Tuesday was set to be a good day in the world of Premier Danielle Smith. Then it went sideways
Tuesday was set to be a good day in the world of Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP government she leads.
It was the day where the premier rolled out a video explaining how later this month the UCP will bring in a law dealing with transgender youth.
The UCP thinks the stand Smith is taking is something most Albertans will support.
Smith has spoken about the law before, for months, but now she says it’s here.
This is the new law outlining the use of personal pronouns by students in schools, when parents must be notified and when parents must approve.
The new law will make clear when those under 18 can use puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the purpose of gender reassignment, when the use is banned and the importance of the approval of parents when it is allowed.
Smith talked about the “paramount role” of parents and the love they have for their kids.
Parents will have to be told when teachers tackle gender identity, sexual orientation and human sexuality and if they want their child in the class they will have to opt in to the instruction.
Then there’s the prohibition of those born biologically male from competing with women or girls except in a co-ed league.
The law will be a hit with the party’s strongest supporters.
Last year, UCP members gave Smith a standing ovation when she spoke of the rights of parents and how she feels the extreme left are undermining the role of parents.
It will be a hit with the folks expected at the UCP gabfest in Red Deer on the first weekend of November where they will vote thumbs-up or thumbs-down on Smith’s leadership.
Smith has been talking to those individuals a lot this summer.
She needs them, or at least most of them and some of them are hard to please and others will never be happy and others are full of piss and vinegar and flexing their political muscles because they were able to run former premier Jason Kenney out of office.
Still others have some ideas that just aren’t true.
But Smith needs a good show of support.
Then it all went sideways Tuesday.
There was talk of chemtrails and it just sounded so downright bonkers.
In social media they were having a field day.
The newshounds were having a field day.
No one was talking about a new trans law, including those who had been outraged over the direction the Smith government was going on transgender youth.
Apparently, that could wait.
The story was all about chemtrails, streaks in the sky up to no good, some nasty sorts putting nasty stuff in the atmosphere to harm us.
Smith had been asked about chemtrails by many people. Oh, oh … we know where this movie is going.
Someone told the premier if someone was spraying the atmosphere with something horrible it was the U.S. military.
An inner voice should have spoken to the premier. STOP TALKING!!!
We looked. We didn’t find evidence of chemtrails. Next question. That’s what she should have said. Full stop.
If some people boo let them boo. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. All questions are not equal.
There is a clip on social media where Smith says she wouldn’t have much power if the U.S. military is spraying us.
STOP TALKING!!!
Smith adds she would do what she can to investigate but she hasn’t found any evidence of chemtrails in Alberta.
She does not allege the U.S. military is doing anything.
Since 2012 and the Wildrose meltdown over the comments of a party candidate about homosexuals headed to hell, to that Lake of Fire, newshounds and political types have watched Smith for any bozo eruptions.
After all Smith was Wildrose leader back in the day, she didn’t handle the Lake of Fire issue well and it was then her party’s chances to become government evaporated in a political inferno.
And the premier would admit, she has had spacewalks where you just have to scratch your head. This scribbler has documented them.
But, at day’s end, Smith’s people do not seem panicked at all by the chemtrails story.
They say some in the news business are looking for easy clickbait.
They say the vast majority of Albertans don’t care about chemtrails.
They believe this yarn is annoying but will not change one vote in the election three years away.
They say it is noise. There is no smoke and there is no fire.
In their reckoning, like a chemtrail that doesn’t exist, it will just blow over.