Trump provokes Canadian right-wing radicals ahead of key vote

Matthew Rozsa

August 09, 2026 

ALTERNET

President Donald Trump’s administration continues to provoke right-wing extremists who want members of a Canadian province to secede from their nation, continuing a trend that has persisted since the start of the Republican’s second term.

“The separatists have good reason to think the Trump administration could be an ally,” reported Politico's Mickey Djuric on Sunday. “In January, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called Alberta a ‘natural partner for the U.S.’ while referencing the province’s ‘great resources.’

According to Djuric, Bessent told conservative podcaster Jack Posobiec that “people are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got.”


Even though only 30 percent of Albertans want to secede from Canada, Djuric reported experts are worried they might succeed simply because the pro-union Albertans could stay home out of an excess of confidence that they will pull off secession during the October referendum. One such Albertan is Keith Walker, who lives in a small farming community in southern Alberta and supported Trump’s trade war against Canada by describing Prime Minister Mark Carney’s administration as communism. He compared Trump’s tariffs against Canada to his military campaigns against Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, confidently telling Politico that “that’s why that’s happening.”

Another secessionist told Djuric that “Trump is the only one that can save us,” while the Politico journalist reported that “people have wrapped themselves in Alberta’s flag, wave ‘we’re done’ banners and wear ‘Trump 2024’ and MAGA — Make Alberta Great Again — ball caps. This is an ‘Albertans’ Day’ gathering at the Whistle Stop Cafe, which gained notoriety for bucking pandemic-era rules and which former Alberta premier Jason Kenney calls ‘ground zero’ for the province’s fast-growing separatist movement.”


Djuric added that while “resentment toward the federal government in Ottawa is longstanding in Alberta,” the movement has been “supercharged” by “Trump and the increasingly toxic U.S.-Canada relationship. The separatists are furious about Carney’s friction with Trump and the fraying ties to their southern neighbor. Some even hope the Trump administration might help their cause.”

He also pointed out that “many separatists believe Trump’s presidency makes Alberta’s independence possible, with the United States a ready customer for its oil and gas should they split from Canada. One group, the Alberta Prosperity Project, is trying to seek a C$500-billion U.S. government loan to fund the province’s ‘seamless departure’ from Canada.” Meanwhile Casey Phillips from Edmonton, Alberta declared that “I like freedom and less taxes,” arguing that this justifies Alberta trying to leave the Canadian union.

In February a former senior State Department official warned NBC News that Trump’s cultivation of Albertan separatists is “irresponsible as hell,” continuing that “it’s really irresponsible for the United States to be engaging with these kinds of people, because it just encourages behavior that cannot be in the U.S. national interest.” By contrast, in January Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued that "I think we should let them come down into the U.S. and Alberta's a natural partner for the U.S. They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people... [There is a] rumor that they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not."


He concluded, "People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the U.S. has got."

  ‘Like working in a kettle’: France’s overcrowded prisons swelter under historic heatwave

ANALYSIS


The deadly heatwave sweeping France has once again exposed the structural problems of the country’s chronically overcrowded prisons, with groups of three or four detainees crammed into airless cells built to hold a lone prisoner. Analysts and prison staff alike have criticised a penal system that continues to see mass incarceration as the main means of cracking down on crime.

Issued on: 25/06/2026 

FRANCE24

By: Paul MILLAR

A detainee is pictured in his prison cell at the Hauts-de-Seine remand centre, in Nanterre, suburbs of Paris, on January 15, 2026. © Stéphane de Sakutin, AFP


Even the highest prison walls can’t keep out the heat. As temperatures rise past 40°C (104°F) across swaths of France, the heat creeps through thick concrete, slips down hollow pipes and seeps under the reinforced doors that divide the prisoners from the free.

France’s prisons were not built to withstand these temperatures. Prisoners complain of scalding water spraying from the showers; prison guards, of centuries-old walls that hold the day’s heat through to the early light of dawn.

André Ferragne, the secretary-general of France’s Inspector General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty, said that just about everything about how France’s prisons were set up made them deeply unsuited to the heatwaves that sweep the country with increasing intensity each summer.

“Firstly, prison buildings are often run-down, poorly maintained and, of course, very, very poorly insulated,” he said. “So they offer absolutely no protection against the heat, or indeed against the cold.”

