Calgary Sun Letters to the Editor, Jan. 26: ‘The problem with Smith’

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Smith letting us down

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I’m concerned about how Premier Smith is governing Alberta. There are a lot of issues I believe a lot of people are concerned about. When rents were starting to escalate, she did not put a rent cap like all the other provinces did, putting more people on the street than ever. She didn’t raise the minimum wage when all the other provinces did and we live in one of the most expensive provinces in Canada. This makes life so much harder for a lot of people to survive. Her attitude about school class sizes is ridiculous. She doesn’t think there should be a cap on how many students should be in a classroom. This attitude burns out teachers, and the students don’t learn as well as they can because there isn’t enough time to help every student. This will harm children’s ability to get into university when they can’t obtain good enough marks to qualify. The medical institute is also suffering terribly when critical patients are left in hallways for 16 or more hours. Suffering is not acceptable or patients sent home without properly diagnosing the problem because there isn’t enough time to do a proper diagnosis and they die at home, which is what recently happened to the father of someone I know. The newest slap in the face is the government will not cover the cost of oxygen unless your oxygen level is below 55%. By this time, a lot of a person’s major organs will start to shut down leaving a person in worse condition than when they started. This is what just happened to my wife. We are seniors and can’t afford to purchase the oxygen, so now my wife has to suffer. It’s obvious Premier Smith is trying to privatize the health-care system, which would mean the rich can get medical help because they can afford it, and the poor, seniors and anyone else who’s suffering financially will suffer and die. While all the things she has done since she was elected is for the rich, the rest of us, which is the majority, she doesn’t really care too much about. It would be nice to get someone in government who cares about everybody.

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DAVE WARD

(While it would be tough to find a conservative politician backing things like rent-caps, most seem to agree something serious needs to happen in the area of health care)

Over the top

Ian Maclean’s letter (‘Carney the man,’ Letters to the Editor, Sun, Jan. 22) was an exercise in excessive flattery and a fawning that was off the scale of acceptable appreciation. The editors are correct that Maclean is welcome to his opinion, but my opinion of Mark Carney is that he is someone who is an absolutist, says one thing and does another, his business acumen was how to use Brookfield to corner the market on government green subsidies. Carney has admitted to pressuring the U.K. government to pass legislation that would require airlines to use a bio-fuel and the main supplier of that fuel was a company that Brookfield was heavily invested. In the end it made Carney and Brookfield a lot of money and he’s still doing it as prime minister. PM Carney’s Davos speech was everything Maclean mentioned in his letter. Carney was at home with his globalist peers and acted the tough guy in front of his friends. The following day President Trump put Carney in his place and pointed out the flaws in Carney’s New World Order. We all know Justin Trudeau admired communist China’s basic dictatorship. Carney loves it and is making a Chinese junkload of money and Canadians will suffer because of it.

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JEFFREY ANDERSON

(Carney’s involvement with Brookfield and his investments in general have been pretty heavily scrutinized. He would point out his work with Brookfield took place after the Bank of England and before his run for the Liberal leadership)

Easier to leave

Putting your feelings about Trump and pure speculation of the U.S. taking us over aside, let’s look at why we won’t be able to move Canada to the position you desire. Fair and equal representation. Alberta, and the west as a whole is under-represented in the House of Commons, the Senate and the judiciary of the Supreme Court. Using the Senate as an example, P.E.I., Nova Scotia and New Brunswick get 10 seats each, total 30. Ontario and Quebec get 24 seats each. Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba get six seats each. Comparing just Alberta to those three Atlantic provinces using 2024 census numbers, the combined total population of those three provinces is 2,109,279. The population of Alberta is 4,980,659. The Atlantic provinces get 30 seats to six with less than half the population of Alberta. Note I did not include Newfoundland, as they only joined confederation in the 1950s and only get four seats. The discrepancy is similar in the House of Commons and the judiciary in terms of population per seat. This is why federal elections are over before Alberta has finished counting ballots and why only the Atlantic provinces received a carbon tax break for heating oil. To correct this discrepancy, constitutional change or reform would be required. To change the constitution the following is required: 7 of 10 provinces, 50% of the population, must agree. Both the House of Commons and the Senate must vote in favour of the change. Quebec is the only province with a veto and that must be overcome. The final step is approval by a PMO-appointed Supreme Court. It is much easier for us to leave the country than it is to change the constitution for fair and equal representation.

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BILL GRANT, Edmonton

(Perhaps easier to leave, but then the really difficult work would be only beginning)

No time for Trudeau

Trudeau babbled about Canada’s soft power at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He and anyone who actually listened to his nonsense must be soft in the head.

JOANNE and WAYNE MORCOM

(Tough to imagine his words carry much weight anymore)

Carney’s contrived persona

Here at home our PM fancies himself as a champion of the little guy as he defers all his hard decisions to whomever seems to want to oppose nation-building projects and thus helping fulfil his self-serving agenda. I doubt this weakness of leadership will apply to the little guy in China who opposes their government. As he goes to China, hat in hand for a cup of spare parts, his contrived ‘elbows-up’ persona will be on full display.

PHILL BARKER

(Don’t think many folks are buying him as ‘a champion of the little guy’)

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