It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A Native American tribe banned South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem from visiting the Pine Ridge Reservation after she said cartels have a presence on tribal reservations and she expressed support for Texas in its fight against illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border.
"We are older than South Dakota! Due to the safety of the Oyate, effective immediately, you are hereby Banished from the homelands of the Oglala Sioux Tribe!" Star Comes Out wrote, using the Dakota word "Oyate," meaning people or nation.
Star Comes Out also accused Noem of trying to use the border crisis in her effort to be selected as former President Donald Trump's running mate in the 2024 election.
She also said crime is a major issue on Native American reservations, but only the federal government, not the state, has the jurisdiction to intervene to address the issue.
"Make no mistake, the cartels have a presence on several of South Dakota’s tribal reservations," Noem said. "Murders are being committed by cartel members on the Pine Ridge reservation and in Rapid City, and a gang called the 'Ghost Dancers' are affiliated with these cartels. They have been successful in recruiting tribal members to join their criminal activity."
Star Comes Out specifically took issue with Noem's comments regarding the "Ghost Dancers," saying that he is "deeply offended" by her allegations about what is one of the tribe's "most sacred ceremonies."
"It is unfortunate that President Star Comes Out chose to bring politics into a discussion regarding the effects of our federal government’s failure to enforce federal laws at the southern border and on tribal lands," she said. "In my speech to the legislature earlier this week, I told the truth of the devastation that drugs and human trafficking have on our state and our people. The Mexican cartels are not only impacting our tribal reservations; they are impacting every community, from our big cities to our small towns."
Rare US bison roundup rustles up hundreds to maintain health of the species
South Dakota cowboys and cowgirls rounded up a herd of more than 1,500 bison Friday as part of an annual effort to maintain the health of the species, which has rebounded from near-extinction.
Visitors from across the world cheered from behind wire fencing as whooping horseback riders chased the thundering, wooly giants across hills and grasslands in Custer State Park. Bison and their calves stopped occasionally to graze on blond grass and roll on the ground, their sharp hooves stirring up dust clouds.
“How many times can you get this close to a buffalo herd?” said South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Secretary Kevin Robling, who was among 50 riders herding the animals. “You hear the grunts and the moans and (see) the calves coming and running alongside mamas.”
Each year Custer State Park holds one of the nation’s few bison roundups to check the health of the bison and vaccinate calves, park Superintendent Matt Snyder said.
As many as 60 million bison, sometimes called buffalo in the U.S., once roamed North America, moving in vast herds that were central to the culture and survival of numerous Native American groups.
Related video: Buffalo roundup draws crowd to South Dakota's Custer State Park (The Associated Press) Duration 1:40 View on Watch
They were driven to the brink of extinction more than a century ago when hunters, U.S. troops and tourists shot them by the thousands to feed a growing commercial market that used bison parts in machinery, fertilizer and clothing. Because bison were essential to Native Americans, the U.S. government also encouraged hunters to kill the animals as a way to force tribes to leave their homelands and move to reservations. By 1889, only a few hundred remained.
“Now, after more than a century of conservation efforts, there are more than 500,000 bison in the United States,” said South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a horseback rider who took part in the roundup. “The Custer State Park bison herd has contributed greatly to those efforts.”
The park’s herd began with 36 animals bought in 1914. A state ecologist estimated the park can currently sustain about 1,000 bison based on how snow and rain conditions affected the grasslands this past year, according to Snyder.
The other 500 or so will be auctioned off, and over the next week, officials will decide which bison will remain and which will go. About 400 calves are born in the park each year.
“Each year we sell some of these bison to intersperse their genetics with those of other herds to improve the health of the species’ population across the nation,” Noem said.
___
This story was first published on Sept. 29, 2023. It was updated on Oct. 4, 2023, to correct that The Associated Press, quoting a state official, erroneously reported the event is the nation’s only roundup of bison. Other organizations also hold bison roundups.
Summer Ballentine, The Associated Press
Monday, September 04, 2023
THE RIGHT'S WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS S.D. transgender bans follow national legal groups' playbook South Dakota has been a testing ground for anti-transgender legislation pushed by conservative groups since Gov.Kristi Noem signed a law banning transgender women and girls from competing in women's sports in 2021.
Sept. 1 (UPI) -- Growing efforts to enact laws restricting transgender rights across the United States have largely been orchestrated by national conservative organizations determined to dismantle "gender ideology."
Few of the proposals originate within the states' borders as a result of concerns from constituents. Instead, many come from a playbook that includes advice on how to write the laws so they will hold up in court.
Representatives from the American Principles Project and the Alliance Defending Freedom -- two organizations pushing anti-transgender legislation in states including South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas, Montana, Florida and Tennessee -- told UPI in interviews about the overarching goal of their concerted effort: to block transgender people from protections under civil rights law.
APP policy director Jon Schweppe opposes "gender ideology," which he describes as "the belief that sex and gender are different. That gender is not immutable, it is something that you can determine for yourself."