Power outages and melting roads: Heatwave strains French infrastructure

Cover image: business © France 24
06:25

On the other side of the bars, sweating through their stab vests, the guards tasked with overseeing the detainees aren’t spared either. Wilfried Fonck, the secretary-general of the UFAP-UNSa Justice correctional workers union, said that prison staff were also struggling with the sweltering conditions.

“Prisons are completely overwhelmed by this heatwave,” he said. “One of my colleagues told me, ‘Right now, I feel like I’m working in a kettle’ – and that image says a lot. Yesterday, temperatures reached 37 degrees inside some detention centres, particularly in eastern France.”

France’s prisons are among the most overcrowded in Europe – only Cyprus and Slovenia rank worse. Official figures showed that the country’s carceral system held a record-breaking 88,654 detainees as of May 1, an increase of almost 5,000 people over the past year. Just 750 places were created across France’s detention centres over the same period.

Detainees are pictured in their prison cell at the Hauts-de-Seine remand centre, in Nanterre, suburbs of Paris, on January 15, 2026. © Stéphane de Sakutin, AFP

Overall, France’s prisons have an overcrowding rate of 140 percent. That figure rises sharply to more than 172 percent for the country’s remand centres, built to hold people awaiting trial – and therefore presumed innocent – and people sentenced to fewer than two years behind bars.

Under these conditions, Ferragne said, multiple prisoners are often crammed into stifling cells built to hold a single occupant. As of the start of May, official figures show that some 7,693 people were forced to sleep on mattresses laid out on the cell floors due to the lack of beds for the rising number of detainees.

“The standard is nine square metres per person, plus three square metres for each additional person,” he said. “So when you have overcrowded prisons, you end up with two people, sometimes even three, in nine square metres – and because you have to put mattresses on the floor next to the beds, there’s absolutely no room to move.”

Unlike prisons in many parts of the world, French detention centres don’t have communal canteens. Instead, inmates eat in their cells, often having to re-heat the platters that slide through the doors themselves.

On top of that, Ferragne said, many cells have toilets partially open to the rest of the space. Combined with a chronic lack of ventilation due to the reinforced windows, the atmosphere can quickly become suffocating.

“You can have multiple heat sources, overcrowding, the inability to air out the space – and a very, very long time spent in the cell,” he said.

Detainees in France’s overcrowded remand centres can spend up to 22 hours a day in their cells, with two short turns around the exercise yard a day often their only reprieve from the monotony.

A detainee is pictured in his prison cell at the Hauts-de-Seine remand centre, in Nanterre, suburbs of Paris, on January 15, 2026. © Stéphane de Sakutin, AFP

Fonck said that inmates’ tempers often ran high as the temperature rose, stoking the risk of violence between detainees or towards prison staff.

“When you have cells that are meant for one person and you put two, three or four people in them, things inevitably take on a completely different tone,” he said.

“The tension that’s already there only gets worse. As soon as people start to feel a bit too hot, even the slightest annoyance is bound to take on much greater proportions.”

France’s chronic overcrowding has come under heavy criticism from international bodies tasked with preventing people in detention from being subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment. Following a week-long visit to 18 places of detention across the country, a UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture delegation's assessment was damning.

“Prison overcrowding is one of the most pressing challenges observed during this visit. It directly undermines the fundamental rights of prisoners, and its consequences extend far beyond the prison environment,” delegation head Suzanne Jabbour said in a statement. “In some of the facilities visited, the conditions observed may constitute inhuman or degrading treatment under international law.”

A Council of Europe delegation warned that the ram-packed prisons risked turning into “human warehouses”.

Alternatives to prison

Fonck said that understaffing and overcrowding were making it harder and harder for correctional officers to carry out their work safely.

“The projections we’re being given for the end of this year or early 2027 are for 100,000 inmates with the same number of prison places as now,” he said.

“We can’t push the walls back. We need to find effective solutions. Not only do we need more staff to work in decent conditions and, above all, in conditions of optimum safety, but it’s also a matter of considering how we can either prevent certain incarcerations – that is, thinking about all possible alternatives to imprisonment – and also exploring all possible options for adjusting sentences so that prisoners can be released within a framework that is somewhat safer than an unconditional release.”

Correctional staff take part in a day of strike, blocking off access at the entrance of the prison of Beziers, southern France, on April 27, 2026. The CGT and UFAP-UNSa unions called for a day of strikes to protest chronic understaffing and overcrowding. © Gabriel Bouys, AFP

Shifting away from a system of mass incarceration has struggled to find popular support in France, where politicians campaigning on law-and-order platforms continue to push for stricter penalties for criminals.

