsibility for the liabilities they willingly accept."
An Independent legislature member and former member of the UCP caucus, Drew Barnes, has called the plan "corporate welfare."
Smith on Saturday praised the federal government's Site Rehabilitation Program which provided $1 billion for well-site recovery, but she noted the program is about to end and that it missed the worst sites.
She said flare pits -- which she described as pools of water where waste materials were just thrown in -- are the biggest problem and have sat in some cases for 40 to 60 years. She said they're not being cleaned up because "it's a huge environmental liability expense companies are worried that they're not going to be able to get the signoff on it."
Landowners, she said, are left with the unremediated sites.
"The reason I advocated for this program when I first heard about it was because I feel so passionately about landowner rights. I feel so passionately that this has been a long-term problem. No one's ever found a way to address it," Smith told listeners.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2023.
The Canadian Press
Story by The Canadian Press • Saturday
EDMONTON — Alberta's premier is rejecting Opposition claims her planned $100-million pilot project for cleaning up old oil wells was influenced by her United Conservative party leadership campaign, arguing that federal money to get the job done missed many of the province's worst sites.
Speaking on her province-wide radio call-in show Saturday, Danielle Smith noted the worst wells have been inactive for decades and repeated her argument that government shares some of the blame for the fact regulators let companies off without fulfilling their responsibilities.
Smith said many of the companies that left those wells without cleaning them up aren't around anymore.
"Because we're targeting it so closely on the worst wells, we're looking at sites, for instance, that have been inactive for 20 years that were drilled prior to 1990, so these are kind of the worst of the worst sites," Smith told listeners Saturday after being asked about the NDP's claims the program is linked with her leadership fundraising.
"Now we're left with somebody holding the bag that may not have been responsible for the initial liability. We have regulators who allowed for those transfers to occur. We have regulators in the past who didn't require cleanup."
"I think we have to take some of the responsibility as government for the fact that we didn't manage it the way that we should have historically."
NDP Energy critic Kathleen Ganley said Friday it's a "huge concern" that before Smith re-entered politics, she lobbied for an oil well cleanup bailout that she made a government priority when she became premier.
The sources of the $1.3 million Smith raised for her leadership campaign last year have not been revealed, and her office has not responded to requests to address questions about how her campaign fundraising has affected her governing priorities.
The Liability Management Incentive Program proposes to give $100 million in royalty breaks to companies that fulfil their legal obligations to restore old oil and gas wells. A royalty is the price Alberta charges a company to develop a resource.
Analysts with Scotiabank said in a report that the proposal "goes against the core capitalist principle that private companies should take full responsibility for the liabilities they willingly accept."
An Independent legislature member and former member of the UCP caucus, Drew Barnes, has called the plan "corporate welfare."
Smith on Saturday praised the federal government's Site Rehabilitation Program which provided $1 billion for well-site recovery, but she noted the program is about to end and that it missed the worst sites.
She said flare pits -- which she described as pools of water where waste materials were just thrown in -- are the biggest problem and have sat in some cases for 40 to 60 years. She said they're not being cleaned up because "it's a huge environmental liability expense companies are worried that they're not going to be able to get the signoff on it."
Landowners, she said, are left with the unremediated sites.
"The reason I advocated for this program when I first heard about it was because I feel so passionately about landowner rights. I feel so passionately that this has been a long-term problem. No one's ever found a way to address it," Smith told listeners.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2023.
The Canadian Press
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