"Ultimately, we believe this gender identity stuff is delusional," he said.
In contrast, a study from the University of Melbourne found gender-affirming therapy to be potentially lifesaving. Endocrinologist Brendan Nolan said people who begin hormone therapy earlier experienced significant reductions in gender dysphoria, depression and suicidal ideation.
The number of patients in the study that experienced suicidal ideation prior to the therapy was cut in half within the first three months after starting.
Outside influences
Among the first laws to target transgender youth in multiple states was a ban on transgender girls from women's sports.
South Dakota, where the GOP holds 94 of 105 legislative seats, has been a testing ground for such restrictions, said state Rep. Kadyn Wittman, D-Sioux Falls, becoming one of the first states to enact the women's sports laws in 2022.
Though Wittman was aware of the uphill battle she and her 10 Democratic colleagues faced in resisting a persistent wave of bills focused on banning items like gender-affirming healthcare, she was surprised to learn how much her Republican colleagues were coordinating with forces outside the state.
In March, more than 2,600 emails between state Rep. Fred Deutsch, R-Florence, other Republican lawmakers across the country and a slew of anti-transgender activists and organizations were leaked to Mother Jones.
"I was surprised by the breadth of the impact Rep. Deutsch had been having," Wittman told UPI. "The conversations he was having with individuals who could not be less connected to South Dakota. It read like a decades-long playbook on how to strip trans community members of their rights."
Wittman said these types of conversations between lawmakers and out-of-state organizations are "absolutely not" common.
The whistleblower in the email chain, former anti-transgender activist Elisa Rae Shupe, exposed the coordinated effort to enact copycat laws throughout the United States.
"When all of that came out, more people realized this is not coming from South Dakota," Rachel Polan, newly elected president of Sioux Falls Pride, told UPI.
"People in South Dakota really value individual liberty. That is fair to say no matter where they are on the political spectrum. Were it left up to a simple majority, I don't think South Dakota would be voting to ban trans people from sports or to make trans people use the bathroom of their assigned gender at birth."
Matt Sharp, director of legislative advocacy for the ADF, is one of the reported 18 people that Deutsch was coordinating with in 2019, mostly on efforts to keep transgender athletes out of women's sports.
His group was one of the first legal organizations to be involved in litigation on this issue, specifically in Soule vs. Connecticut Association of Schools in which four female high school track athletes challenged the state's policy to allow transgender girls to compete in girls' sports. The case was dismissed in 2021 and the court of appeals upheld that judgment.
"Since then, we have been receiving inquiries from legislatures that have wanted to see what we could do to protect fairness in their states," Sharp said.
The ADF uses its litigation expertise to advise state and federal lawmakers on bills, evaluate their viability and ensure the laws would hold up in court.
APP was also active on the transgender sports issue in South Dakota. The group found that it was important for Republicans to carefully frame their stance as "for women" rather than "against transgender athletes," Schweppe said.
South Dakota first attempted to pass a bill in 2021, but it was vetoed by Gov. Kristi Noem. She advised the legislature to rework the language to avoid conflict between the state's public universities and the NCAA. The following year, a reworked version of the bill was signed into law.
"I would point to South Dakota as a state we have had wild success in," Schweppe said.
Gender-affirming care
Sharp said the ADF has worked closely with many of the 22 states that have gender-affirming healthcare bans in effect.
"Alliance Defending Freedom is committed to protecting children from harmful and unnecessary medical procedures being pushed by politicized medical associations and interest groups," he said. "We look forward to even more states joining the effort to protect vulnerable children in their states."
ADF and similar organizations often cite Dutch research to support their claims that gender-affirming healthcare is harmful, particularly to children. Sharp cited a study from the Endocrine Society, which states that gender dysphoria resolves for 85% of youth who go through puberty without gender-affirming care.
This study was also cited in an expert opinion by James Cantor in the case of Boe vs. Marshall in Alabama. In that case, the court ruled against the state's law that would have imposed criminal penalties on parents and healthcare providers who facilitated gender-affirming care for minors.
Researchers from Emory University, led by Dr. Vin Tangpricha, dispute the assertion that gender dysphoria resolves at such a high rate naturally. The research team tracked 82 transgender and gender-non-conforming teens over the course of several years.
"The vast majority of transgender and gender diverse people seeking gender-affirming hormone therapy continue on these therapies. This indicates that these gender identities are persistent and sustained," Tangpricha said.
According to the Trevor Project, LGBTQ+ youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide and are at much greater risk to have suicidal ideation. About 20% of transgender and nonbinary youth attempted suicide, according to the organization's 2022 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health.
Sharp said his group is working with people who have "detransitioned."
"They sadly went through these procedures and now regret it."
Shupe once worked to oppose gender-affirming care alongside organizations like ADF. She has since renounced such organizations for using her as a "pawn."
"That fact should serve as a cautionary tale for others who may choose to get involved with these groups at their own peril," Shupe wrote in a 2022 blog. "By doing so, you will simply become a useful idiot: a pawn in their injurious war against the transgender population."
Shupe, a U.S. Army veteran, became the first legally recognized non-binary person in the United States in 2016.
House Bill 1080, called the "Help Not Harm" law, went into effect in South Dakota on July 1. It bars healthcare providers from administering surgery, prescribing drugs that delay or stop puberty and prescribing hormones at amounts "greater than would be normally produced" to anyone under age 18. 'NRA for families'
The APP has been billed as the "NRA for families," Schweppe said, as the organization runs ad campaigns and works on bills that "defend the family."
"We run ads to show Republican politicians that these are winning issues," Schweppe said. "We also worked with lawmakers to push bills across the finish line."
What would be described as winning issues changed in the eyes of Republicans for a time, Schweppe said. After a failed "bathroom bill" in North Carolina in 2016, he saw Republicans turn away from such legislation.
"We frankly lost that issue. What we did was we wanted to counter gender ideology. That was the long-term goal of ours," he said.
Women's sports bills became the next target. Then, bans on gender-affirming healthcare.
APP had also worked against same-sex marriage. Schweppe said he still "institutionally opposes" it, but the issue has fallen to the wayside because the organization is focused on "where we can actually win," like bans on gender-affirming care for kids.
Its next battle is to prevent the Equality Act from becoming federal law. The act would codify gender identity into civil rights law, protecting transgender and non-binary people from discrimination.
The bill has passed the U.S. House but has died in committee in the Senate in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021.
Thursday, June 01, 2023
GOP Gov. Kristi Noem Demands Drag Show Ban While Touting 'Free Speech'
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem called for a ban on drag performances at public universities in a memo that also touted efforts to protect "free speech" on college campuses.
Noem released a memo on Friday detailing new plans to improve higher education in South Dakota, which currently has a 6-year graduation rate below the national average. In the memo, Noem calls for a flurry of new policies aimed at making the state a model for "strong, conservative" higher education. Noem's plan, however, is also facing scrutiny for allegedly calling for restrictions on LGBTQ+ students' rights, including the removal of any mentions of "preferred pronouns" in school materials and a ban on drag shows.
Noem's higher education plans come amid an ongoing debate about how issues of sexual orientation and gender identity should be approached in a broad range of institutions, including colleges, which have long sought to strike a balance between safeguards for LGBTQ+ students and the free speech of those who oppose the expansion of rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
Republican-led states have emphasized efforts to protect those "free speech" rights while also rolling back protections for the LGBTQ+ community in schools, saying that educational institutions should not be engaged in "divisive" topics. Critics, meanwhile, have accused GOP lawmakers of targeting an already-marginalized group, calling for stronger protections against discrimination against LGBTQ+ students.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem speaks in Washington, D.C. on February 17. Noem released a new plan to improve higher education in her state on Friday that calls for a ban on drag performances on college campuses, despite also urging new protections for free speech.
ANNA MONEYMAKER/GETTY IMAGES
Noem, a social conservative who has been named as a potential future presidential candidate, expressed opposition to drag shows in her education plan while also calling on the removal of "any policies" that "prohibit" students from expressing their free speech rights.
"The Board of Regents should go further and remove any policies or procedures that prohibit students from exercising their right to free speech. Recently, Black Hills State University came under fire for one such policy that limited student speech – thankfully, the policy was removed. We must prepare our students to discuss and debate opposing ideas in a civil way," the memo reads.
In the next paragraph of the memo, however, Noem called for a ban on drag performances, saying that "divisive theories" surrounding sexual orientation and gender identity should not be "celebrated" using public funds.
"Next, the Board of Regents should prohibit drag shows from taking place on university campuses. Gender theories can and should be debated in college classrooms, but these divisive theories shouldn't be celebrated through public performances on taxpayer-owned property at taxpayer-funded schools," Noem wrote.
Newsweek reached out to Noem's office for comment via email.
While Republicans have pushed for protecting the free speech of conservatives who do not support LGBTQ+ rights, critics have accused them of disregarding the freedom of speech of drag performers through their support for banning these performances in public.
Writer, Producer Updated May 13, 2023 6:12 p.m. MDT
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley says she completely disagrees with federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s stance on oil and gas industry subsidies, because she thinks the economy driving sector needs investment to stay competitive internationally and find innovative ways to reduce emissions.
Notley told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in an interview airing Sunday, she thinks the oil and gas sector needs to be “at the table” in conversations about how to reduce carbon emissions.
She added that while the oil and gas industry saw record profits last year, she still believes it needs investment, especially if Canada is going to compete with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which offers billions of dollars in energy incentives south of the border.
Meanwhile Singh, Notley’s federal counterpart, has long been calling on the Liberal government to “stop giving billions of dollars of public money to oil and gas companies.”
The oil and gas sector made record profits last year — reaching more than $34 billion — and Singh has said he wants to see the Liberals cancel all subsidies to the industry, including the Carbon Capture Tax Credit.
Notley, however, said she “disagree(s) with him completely on this issue.”
She said while oil and gas profits “are spectacular right now,” the sector also “suffered significant losses during (the pandemic),” and there’s a pressing need to stay competitive with the Inflation Reduction Act.
“So there are a lot of different factors that play at it,” she said. “But I do disagree with this idea that there should be no partnerships with oil and gas when we are in a position of it playing still such an important role in our economy.”
She added she disagrees with “this idea that we can just simply walk away from something that contributes such a large amount to our economy, not just in Alberta, but across Canada, on a point of principle.”
With little more than two weeks until Albertans head to the polls, both Notley and UCP Leader Danielle Smith have also pushed back against the federal government’s emissions reduction targets.
Last March, the federal government proposed targets to reduce overall emissions to 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, with the oil and gas sector having the goal of cutting emissions by 42 per cent in the next seven years.
Notley has called the targets “unrealistic.”
She said while an emissions cap is “part of the tools necessary” to achieving the goals of reducing emissions, ensuring products are sustainable, and expanding access to international markets, she doesn’t believe the federal government’s target is reasonable.
“But to do that, it has to be practical and it has to be achievable,” Notley said. “Aspirational goals can sometimes serve to be less effective than no goals, although I'm not in favor of either of those things.”
“What I want to see is practical goals, and then a very practical plan,” she also said, adding she wants to see an emissions reduction, not a production reduction.
“The emissions output must be cut, but we don't want to see actual production cuts as an effort to achieve emissions reduction,” she said. “So let's be very clear: we're not going to be endorsing production cuts. We think that we can reach emissions reductions through other means.”
Rachel Notley is Alberta’s real progressive conservative By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | May 4th 2023 Rachel Notley's embrace of Alberta's oil and gas industry is all part of her value proposition to former Progressive Conservative voters.
Photo via Rachel Notley / Twitter
Peter Lougheed was Alberta’s 10th premier, the creator of its Heritage Savings Trust Fund, and the architect of a four-decade political dynasty that would see his Alberta Progressive Conservatives win 12 consecutive elections, most of them in a walk. He went to war with Pierre Trudeau, helped defeat the National Energy Program, and fought effectively for Alberta’s place in Confederation. And if he was alive today, he’d probably be voting for Rachel Notley’s NDP.
Just ask Danielle Smith — yes, that Danielle Smith — who wrote back in 2019 that “Notley is, without question, the inheritor of the Lougheed tradition. That’s not to say he was a full-on socialist, but Notley isn’t either. I think most Albertans have been shocked to see how pragmatic she has governed, particularly as it concerns natural resources.”
Smith would probably like to take back that endorsement, but Notley’s NDP continues to attract the support of prominent former members of Lougheed’s government, from MLAs like Allan Warrack and Ron Ghitter to Lougheed’s chief of staff (and later federal MP) Lee Richardson.
Notley’s appeal to former Progressive Conservatives is a product of her party’s deliberate shift to the political centre, along with her Lougheed-esque stewardship of Alberta’s resources. The federal purchase and construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, which will be completed sometime this year and in service by the first quarter of 2024, speaks to the success of those efforts.
But Notley’s appeal among more progressive conservatives is also a reflection of just how toxic Smith’s brand of conservatism is to many otherwise conservative Albertans. Her recent admission that she looks to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as role models for Alberta says everything about her politics, and how prominently the COVID-19 pandemic still figures in them.
Before he was known for banning books and getting sued by Disney, DeSantis made his name in Republican circles by making Florida the most COVID-friendly state in the union. Noem made her own bid for that title back in 2021, when she proclaimed: “If @joebiden illegally mandates vaccines, I will take every action available under the law to protect South Dakotans from the federal government.”
If Smith had been in power during the pandemic, it’s easy to imagine her saying something similar. This sort of live-and-let-die attitude is at odds with the more compassionate (and informed) brand of conservatism that Lougheed is remembered for.
But as Jared Wesley and Ken Boessenkool argued in a piece for The Line, Smith is really a conservative in name only. “Smith is not a temperamental conservative. Indeed, she is rarely an ideological conservative. Instead, her politics amount to libertarian-laced populism, directly opposed to the sort of principled, incrementalist politics Albertans have appreciated from conservative governments in the past.”
Smith is certainly no fiscal conservative, although that’s a much rarer breed than most Albertans have been led to believe. After passing the biggest spending budget in Alberta history, Smith opened the campaign by offering up a 20 per cent tax cut on incomes up to $60,000 that would cost the Treasury as much as $760 per adult. In order to pay for it, Smith plans to rely on a continuation of the recent gusher in oil and gas royalties — one that may already be in the process of evaporating, as oil prices crashed below $70 a barrel this week.
