While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Don Braid.
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called his party's victory in Calgary-Shaw an "earthquake." He was hyper-excited by the unexpected win. Earthquake or not, the NDP sure sent a tremor through Premier Danielle Smith's caucus. This loss could signal deep discontent with her handling of separatism and the Oct. 19 referendum.
The B.C. provincial Conservatives are a hot mess. In their misery, they hold a lesson for Premier Danielle Smith's UCP. After standing at the doorway to government in 2024, only a couple of seats short of the provincial NDP, the B.C. party has collapsed in division and acrimony.
The Oct. 19 referendum voting edges closer. Mostly dormant now, this weird provincial project will explode on the Alberta scene after Labour Day. Most of the 10 questions are detailed and complex — except for one on separatism, which comes in two parts but somehow finds itself on top of the ballot, despite being the last one in the door...
The grandaddy of all Stampede political announcements came on July 12, 2004, when PC Premier Ralph Klein held up a sign that said: Paid In Full. Klein declared the provincial debt dead and buried after many years of harsh cost-cutting. The words and the photo sped around the country and beyond. Nobody paid off all debt in those days. Within...
Mark Carney makes $17 billion in infrastructure pledges to B.C. on same day door opens to pipeline from Alberta to tidewater
On this date in 2013, much of Calgary's downtown was underwater from the greatest flood ever to hit southern Alberta. City hall, with provincial help, worked furiously to make the Calgary Stampede happen. A slimmed-down version opened on schedule. It was a stunning feat of united action by governments and the Stampede, then led by CEO Vern Kimball.
It was a slow week on the separatism front, but then, at the last minute, Albertans got something new to be confused about. The government announced Friday it's creating a panel — because that's what it does — to assess the costs of separation. This was expected after Premier Danielle Smith went on about $400-billion costs, big prices for our...
There is zero chance, absolutely none, that separatist leaders will kick Premier Danielle Smith out of office and take over the United Conservative Party. That's how they talk, of course. They're going after the premier because they don't like her referendum question and her embrace of federalism, Alberta style. In the last column, I tried to explain the movement against...
The UCP is cooked if separatists take control. Well aware of the threat, Premier Danielle Smith's forces are quietly acting against UCP rebels who want to kick her out of office. It's happening in battles for riding nominations as well as party board elections at the UCP convention Nov. 27 to 29. This is heating up fast. Smith simply can't...
There’s a fantasy among some Alberta separatists that Quebec separatists are their friends. Not likely. They are risky company for an Alberta politician of any stripe. As Premier Danielle Smith visits Quebec for friendly talks with the new premier, Christine Frechette, she knows who to avoid. It’s much noted in Quebec that the separatist Parti Quebecois could win a provincial...
Steven Guilbeault is gone, but, oh, the wreckage he leaves behind. No single politician, apart from ex-prime minister Justin Trudeau, did more to create today’s separatist movement in this province. The former environment minister’s extremist climate policies, coupled with massive expansion of federal power, imprinted a fixed belief that Liberal Ottawa despises Alberta and can never be trusted.
The battle for the heart of the UCP is finally on. Premier Danielle Smith’s ministers and MLAs are firing out messages to current and former party members. It’s time to take the UCP back from the fringe separatists. That’s the theme.
Premier Danielle Smith was taking heat from other western premiers over separatism Tuesday when an astonishing statement hit the airwaves. The president of the UCP, Rob Smith (no relation), said the governing party will not take a stand on whether Alberta should separate or not. That’s Danielle Smith’s party. The one
Premier Danielle Smith’s referendum question could get slammed to a halt by Ottawa. “This is a very dangerous bluff,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday, in a powerful put-down of Smith’s referendum question. That’s the quote everybody noticed. More consequential was his statement that Ottawa will review Smith’s two-pronged question to see if it conforms to the federal Clarity Act...