And while the country has signed into law clear alternatives to imprisonment, including daily fines, community service and work-release programmes, Ferragne said that these measures had done little to stem the number of people being put behind bars.

“The result is that these systems have grown in scale while the incarceration rate has continued to climb,” he said. “So in reality, what we have done is not to create alternatives to incarceration, but simply to widen the scope of the criminal justice system.”

Ferragne said that France’s dilapidated prison infrastructure needs widespread renovations to better prepare them for the worsening weather extremes of coming years.

“I think the first thing to do is ensure the construction quality of prisons, because right now the prisons aren’t adapted to heatwaves – or to any other kind of weather,” he said. “The heat makes the conditions in which detainees are housed worse, but really it’s just exacerbating conditions that are already bad the rest of the year.”

But he added that the structural problems in France’s bloated prison system went well beyond concrete and foam cladding.

“The prison system, overburdened as it is, means that movement within prisons is virtually impossible – impossible to manage, impossible to organise,” he said. “The idea, therefore, is that by both reducing the prison population and reviewing the internal prison regulations, we could make it easier for prisoners to actually leave their cells.”

Parisians living in attic apartments are roasting under the city's pretty zinc roofs

Copyright AP Photo/John Leicester

By Angela Symons

Published on 25/06/2026  EURONEWS

In France's historic heatwave, Paris’ dreamy rooftops become a heat-trapping nightmare.

Before the heat struck, Amelie Kenney could boast that she almost had it all: a tiny but cheap top-floor apartment in Paris, with an enviable view from its minuscule balcony of the French capital's iconic gray roofs and even, when she leans out far enough, up to the Sacré-Cœur basilica atop Montmartre.

But with a historic heatwave making attic apartments like hers potentially hazardous for health, the 23-year-old recent graduate isn't feeling quite so fortunate.

“It’s been the worst week that we’ve had in this apartment,” she said this week as the capital and other parts of Europe roasted. “It’s just baking in the whole afternoon and it’s impossible to just get a respite.”

Many of Paris' buildings that look so picturesque from the outside are proving to be hostile, even dangerous for health, during the unrelenting record heat that is turning both the long summer days and short sweaty nights into battles.

That's particularly true for those living directly under the roofs of Paris – who often cannot afford larger, lower-floor apartments less impacted by direct sun.

A view of roofs of Paris, Tuesday, June 23, 2026. AP Photo/John Leicester

Risk of death more than quadruples in Paris attics

Extreme heat can make them deadly. A study of a record-breaking 2003 heatwave blamed for 15,000 heat-related deaths found that living in a Paris attic room directly under the roof increased the risk of death by more than fourfold, France's public health agency said in a report last year.

And researchers who studied heat-related deaths in European cities for a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health journal in 2023 found that Paris had the highest risks of heat-related deaths out of 30 European capitals they looked at.

Relate

About three-quarters of Paris rooftops use sheets of zinc as covering, producing the city's magnificent grey vistas that have long inspired artists and filmmakers. The tradecraft of its zinc roofers is recognised as a valued cultural heritage for humanity by the UN cultural agency UNESCO. Zinc is weather-resistant, malleable and can be recycled. But as a metal, it also absorbs and conducts heat.

“People find the rooftops of Paris charming. There’s the image of the attic room. But in reality, when you look at who lives in these apartments, it’s often students paying a great deal of money for a small room,” said Maider Olivier, with The Foundation for Housing for the Disadvantaged campaign group.

“Not only are they extremely exposed to heat, but it’s also impossible to create cross-ventilation to get rid of the heat at night.”

Amelie Kenney, right, plays piano in the attic apartment she shares with her partner Francesca Pilia, in Paris, Wednesday, June 24, 2026. AP Photo/John Leicester

Paris preservarion regulations hinder efforts to adapt to extreme heat

In the sixth-floor walk-up that Kenney shares with her partner, Francesca Pilia, also 23, they've squeezed a desk, a double bed and a small electric piano. The apartment's one window, protruding from the zinc roof, faces west, putting it in direct sun from midday to dusk. They split the rent of €735 a month.

“It was the cheapest place to be,” Kenney said. “I like that it looks out onto the square. I can see marriages almost every Saturday morning.”

“But now I think if I could spend extra money to be somewhere else, I would.”

Although office blocks, shopping centres, cinemas and other modern places where people congregate often have air conditioning, private apartments rarely do, especially in densely populated central Paris with its classic Haussmann-style buildings – named after the 19th century urban planner who transformed the city, giving it wide, tree-lined avenues and much of its architectural look.

Relate

Olivier, the housing campaigner, said that zoning regulations intended to preserve Paris' character, including its signature rooftops, hinder efforts to adapt housing to extreme heat.

“There are people who are unable to insulate their roofs or install shutters to block the sun and prevent their homes from overheating because of regulations to protect the rooftops,” she said. “But these regulations which protect the rooftops of Paris do not protect the people who live beneath those rooftops.”

Kenney, from Australia, and Pilia, who's Italian, are no strangers to heat. But the temperatures in Paris – with record highs for June nudging past 40C during the day and 25C at night — have been gruelling.

They've invested in a small electric fan, take cold showers, sponge themselves down with a wet rag, hydrate, and battle with the dilemma of whether to keep their window open.

“I’ll wake up and I’ll decide, it’s too hot, I have to open the window,” Kenney said. “An hour later, I wake up, I say, ‘It is too loud, I have to close the window.’”

“It’s a very, very Kafkaesque cycle.”

France takes nuclear reactors offline amid record heatwave

Copyright AP Photo\

By Rebecca Rommen

Published on 25/06/2026 - EURONEWS

EDF cites environmental rules protecting river ecosystems as rising water temperatures force output cuts at sites on the Seine and Rhone.

France's state-owned energy giant EDF has temporarily shut down two nuclear reactors as a precautionary environmental measure, as the country grapples with a record-breaking heatwave that has already turned deadly. At least 18 heat-related deaths were confirmed in France as of Monday, and at least 40 people have drowned since June 18.

The reactors taken offline on Thursday are located at the Nogent-sur-Seine plant on the Seine River north of Paris, and at the Bugey facility on the Rhone near Lyon in the southeast. Both shutdowns were triggered by rising river temperatures, which EDF is required by law to monitor to avoid discharging water that could harm aquatic ecosystems.

Nuclear power plants use river water to cool their reactors before releasing it back into the waterway, typically at temperatures ranging from a few tenths of a degree to several degrees warmer than when it was drawn, depending on the site. During heatwaves, as rivers warm naturally, operators must cut or reduce output to stay within legally mandated discharge temperature limits.

Nogent-sur-Seine had already scaled back production on one of its reactors earlier this week "to limit the temperature increase between the water withdrawn from the Seine and the water discharged back into it, thereby protecting aquatic plant and animal life," EDF said.

A reactor at the Golfech plant on the Garonne river in southwestern France was also taken offline on Monday, with output reduced at a number of other sites across EDF's 57-reactor fleet, which together accounted for close to 70% of France's electricity generation last year.

Despite the outages, French grid operator RTE said on Wednesday that "France has sufficient generation capacity to meet electricity demand, including in the event of outages at certain production facilities."

France has placed more than half of its 96 departments under a danger-to-life red alert, urging citizens to avoid direct sunlight and exercise "absolute vigilance" as the heatwave tightens its grip. Météo-France reported that Tuesday 23 June was the hottest day recorded since measurements began in 1947.

The crisis is not limited to France. Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland are also anticipating scorching temperatures, which are starting to bring daily life to a standstill, with hundreds of schools shut or closed early and train services in cities including Paris and Brussels reduced to lower the risk of breakdowns.

This is Europe's third heatwave of the year, with forecasters warning temperatures could hit 43°C in the Mediterranean. The energy strain is already visible: in the peak days of last year's June and July heatwave, daily power demand rose by up to 14%, driving a two to three-fold increase in average daily power prices.

Scientists say the pattern is worsening. Parts of Europe are experiencing up to 40 additional days of extreme heat stress compared with the 1970s, according to a major new study.

Florida Man’s Wrongful Arrest Suit Highlights Dangers of AI Facial Recognition in Policing

“Over a year later, I’m still picking up the pieces of my life, all because the police relied on this dangerous technology instead of doing their jobs and actually investigating,” said Robert Dillon.

A lawsuit filed in Florida on June 10, 2026 shows how police reliance on facial recognition tools can lead to wrongful arrests.
(Image by monsitj/Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Jun 10, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Middle District of Florida by a Fort Myers resident wrongfully arrested nearly two years ago highlights the risks of police agencies relying on facial recognition tools.

“This case is about what happens when police let an error-prone artificial intelligence (AI) system stand in for an investigation,” explains the complaint, filed by attorneys with the state and national ACLU as well as the firm Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney. “A facial recognition algorithm flagged Robert Dillon as the man who tried to lure or entice a child under 12 years old at a Jacksonville Beach McDonald’s. It was wrong.

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The 52-year-old “lives more than 300 miles from” and “had never set foot in Jacksonville Beach,” the complaint continues. “But rather than test the machine’s answer against the evidence that would have cleared him, the officers built a case to confirm it. Mr. Dillon was arrested and prosecuted for one of the most stigmatizing crimes a person can face.”

Dillon—one of at least 15 people wrongfully arrested in the United States due to police reliance on incorrect facial recognition results—is suing the city of Jacksonville Beach as well as law enforcement officers from the Jacksonville Beach Police Department, Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO), and Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.

Reporting on the case Wednesday, Wired noted that while the Pinellas agency did not respond to a request for comment, a JSO spokesperson simply said that “due to pending litigation, we would be unable to comment further on the incident.”

The actual suspect allegedly approached a girl at the McDonald’s shortly before midnight on November 2, 2023. The following month, Dillon was flagged as a possible match by the Face Analysis Comparison and Examination System (FACES)—which “has been operated by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office since 2001, making it one of the oldest police face-recognition systems in the country,” according to Wired. “At its peak in 2021, its tens of millions of Florida mug shots and driver’s license photos were accessible to more than 260 agencies.”

After denying any involvement in the case in December, Dillon was arrested at his home in front of his wife the next August, “held overnight in jail, forced to borrow money and pledge the title to his truck to post bond, subjected to months of criminal prosecution, and publicly branded with a mugshot that remains accessible online, long after the charges were dropped,” the complaint states. “Community members still approach him in public to ask about the case. He no longer feels comfortable being friendly to children.”

“He had no connection to the McDonald’s, to the child who was targeted, or to anyone involved in the crime. He became a suspect for one reason: a facial recognition algorithm included him in a list of possible matches to a suspect captured on grainy surveillance footage at the restaurant,” the document emphasizes. “The investigating officer treated that algorithmic output as a near-certain identification, omitted critical exculpatory evidence from his arrest warrant application, and failed to pursue routine investigative steps that would have immediately excluded Mr. Dillon as a suspect.”

“The arrest warrant that deprived Mr. Dillon of his liberty was the product of a cascade of investigative failures by the lead investigator, Jacksonville Beach Police Department officer (now corporal) Scott O’Connell,” according to the filing. Among them was the officer’s “complete failure to consider that the suspect was alleged to have been a ‘regular’ customer.”

The complaint also notes that “O’Connell is an officer with a documented history of volatility and poor judgment, having previously been terminated from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office for threatening to ‘blow up’ the agency, later reinstated, then arrested for domestic battery before resigning under the weight of those charges. Jacksonville Beach PD hired him anyway, assigned him as lead investigator on a sensitive child-luring case, and later promoted him to corporal after his investigation resulted in the wrongful arrest and prosecution of an innocent man.”

Dillon said in a Wednesday statement that “the night I spent in jail after they arrested me for a crime I did not commit still haunts me to this day. I will never get over how terrified and worried I was, wondering if I’d ever go home to my wife and daughter again.”

“Over a year later, I’m still picking up the pieces of my life, all because the police relied on this dangerous technology instead of doing their jobs and actually investigating,” Dillon added. “Florida police must implement safeguards and ensure this never happens to anyone else, because until they do, nobody is safe.”

Nate Freed Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, stressed that “no one should lose their freedom or be scared to leave their house because an algorithm got it wrong.”

“These Florida police departments owe it to Mr. Dillon to make amends and to take serious steps to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” he argued. “Police across the country are on notice: Unreliable face recognition technology is hurting people, and we will keep fighting to hold them accountable for these abuses.”

The ACLU has previously sounded the alarm over other cases, including those of Robert Williams, a Black man wrongfully arrested in 2020 after software owned by Michigan State Police misidentified him as a shoplifting suspect, and Randal Reid, who spent nearly a week in jail in 2022 after he was falsely identified as a luxury purse thief by Louisiana authorities.

The legal group on Wednesday also pointed to the reported role of FACES in the 2025 wrongful arrest of New Smyrna Beach resident Beau Burgess, as well as another case involving the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office: Jalil Richardson told Action News Jax earlier this month that after being misidentified as a vehicle thief, he “sat in there for over 50 days, in the most worst jail ever.”