And when it comes to law and order, Smith has a track record of siding with the people trying to upend it. There’s her fawning phone call with far-right preacher (and Coutts blockade supporter) Artur Pawlowski, who was found guilty of mischief and breaching his bail conditions on Tuesday. And as Press Progress reported that same day, her support for the blockade apparently ran even deeper than that. In a February 2022 livestream with the Western Standard, Smith says, “We want to see it win in Coutts.”
The Coutts blockade, remember, included a group of heavily armed men making threats against law enforcement that included conspiracy to commit murder. But even before those charges were laid, it was clear the blockaders were interfering with the movement of goods and people across the border. That doesn’t seem to have bothered Smith, though. “This whole phrase of ‘peace, order and good government’, I think it’s become a shorthand to the federal government can do whatever the heck it wants and we just have to be peaceful and orderly about it,” Smith said.
Smith, then, is not any kind of conservative that Peter Lougheed would identify with. If anything, she and the “Take Back Alberta” group that helped elect her as party leader have more in common with the Alberta Social Credit party that Lougheed defeated in 1971. The real question for conservatives in this election is whether they still identify with Peter Lougheed or not. If enough of them do, Notley will make history as the first former premier to get returned to power — and join Lougheed as one of the most important political leaders in Alberta history.
This column is featured in my new newsletter, which you can get delivered to your inbox once a week. If you want to stay up to date on my signature, no-nonsense opinion writing, subscribe here
Who's the true conservative in Alberta's provincial election? The answer is more complicated than you might think — and it holds the key to victory for Rachel Notley. @maxfawcett writes for @NatObserver
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley lays out her jobs plan at a campaign event. Don't expect to see federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh campaign in Alberta with her, a reality that perfectly suits Notley's team. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)
There was a time, a rather long time, when the Alberta NDP was little more than the labour unions' partisan mouthpiece, and the largely inconsequential cousins of the federal New Democrats.
With a more diverse — read: less union-centric — candidate roster and political positions that shuck much of what Jagmeet Singh's party stands for, the provincial NDP has arguably never been as independent from influence of its longstanding organizational partners as it is now.
And yet never before has the Alberta NDP faced such a torrent of rival accusations it's in thrall with organized labour, and had its relationship with the federal branch depicted as not cousin-cousin, but parent-child or master-slave.
Danielle Smith declares Singh is Rachel Notley's "boss" nearly every chance she gets: "I question whether she works for Albertans or whether she works for her federal leader," the UCP leader said at one campaign event.
Marks against them
The jabs are rooted in some long-standing truths and technicalities. The Alberta NDP constitution does declare the party a branch of the Canadian party, and membership in one equals membership in the other.
And unions and the Alberta Federation of Labour have roles specified in the party's structure. Plus, there's the inescapable reality that Notley's husband Lou Arab worked with the Alberta division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees throughout her premiership, and continues to.
But these have been structural realities of the provincial NDP for decades. Ties with unions and the federal party have always come with benefits on the organizational and support side, along with headaches when big labour or Ottawa drags down the provincial party's reputation.
What's new in 2023 is the UCP leader's public focus on it. Jason Kenney and other past Alberta conservatives loved to pin this or that left-of-Alberta federal remark on Notley's party — but the "boss" stuff is new.
Theoretically, yes, the constitutional structure of the Alberta NDP and other provincial counterparts holds that the federal branch is supreme. But there is no modern history of Singh or past leaders wielding the club to enforce obedience on a disagreeable faction of this pan-Canadian orange network.
Orange rebellion
More than four decades ago, Saskatchewan NDP premier Allan Blakeney clashed with then-federal leader Ed Broadbent. Ottawa abided by restiveness in the colonies.
The more recent examples of a Provincial Orange freely standing up to Big Orange belong to Notley. After fighting for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, she openly slammed Singh's opposition to the project, saying that he was thumbing his nose at the working people who relied on the energy economy.
Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh at a 2021 federal election event in Edmonton. The party has two seats in Alberta's capital, but rivals the Trudeau Liberals for popularity in the rest of the province (and that's no sign of strength). (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)
"To forget that and to throw them under the bus as collateral damage in pursuit of some other high level policy objective is a recipe for failure and it's also very elitist," she told the Edmonton Journal in 2018.
Notley swiped at Singh again Sunday on CTV's Question Period. She said she completely disagrees with the federal leader on ending support for oil and gas companies, and "this idea that we can just simply walk away from something that contributes such a large amount to our economy, not just in Alberta, but across Canada, on a point of principle."
There aren't too many disses outside of the energy file. Dismissiveness, more so.
Earlier this month, Notley said she last spoke with Singh six to 12 months ago — a long time to go without talking to one's supposed boss — and cannot remember what they spoke about. "Whether I am talking to the leader of the federal NDP, whether I am advocating in Ottawa, whether I am talking to New Democrats in B.C., Albertans know that I have always been quite ready to do whatever is necessary to stand up for the best interests of Albertans," she told reporters.
During elections, there's a perennial air drop of activists from the federal and other provincial NDP wings to lend campaign support — including Nathan Rotman, flown in from Ontario to be Notley's campaign manager. (Similarly, federal Conservative veteran Steve Outhouse temporarily moved from Ottawa to run Smith's campaign.)
Sure, there's plenty of points of commonality, the shared crusades in Alberta and Ottawa for a higher minimum wage and lower child-care fees. But look up and down Singh's support agreement with the Liberals and Justin Trudeau, and there's not a ton that checks both sides' boxes.
The provincial NDP isn't gung-ho on many of the federal party's priorities in its agreement with Trudeau, like pharma-care and dental care or an end to fossil-fuel subsidies. And when the two party factions speak of just transition alongside climate action, they seem to make different points.
In fact, the biggest bit of federal platform borrowing by Notley wasn't from Singh. Her promise to give families a tax credit for children's sports or arts activities was a page ripped from those reliable buddies, the Stephen Harper Conservatives.
Protesters disrupted a United Conservative Party media availability held on Thursday. Conservatives eagerly identified one participant as a past federal NDP candidate. (CBC News)
But it's little surprise that Smith's team spotted a former federal NDP candidate in the disruptive protest at a UCP event and branded him a Notleyite. Despite intra-party differences, federal candidates still run provincially and vice versa, including candidates in this race in Maskwacis, Chestermere and Calgary–North East.
It used to be more routine for the Alberta NDP's candidate roster to be filled with local union stewards or labour leaders, especially to fill slates in low-hope ridings. Many surprise 2015 election winners came from those ranks.
But with the party's hopes ascendent in 2023, they've gotten more candidate recruits from outside their labour base. Even if Gil McGowan's AFL and major unions remain active players within the party, the diversified influences mean those are less likely to be the only voices Notley and her brain trust hear.
Again, Smith has raised concerns over long-standing relationships, including Notley's husband and the AFL's former role within her rival's party. "We should be very, very concerned about the influence on the NDP, not only of the unions that are embedded in their decision making process and their delegate status and choose their leader," Smith said recently, when deflecting a question about the unclear degrees of influence the group Take Back Alberta has on her party.
The Alberta NDP had to wean itself off of its heavy reliance on union donations eight years ago when Notley banned union and corporate contributions to parties. But both types of entities retained their power to spend heavily on elections with the third-party advertiser system.
Labour pains
Controversial reforms that Kenney passed have restrained the way union groups can participate in elections, but the UCP has lately raised alarms about the extent to which big labour is assisting Notley. Smith's party wants Elections Alberta to use those Kenney reforms as a cudgel against the AFL and unions, alleging they're breaking the new rules.
McGowan and others insist they're following the law, even if he brands what United Conservatives want to do with it as unconstitutional. "They're indignant that we found a way to legally exercise our free speech rights, despite their best efforts to shut us up and shut us down," the AFL leader said in a statement this week.
There are no doubt moments when some in Notley's inner circle wish their union affiliates and federal cousins would pipe down, and not occasionally force Alberta NDP to have to distance themselves from erstwhile allies.
But as long as Notley's party resists any formal dissolving of the ties that bind them to organized labour and every other politician in Canada attached to the NDP, it will have to take the good and bad of this solidarity forever.
Corrections
An earlier version of this analysis incorrectly stated that Lou Arab, the husband of Rachel Notley, has an executive role with a union group.
Jason Markusoff analyzes what's happening — and what isn't happening, but probably should be — in Calgary and sometimes farther afield. He's written in Alberta for nearly two decades with Maclean's magazine, the Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal. He appears regularly on Power and Politics' Power Panel and various other CBC current affairs shows. Reach him at jason.markusoff@cbc.ca
Trudeau’s oil and gas policies too harsh for
Rachel Notley
Centre-left contender looking to reclaim power as premier of Alberta in upcoming election
Bloomberg News Brian Platt and Robert Tuttle
Last updated May 11, 2012
Rachel Notley is running to be premier of Alberta again. The province goes to the polls on May 29. PHOTO BY BEN NELMS/BLOOMBERG Article content
The woman who’s looking to reclaim power in Canada’s energy heartland is pushing back against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s targets for cleaning up the oil and gas industry.
Rachel Notley, who was the centre-left premier of Alberta from 2015 to 2019 and is running for the job again, said Trudeau’s plan for cutting the sector’s emissions by more than 40 per cent by the end of the decade is too onerous. Her stance mirrors that of the country’s largest crude producers — and it’s also one that may be a political necessity as her New Democratic Party battles for votes in a province where oil is king and the prime minister is deeply unpopular.
“I don’t believe that the current drafted emissions caps that we’ve seen are realistic,” Notley said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “If we don’t get down to work and come up with a more practical cap, we are not going to be successful in mapping out a process that will get us there.
Trudeau’s government has promised to limit emissions in the energy sector to ensure Canada meets its climate targets, but hasn’t yet chosen a mechanism for doing so. His government published a plan last year that modelled a 42 per cent cut in oil and gas sector emissions by 2030, which oil executives have said isn’t possible without slashing output. More draft regulations are expected to be released within weeks.
Relations between the federal government and Alberta — whose nearly four million barrels of daily oil output makes Canada the world’s fourth-largest crude producer — are a perennial flashpoint in local politics. Notley’s 2015 victory was a rare win in a traditionally conservative province. She’s looking to defeat the United Conservative Party, currently led by Danielle Smith, in an election set for May 29.
Although Notley is generally much more aligned with Trudeau’s environmental agenda than Smith, she said the federal government is trying to move too fast on cutting oil-sector emissions. The vast majority of these emissions in Canada come from Alberta’s oilsands, which is among the world’s most carbon-intensive crude sources. Race for premier is tight
“Using aspirational numbers to drive practical policy is not a recipe for success,” Notley said. “The key is making sure that what we put in place is practical and achievable, and it doesn’t become so oppressive that we find ourselves shutting in production.”
Notley said she doesn’t oppose a cap in principle, but she declined to provide her own emissions target, saying she’d consult with experts and industry on the matter.
“We’re not going to be unambitious,” she said. “But we are going to be realistic, and we’re going to make sure that the industry is able to continue to flourish.”
Polls suggest the race between Notley and Smith is very tight. A recent Leger survey found the New Democrats had a two-point lead over the United Conservatives, while another poll by Ipsos found Smith’s party was up by four points.
Notley is expected to sweep much of Alberta’s capital city of Edmonton, while Smith is dominant in the smaller population centres and rural areas. The election will likely come down to who wins the most districts in Calgary — where many of Canada’s energy companies are headquartered.
Notley argued that in the bigger picture, Canada’s environmental policy needs input from Alberta, and that has been prevented by the hostility between Smith’s United Conservatives and Trudeau’s Liberal Party.
“Both Alberta and Canada do best when energy policy is crafted, quite frankly, by Alberta,” she said. “So we want to be at the table, we want to be driving the conversation, and we want to be coming up with solutions that ultimately drive investment and grow our markets.”
Another of Trudeau’s signature environmental policies is a carbon tax on consumer fuels, which kicks in if a province doesn’t have an equivalent carbon price of its own. Notley said she would leave that as a federal tax, instead of replacing it with a made-in-Alberta version.
‘More money’ from Ottawa
To help push the oil sector to decarbonize, Trudeau has also introduced tax credits to defray the capital costs of building carbon capture systems. The credits are worth up to $12.4 billion over the next 10 years, federal officials estimate.
Even more public money for carbon capture might be necessary to compete with the lucrative production tax credits in the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, Notley said. She declined to say if she would commit the provincial government to providing the funds.
“It really is a matter still for negotiations,” she said. “My first goal will be to get more money out of the federal government.”
Yet another federal policy that’s been the source of controversy in Alberta is an impending requirement that electricity grids be made net-zero emissions by 2035.
Notley said Alberta can achieve the milestone at a reasonable cost if she’s elected premier and that trillions of dollars of global investment in renewable energy projects are coming over the next decade.
“It would be utterly ridiculous for Alberta to not be at the table trying to attract some of that,” she said. “So that is going to require some smart government policy, that’s going to require some incentives.”
After a decade, South Dakota's Amish are moving on
Jason Harward, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, S.D. Fri, March 24, 2023
Mar. 24—TRIPP, S.D. — About two miles west of Tripp, past a yellow warning sign with a horse and buggy and down a dirt road muddied from snow melt, sit a set of red barns and white homes, all with green roofs.
The structures dotting the rolling landscape house South Dakota's lone Amish community, a nine-family, 60-person settlement that started in 2010, widely believed to be the religious group's first venture into South Dakota.
But come this summer, they'll be gone — some of their homes are listed on Zillow, and an auction is scheduled for April 28.
"We wanted there to be an Amish community here, but seems like everybody Amish is more from Ohio or Pennsylvania, where there are more trees," Rudy Borntreger, the community's bishop, or elder, explained. "I think it's so open, nobody wants to join us. Now more people decided to move back to Iowa and Minnesota, so kind of for unity's sake."
Though their time in the state will be cut short — and an aversion to technology, deep focus on family and generally reclusive nature limited their socializing potential — they left a lasting impression on the Tripp area and beyond, community members say.
"We love 'em here," Marion Ymker, the owner and manager of Ymker Greenhouse and Landscaping in Armour, where some of the Amish have worked for about a decade, said. "We're disappointed they're moving."
That feeling is mutual.
"Good country. Good area. Good friends," Borntreger said, speaking in a tone of finality on his time in South Dakota, where he's spent around half of his adult life. "Lot of things change in 13 years. Most businesses in Tripp all changed hands. Old friends passed on."
The Amish are part of the Anabaptist Christian movement, closely related to the Mennonites and more distantly connected to the Hutterites. They first arrived in the United States in the 1720s, initially landing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which remains the largest single community of Amish in the nation, numbering around 30,000.
Most of the Tripp Amish come from Tomah, Wisconsin, a settlement formed in 1969 that numbers more than 8,000. Borntreger said his family and some others plan to go back to a different region in Wisconsin.
Faith sits at the center of their lives: Bortntreger reads the Bible daily and attends church every other week. The children attend an Amish parochial school on the farm.
Likely the most well-known characteristic of the Amish is an eschewing of modern conveniences. However, there is a somewhat wide range of technology usage among Amish communities, and most of those decisions come down to the discretion of the leadership of individual church districts.
Borntreger described himself as a more conservative bishop. His family's large, white home has no electricity, though they do sometimes use propane lamps. The community also shares a pay phone.
For shorter-distance communication, a large bell sits in front of the Borntreger home; as the reporter arrived on the property for an interview for this story, his wife, donning a white bonnet and blue dress, shook the instrument to hail him from a distant barn.
In the chilly March air, Borntreger wore a black hat low over his forehead. Opposite the round brim, jointly framing his square jaw and forehead, is a dense, curly black beard.
His black coat and dark blue pants are handmade by his wife from spools of thick denim. Completing his stringy, 5-foot-10 frame is the only purchased portion of his outfit: grime-stained, brown boots nearly up to the knee.
Next to him is his youngest child, who carries a bright yellow, orange and green turtle toy, a pop of color in the otherwise drab landscape.
The humble lifestyle — from clothes to horse-and-buggy transportation — is about keeping a focus on God and family, explained Erik Wesner, who publishes Amish America, an Amish news website.
"They adopt certain technologies, but the way they approach technology is really trying to be thoughtful about how it's used," said Wesner, who became acquainted with the Amish by selling the population educational materials. "What are the effects of that technology, whether they're intended or unintended? What are the potential negative effects of that technology? Does the benefit that this tech brings us outweigh the negative side?"
Wesner used the example of a car to illustrate the point. While ownership of a personal vehicle does offer ease of transportation — and the Tripp Amish community has a slate of drivers who often bring them back to Wisconsin for familial engagements or around the state — it also has the potential to "fragment and disperse the family."
Borntreger shared some of these views, tying the root cause of many social ills to a breakdown in family structure.
"It's important to have parents that are willing to work together to raise their children," Borntreger, a father of 14, said. "If we look at overall situations, I think some are neglected; they have questions and their parents don't have answers so the children may look elsewhere."
While discussing family values, he mentioned a fondness for Gov. Kristi Noem, whose speeches he sometimes reads in local weeklies.
However, the Amish do not vote.
"We leave that to the rest," he said.
The Tripp Amish uprooted from their home in Wisconsin partially for "elbow room," which also served as the headline for a 2010 article in the Yankton Daily Press and Dakotan announcing their arrival.
South Dakota as a landing spot was a budgetary decision.
"There's a corn belt between here and there that's more higher-priced ground," Borntreger explained. "But it's good ground, we like it."
It wasn't always easy: he recalled extreme drought in 2012 and the 2022 derecho, which took down some of their buildings. But that didn't factor into the choice to relocate; instead, the problem was an inability to attract and retain population.
A set of six families, referred to as the "Founding Six" by Jim Mize, who sometimes serves as a driver on trips to Wisconsin, rolled in during the first two years. Of that group, only one, Rudy Borntreger's family, remains.
A total of around two dozen families lived in the community throughout the years, though the settlement never numbered more than 90 people.
While Borntreger chalked up the churn to familial ties being elsewhere, Mize surmised that the inner workings of the group were not always the best.
"They won't tell you specifically why, but you can read between the lines; they made a couple of comments that Rudy was hard to get along with," he said. "In Amish practice, the bishop controls where they can work, how much they can work, the type of technology."
Leaving that aside, the impression the Tripp Amish left on local businesses was overwhelmingly positive.
At Ymker Greenhouse in Armour, where mainly younger Amish work a few days per week, they showed exceptional skills in repairing buildings or working in the greenhouse.
"When it comes to craftsmanship, you won't find better people to have," Marion Ymker, who owns the shop, said. "You don't have to worry about foul language. You don't need to worry about back talk or anything like that."
Matt Mehlhaf, the owner of the sale barn in Menno frequented by the Tripp Amish, had similar comments.
"They're good people as far as I'm concerned. And they're good customers, too," he said. "They're willing to work and work hard. And that's what it takes to raise livestock."
In the end, those takeaways are essentially all Borntreger would like to leave behind.
"When we first moved here, people probably figured we were a little different. And I guess we are different, but we're just trying to be friendly people, make an honest living, raise our families," Borntreger said. "That's what our mission is, I guess. Serve God, and don't forget to pray."
Jason Harward is a Report for America corps reporter who writes about state politics in South Dakota.