After weeks of agonizing, Premier Danielle Smith has come up with her own referendum question. This weird, unworkable puzzler was unveiled Thursday evening in her speech to the province.
Events suddenly stacked up Wednesday into a pre-summer political blast. Top of the heap was two resignations from cabinet. Then came a bitter blow-up in the legislature committee reviewing Thomas Lukaszuk’s pro-Canada question for a referendum on independence. The cabinet shuffle had been rumoured. It turned out to be significant. Premier Danielle Smith will name new ministers Thursday morning.
A pro-Canada independence referendum question may head for approval Wednesday. The separatists hate the question and threaten revenge. The proponent, Thomas Lukaszuk, is engaged in his own political brawl with the UCP. On Tuesday, Premier Danielle Smith was considering a televised address to the province, probably on Thursday, to talk about a referendum.
Smith may have set up this province for decades of economic gains
The political ground in Alberta could shift radically in the next few days. Premier Danielle Smith will finally have a weapon to slap down separatism. The separatist leaders, meanwhile, are also doing an excellent job of slapping down separatism. A pipeline and economic deal with Ottawa is widely expected.
There is only one way Alberta leaders’ contempt for Canada makes any sense. They don’t think they need Canada because, as David Parker says, 'we have America backing us'
In this province, there’s a significant group of extremists who don’t believe laws apply to them. The extent of this destructive, dangerous nihilism is revealed with the appalling misuse of data by a separatist-linked group that exposes detailed personal information of 2.9 million Albertans. The separatists continue to ridicule the authorities while Elections Alberta investigates the massive data flip from...
The real battle is inside the UCP. Alberta’s separatist drive isn’t really a fight for the future of Canada. It’s a battle for the United Conservative Party. The latest polling from Janet Brown, commissioned by the CBC, shows separatist support is stuck at 27 per cent, while 67 per cent will vote against leaving Canada.
How much more Liberal raiding and spending and winning can Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre survive? Maybe very little. Three byelection losses Monday night are a further humiliation. Prime Minister Mark Carney took quick advantage.
Sarnia Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu backed the trucker blockade in Ottawa, along with a bill that would force floor-crossers to quit and run again. On Wednesday, however, she crossed the floor to become a newly-minted Liberal for Prime Minister Mark Carney — the fifth of her kind. There’s no quit in this politician. A less obvious Liberal than Gladu you...
The federal NDP, now run by cis male Avi Lewis, showed us two kinds of crazy at their leadership convention on the weekend. First, there was social crazy, with arguments over whose victimized identity deserved time at the mic. Delegates who have identified with the same gender assigned at birth — “cis” people — didn’t have much chance. Then came...
The prospect of Alberta leaving Canada is such a hot topic that the other potential “leavers” have been overlooked.
The Conservatives gave 87.4 per cent support to a leader whose popularity lags far behind the party itself.
Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a great campaign speech Thursday. The only thing missing was the election. Might a snap federal vote be coming? Probably not, but it must be tempting for the Liberals. One symptom is obvious. They’re already road-testing their campaign pitch. At the start of a cabinet retreat in Quebec City, Carney gave a long pep talk...
Premier Danielle Smith isn't personally challenged at this UCP convention, but still faces blowback from separatists and recall campaigns. Every United Conservative Party annual convention is odd in its own way, but this one is truly special. Article content Premier Danielle Smith faces pressure from separatists at the gathering in Edmonton this weekend. Recall campaigns are also a challenge for...
CPC Leader Pierre Poilievre’s leadership review will go down on the former site of Stampede Wrestling. That may be appropriate. Article content The storied grappler nights rumbled for decades in the old Stampede Corral. It was demolished in 2020-21 to make way for the new BMO Centre. Thousands of Conservative Party of Canada delegates will pour in there Jan. 29-31...
While preaching calm, Smith gives full legitimacy to a debate that could tear this province apart
That was the craziest election yet, and it wasn’t even over on Day 1 after the voting. The numbers were still changing Tuesday afternoon. The Liberals picked up a Bloc Quebecois-leaning seat, raising their total to 169, three short of a majority.