“There was no proper investigation done... to even reach out to me or to see if I was even in Florida,” said Richardson, whose charges were dropped after he provided time sheets showing that he was at work in North Carolina when the vehicle was stolen.

In his case, JSO provided a lengthy statement, saying in part that “facial recognition software is just one tool in a large toolbox for investigators,” and “calling the arrest the result ‘police AI misidentification’ is a catchy headline but does not provide accurate context,” including that “the victim chose Mr. Richardson out of a photographic lineup to include other potential suspects.”

Nicholas Warren, staff attorney at the ACLU of Florida, said Wednesday that “one wrongful arrest is one too many.”

“Florida’s growing reliance on facial recognition technology threatens us all,” he warned. “We must stop this dangerous pattern before it traps more innocent people. No one should have their freedom taken away because the police rely on faulty technology.”

AB NDP’s Rakhi Pancholi dismantles Danielle Smith’s referendum claims

by David J. Climenhaga

February 23, 2026
RABBLE.CA

UCP strategists must be thanking their Judeo-Christian deity she’s not the leader of the Opposition!

Alberta NDP Deputy Leader Rakhi Pancholi as she eviscerated Premier Danielle Smith’s claims and policies with forensic precision during a news conference Friday.

 Credit: Alberta NDP


With Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi nowhere to be found Friday morning, Rakhi Pancholi took up the task of eviscerating the long list of intentionally confusing referendum questions announced by Premier Danielle Smith in her prime-time televised message the day before, not to mention the way the premier coddles separatists, her dog whistling about immigration, and her refusal to take responsibility for her government’s fiscal mismanagement.

“Cut the bullshit! Call the election!” Pancholi began her Friday morning news conference, cutting right to the chase.

“Danielle Smith and the UCP did not campaign on nine new referendum questions,” the Opposition party’s deputy leader immediately continued. “They do not have a mandate from Albertans for this. Not on separatism, not on pulling out of the CPP, not on breaching the Charter rights of Albertans, not on coal mining in the Eastern Slopes, and not on bringing in two-tier health care!

“The premier is trying to distract us ahead of a UCP budget that will contain billions of dollars in deficits,” Pancholi rolled on. “She’s trying to distract us from separatism – which she put on the agenda and is already putting our province at risk. The premier is blaming oil prices and immigration for her poor planning and financial mismanagement.” (And, as ever, she’s also blaming long gone former prime minister Justin Trudeau, it must be added.)

After that, it just got better. Pancholi never faltered in her forensic deconstruction of the house of cards Smith has built, starting with the premier’s plan for nine murkily worded referenda next October 19, the point of which appears to be to create a constitutional crisis in Canada that will help break up the federation.

Over the next half hour, Pancholi repeated the mild profanity she started with two more times – just to make sure everyone was awake and understood that she, at least, had had enough of Smith’s constant nonsense, and that political discourse in Alberta is shifting whether the UCP likes it or not.

One imagines the post-adolescent pundits at this province’s plethora of well-funded right-wing propaganda platforms were sharpening their crayons to accuse Pancholi of having a potty mouth. It won’t work. She sounded impassioned, not profane. And Albertans who listen to her presentation will want to hear more.

On the low oil prices the premier blames for Thursday’s sad-sack deficit budget: “Oil production is hitting record levels, and resource revenue from the past five years is the highest it has been in decades. Only the UCP can blow a resource boom!”

On the premier’s pivot to condemning immigration from demanding it: “The hypocrisy on immigration is unreal! Less than two years ago, in 2024, Danielle Smith herself asked Justin Trudeau to increase immigration levels because Alberta wanted more than what Ottawa was offering. Also in 2024, she stated publicly that she wanted to double Alberta’s population to 10 million people, grow cities like Red Deer 10 times their size to one million, all while promoting the ‘Alberta is Calling’ campaign asking people from Canada and around the world to make Alberta their home.

“She did all this without a thought or plan for how to create the jobs, build the houses, schools and hospitals that we already needed!”

And now, Pancholi continued, the premier wants us to blame immigrants and asylum seekers and to send us to the polls to vote on a raft of referenda to enable such a campaign pulled right from the pages of Donald Trump’s agenda. “Again, what a load of absolute bullshit! She’s trying to make people angry about things that she can’t even back up with facts. She’s stoking the flames and raising the temperature. This is the opposite of leadership!”

Pancholi’s performance made an interesting contrast to the premier’s “media availability” the same day, during which Smith was by turns shouty, defensive, cranky and smug, all the while offering a master class in gaslighting. Just listening to Smith was exhausting. More than a whiff of panic was in the air.

But the UCP, after all, is a party that has made a cult of avoiding deficits at any cost. Now they’re going to bring down a budget expected to have a deficit of at least $6 billion to $8 billion because … what? They haven’t figured out the price of oil fluctuates?

Once again, Alberta is reduced to playing to poor little rich kid of Confederation, only this time with a separatist problem of its own creation to complicate matters. UCP fiscal incompetence will be revealed in all its glory Thursday, and blaming Trudeau and asylum seekers isn’t going to cut the mustard with anybody except the UCP’s MAGA base.

“The UCP has been in power for six years now,” explained Pancholi. “This is the premier’s fourth budget and will now be her second big deficit. Tell me how this is not a disaster in managing Alberta’s finances!”

When a reporter suggested it might be dangerous for the NDP to demand an election – after all, they might just get their wish – Pancholi said confidently she was willing to take the risk. As she put it in her formal remarks: Danielle Smith “wants to champion direct democracy? We have a direct democracy, and it’s called a general election. Call it!”

Packed Emergency Rooms, crowded classrooms, a million Albertans without a family doctor, no caps on sky-high insurance rates, soaring utility bills, the lowest minimum wage in Canada? “Where’s the premier’s leadership on any of this?”

So, concluded Pancholi, who ran for the NDP leadership in 2024 but dropped out in favour of Nenshi when his victory was clearly inevitable: “Cut the bullshit, premier! Stop with the distractions, and if you’re so convinced this is what Albertans want, call an election and let Albertans decide.”

It was a delight to see Pancholi tear into the UCP with an aggressive spirit that has been largely missing from Alberta politics on the Opposition side since Jason Kenney defeated Rachel Notley’s one-term government in April 2019.

This is what NDP members thought they were voting for when they chose Nenshi as leader in June 2024. Instead, it has been almost completely absent since Nenshi took over.

And where was Nenshi Thursday night, immediately after Smith’s remarks, or Friday morning for the news conference Pancholi handled so well? The deputy leader assured reporters that her leader had just returned from a well-deserved vacation and would reappear soon. I’m sure the UCP was relieved.

Danielle Smith remains a talented communicator skilled at setting political narratives before the Opposition gets out of their seats. She is not to be underestimated.

Pancholi, a lawyer by profession, seems to have the ability to destroy an overconfident and glib witness with forensic precision. With 20/20 hindsight, we can see that she might have been the perfect opponent for a premier with such a casual relationship with the truth and such a destructive ideology.

We can only hope that Nenshi has the sense to set her loose on the premier while he practices politics in full sentences, or whatever his passive strategy is called.

Alberta politics


David J. Climenhaga

David Climenhaga is a journalist and trade union communicator who has worked in senior writing and editing positions with the Globe and Mail and the Calgary Herald. He left journalism after the strike... More by David J. Climenhaga

US seizes Russian tanker despite submarine escort stoking tensions

US seizes Russian tanker despite submarine escort stoking tensions / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin January 7, 2026

The United States has seized an oil tanker, now known as the Marinera and registered under the Russian flag, after a week-long pursuit, Reuters has reported, citing US officials.

"The seizure, which could stoke tensions with Russia, came after the tanker, originally known as the Bella-1, slipped through a U.S. maritime 'blockade' of sanctioned tankers and rebuffed U.S. Coast Guard efforts to board it," the news agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

Russia sent a submarine and naval assets to escort a rusting oil tanker formerly known as Bella 1, now renamed Marinera, in a significant escalation of maritime tensions with the US, Interfax reported on January 7.

The operation was carried out by the Coast Guard and the US military that has been following the tanker for several days. A Russian warship and a Russian submarine, sent to escort the tanker. were nearby during the operation but did not intervene, according to reports.

The US alleges the seized tanker is part of a global shadow fleet ferrying sanctioned oil, had attempted to dock in Venezuela but failed to load cargo. Despite being empty, the US Coast Guard began pursuing the ship in December as part of a broader crackdown on illicit oil shipments, including black-market crude allegedly sold by Russia.

According to US officials cited by the WSJ, the tanker’s crew repelled a US boarding attempt and fled into the Atlantic, where they hastily painted a Russian flag on the hull, changed the vessel’s name to Marinera, and reflagged it under the Russian registry—moves experts describe as highly irregular.

Russia’s navy is now accompanying the tanker as it sails approximately 300 miles south of Iceland, reportedly en route to Murmansk via the North Sea. Open-source vessel tracking confirms its position in the Eastern Atlantic.

“Once it’s legitimately registered, it gets the protection of the flag under international law,” said retired Rear Admiral Fred Kenney, former director of legal affairs at the International Maritime Organization. “It’s not retroactive—you can’t say it was stateless two weeks ago so we’re going to say it’s stateless now.”

The White House has not commented on the latest developments, but US Southern Command stated on social media that it remained committed to “stand against sanctioned vessels and actors transiting through this region.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was observing the situation “with concern,” according to state agency RIA Novosti. Meanwhile, state-backed broadcaster RT published video footage purportedly from the Marinera showing a US Coast Guard cutter trailing the vessel.

The tanker previously operated under the name Bella 1 and was sanctioned by the US for allegedly carrying Iranian oil on behalf of terrorist-designated entities. At the time of the attempted US interdiction, the vessel was considered stateless and flying a false flag, the White House said, which is illegal under maritime law.

Experts say Russia’s decision to grant the ship a flag without inspection deviates from standard practice.

“Will Russia step in and protect the dark fleet on a regular basis? That would undercut the argument that they have legitimate ties to the vessels,” said William Baumgartner, former judge advocate general and chief counsel for the Coast Guard. “If they repeat this, it does raise the question of whether this is a legitimate change in registry, or if it appears to be done for nefarious reasons,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Washington has previously seized two other tankers—Skipper and Centuries—linked to the shadow oil fleet. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions, the fleet has expanded to more than 1,000 vessels with opaque ownership structures.

In a related story, another US Coast Guard vessel intercepted another tanker linked to Venezuela in Caribbean waters, as the US continues to impose a naval quarantine of vessels from Venezuela that are subject to sanctions, Reuters reports.

Russia deploys submarine to escort tanker targeted by US near Venezuela

Russia has sent a submarine to escourt a Russian-flagged tanker that has been chased across the high seas by US navy. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin January 7, 2026

Russia has sent a submarine and naval assets to escort a rusting oil tanker formerly known as Bella 1, now renamed Marinera, in a significant escalation of maritime tensions with the United States, The Wall Street Journal reported on January 6.

The vessel, which the US alleges is part of a global shadow fleet ferrying sanctioned oil, had attempted to dock in Venezuela but failed to load cargo. Despite being empty, the US Coast Guard began pursuing the ship in December as part of a broader crackdown on illicit oil shipments, including black-market crude allegedly sold by Russia.

According to US officials cited by the WSJ, the tanker’s crew repelled a US boarding attempt and fled into the Atlantic, where they hastily painted a Russian flag on the hull, changed the vessel’s name to Marinera, and reflagged it under the Russian registry—moves experts describe as highly irregular.

Russia’s navy is now accompanying the tanker as it sails approximately 300 miles south of Iceland, reportedly en route to Murmansk via the North Sea. Open-source vessel tracking confirms its position in the Eastern Atlantic.

“Once it’s legitimately registered, it gets the protection of the flag under international law,” said retired Rear Admiral Fred Kenney, former director of legal affairs at the International Maritime Organization. “It’s not retroactive—you can’t say it was stateless two weeks ago so we’re going to say it’s stateless now.”

The White House has not commented on the latest developments, but US Southern Command stated on social media that it remained committed to “stand against sanctioned vessels and actors transiting through this region.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was observing the situation “with concern,” according to state agency RIA Novosti. Meanwhile, state-backed broadcaster RT published video footage purportedly from the Marinera showing a US Coast Guard cutter trailing the vessel.

The tanker previously operated under the name Bella 1 and was sanctioned by the US for allegedly carrying Iranian oil on behalf of terrorist-designated entities. At the time of the attempted US interdiction, the vessel was considered stateless and flying a false flag, the White House said, which is illegal under maritime law.

Experts say Russia’s decision to grant the ship a flag without inspection deviates from standard practice.

“Will Russia step in and protect the dark fleet on a regular basis? That would undercut the argument that they have legitimate ties to the vessels,” said William Baumgartner, former judge advocate general and chief counsel for the Coast Guard. “If they repeat this, it does raise the question of whether this is a legitimate change in registry, or if it appears to be done for nefarious reasons,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Washington has previously seized two other tankers—Skipper and Centuries—linked to the shadow oil fleet. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions, the fleet has expanded to more than 1,000 vessels with opaque ownership structures.