Surprisingly absent from the debate was major focus on U.S. President Donald Trump. His offences were just one of many themes
If Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have one goal today, it should be to get Danielle Smith to stay home and shut up. The premier seriously damaged the Conservative campaign right out of the gate, with comments linking leader Pierre Poilievre to Trump’s America.
That’s inevitable when her main political agenda is sovereignty within Canada or (in the suspicious eyes of some) outside Canada. Article content With the tariff fiasco looming and Smith spending so much time in the U.S. — even hobnobbing with President Donald Trump — critics wondered what she was up to. It wasn’t hard to find cries of treason on...
Smith says the Americans think our border and even our financial system are damaging for them in other ways — and she feels they have a point. Politicians across the land keep saying our border isn’t so bad, at least compared to the U.S. frontier with Mexico. Premier Danielle Smith believes that’s a mistake in the ongoing tariff dispute with...
That’s no cabinet. It’s a Palace Guard for a leader on his way to the getaway limo. The ministers appointed Friday are the hard knot of the remaining Justin Trudeau loyalists, but even they looked like they were gagging on expressions of eternal loyalty to the prime minister. The change many Albertans were hoping for — the exit of Environment...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau could probably slide down every chimney in Canada, tossing gifts to all, without improving his political standing by a single point. In October, when they were starting to half-bake this tax holiday, the party had 22 per cent.
Thank you, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canada needed a belly laugh and you came through. Axing the GST on Christmas trees is so shameless, so hilariously cheesy, so predictably Trudeau, that one can only hoot at this latest effort to climb out of the political pit he dug for the Liberals.
The Liberal Party of Canada can’t even raise a decent revolt against its wildly unpopular prime minister — another sign of drop-dead decay. Polls show that the only way the Liberals can win another election, or even hope to be the official opposition, is to get rid of Justin Trudeau. But where is the grand old Liberal machine, that ruthless...
Premier Danielle Smith continues to play to the noisiest bleachers on the hard-line side of the United Conservative Party. The latest is her talk about three new amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights. They would guarantee gun ownership with “safe use,” clarify property ownership protections and enshrine the right to refuse any and all medical treatment, including vaccines.
Canada edged closer to an early election Monday night – two ridings closer. The Liberals showed once again that they can’t win an urban seat. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, this party is on the verge of electoral obliteration. The Liberals prove they can lose not just anywhere, but everywhere. Impossible as this might seem for Canada’s so called national...
Chickens with their heads cut off run around in circles. In politics, the federal Liberals are starting to exhibit this post-mortem behaviour. Their electoral chances are as good as dead, and their head, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seems only tenuously attached to his party. Article content Still, they dash around crazily, patching this and launching that, all while sticking to...
Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is quiet and elusive about a potential run for the provincial NDP leadership. That’s because it’s not easy being orange, especially when you’ve always been purple. Article content We should hear from Nenshi on March 11. He can be expected to run — if the party accepts him, that is. For an NDP outsider, it...
This is the first time Smith has uttered a word of criticism about Parker Well, finally. Premier Danielle Smith tore into Take Back Alberta Leader David Parker Tuesday, urging him to “get some help.” Article content She condemned his “bullying” comments about Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife Anaida. “I just don’t want to be associated with that kind...
Barely a day after begging forgiveness from his followers, Parker posted the tweet about Poilievre and his wife. It’s long past time for Premier Danielle Smith to disown David Parker, the unrestrained, frequently unhinged leader of Take Back Alberta. But will she? It’s not so easy when Parker praises her to the skies, even as he offensively slags federal Conservative...
A battle of insults on social media shows how far we’ve descended into personal invective as a political weapon. All too often the attacks are based on surface qualities — race, gender, sexuality, weight, age, attractiveness.
One of many effects is to drive moderate progressives into the arms of Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives