Alberta!

We built this podcast for progressives who want to immigrate to Canada.  But then your child idiot president legally lost the election in November.  Joey Biden moved into the people's house and turned out to be much more progressive than we ever thought!  Who knew? 

Why would progressive want to leave the US now?  You got the keys to the candy store!  Well that's all fine and dandy but we still have a podcast to do here people.  So we rebranded. We would like to invite Republicans to immigrate to Canada's most conservative place, Alberta!  Where the right wings come with free health care!

Transcript

EPISODE 23 “ALBERTA”  by Matt Zimbel [c] 2021

Canada Curious, This, is the Yes, We Canada Podcast. The progressives guide to getting the fuck out.  This episode, Alberta. 

Hello, bonjour, I’m Matt Zimbel in Montreal.

On the podcast today we continue our mission to find you a place to live in Canada that is, of course, once you decide to… love it and leave it.  Today we’re going to introduce you to Alberta!

I think it would be fair to ask why today’s show is about Alberta. For the last few episodes we’ve been out east talking New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador and then all of a sudden we head west, skip  4 provinces  and end up in  Alberta. 

Easy.  Honestly, Alberta is a super fun place to talk about. And since I am boss of the podcast, I can do what I want and you?  you can download a map and start to study a little harder for your citizenship test. 

Just as she has done for the 23 previous episodes of Yes, We Canada, our announcer, the extremely talented Toronto based voice actor Lisa Evans concludes her weekly welcome with this tag line…

“the progressives guide to getting the fuck out.”

Well, that line that was written during the administration of your child idiot president Donald J. 

But now, our American progressives have Joe Bidin in the people’s house, and he’s on a bit of a progressive tear himself, much to all of our collective surprises.

Let’s face it, the man is doing crazy batshit stuff – he’s going full Soviet on us…like making sure Americans have health care during a pandemic and that children get meals before going to school.  And now he wants to make sure that Black people are allowed to have water while waiting for hours in line to cast their vote in Georgia!  

Can you believe this? Outrageous!  Left-wing, cancel culture. Plus, he’s going to waste your hard-earned money fixing your crumbling roads and bridges. Please!  

My boy Moscow Mitch McConnel calls it the radical left agenda!  But it has given us pause here at YWC.  … We built this podcast for progressives who want to immigrate to Canada.  But why would a progressive want to leave America now – the candy store is open!  

So, we’ve decided to rebrand the show.

Stand by to cue Lisa and cue announce:

Lisa:  Canada Curious?  This is the Yes, We Canada Podcast The Rednecks guide to gettin’ the fuck out.  Sombitch. Yaaaaaaahooooooooo!  Trump 2024!  Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up! Lock her up.

Oh dear, I may have triggered something there. 

For this episode only, we are going address American conservatives and tell ‘em why they might consider moving to Alberta.  

Alberta is in western Canada and it’s where the three ‘c’s” rule:  Crude, Cattle and Conservatism. Or the three B’s –Bituman, Beef and Bullshit.  Basically, Alberta is like your Texas with a dash of gun control, free health care and no sales tax!  

…compared to your Trumpy Q-anon batshit brothers and sisters, our Alberta conservatives are more like Dwight Eisenhower. Remember Dwight?  Number 34…  I like Ike! 

Well Alberta conservatives?  They like small government, big oil and they don’t like Prime Minister Trudeau’s colourful girly boy socks.  Every once in while they get super pissed at some far-left Lib Tard proposal and they start screamin’ about wanting to separate from Canada … Just like Texas sometimes wants to separate from the United States, although I believe you called it succeed – if at first you don’t succeed try try a gun. Or something like that.

Alberta conservatives tend to be traditionalists, but not like rabid social conservative fundamentalists.  The remarkable singer kd lang started out singing country, she was the pride of Edmonton, Alberta.  And then she came out as a lesbian…  Albertans were cool with it– we love you Kathy Dawn.  But then, she came out as a vegetarian and that shit went south and quick.  Do whatever you want in your bedroom but back off the beef girl! 

We’re going to put politics on pause for just a second because I have to let you know that Alberta is freakin’ beautiful…Rockies…just breath taking – they have Banff National Park where elks just mosey down the main street of Banff. 

The mountains are majestic.   It’s a rite of passage for Canadian young people from coast to coast to coast to go to Banff for the summer and labour in the big resort hotels during the day and party their faces off at night, making Banff, the herpes capital of Canada. Well, I don’t think that will be on the citizenship test but it’s probably a good thing for you to know if the citizenship judge starts firing impromptu questions your way before asking you to raise your right hand and say some nice shit about the Queen...

Um, herpes your honour?

Welcome to Canada, great answer son.

Edmonton, Alberta’s capital city has a few nicknames;  “Deadmonton”  for one which speaks to the level of civic excitement.  Edmonton’s other nick name is Redmonton.  If Alberta is our Texas, then Edmonton is your Austin.  You know how y’all put all your commies in what you call “Hippie Haven” aka Austin. …well Edmonton is where we put all our lefties … Marxville St. at the corner of Maotown and Lenin Cresent. 

Calgary and Edmonton are the two largest cities in Alberta.  They’re a good three-hour drive apart, and of course they are very competitive… in fact their competitive streak even has a proper name – it’s called the Battle of Alberta.  Hockey, Football, Politics. Food, you name it. 

Calgary is more like Houston without the HipHop. Lots of petrol companies. And the good thing about that is, if you are moving to Calgary to start your new multi-national…there is a shit ton of really nice, cheap office space available since the oil market tanked. 

The mayor of Calgary is a Muslim!  His name is Naheed Nenshi and he arrived in 

Canada in his mama’s belly when she immigrated from Tanzania.  He’s the first Muslim 

mayor of a major North American City and he’s also the first Canadian mayor to win the 

World Mayor Prize in London in 2014. His is a pretty remarkable story because he is quite a progressive mayor, he’s in his third term with huge approval ratings in a very conservative city. Now I know you don’t come to Yes, We Canada for breaking news, but we got some. 

 Neenshi announced this week that he is not going to seek a fourth term! 

This big news was announced on Wednesday, we record on Fridays, we post on Tuesdays, so by the time you hear this, our breaking news is 6 days old…more like live history…but as an American I know that you pay attention to no one but yourselves, so I’m sure this bit of breaking news would be exciting, if you cared about anyone else, which you don’t.  

To my conservative friends thinking about immigrating to Alberta – you’ll be happy to know that Mayor Nenshi is moving on –because he’s not your kinda guy.   He’s all about equity and justice, a guy who does not heal to the corporate interests. He was the Grand Marshall of the Calgary Pride Parade – first mayor in Calgary to ever do that. But you know, he was also a supporter of the Keystone XL pipeline…so…it would sicken him to hear me say this, but he has some right-wing cred.

A fun fact about Alberta for conservatives is that until 2015 it was kinda like one party rule. The Conservative Party was in power uninterrupted for 44 years, the longest serving democratically elected party in history.  Can you imagine doing anything uninterrupted for 44 years…talkin’ to you Vlad Putin. And before the conservatives were in power the right-wing Social Credit party controlled the joint for 36 years for a total of 80 years of uninterrupted right-wing rule…Buddy this is your kind place, your place at the Calgary Rotary Club awaits…

But as the conservative party remained in power for decades, can I get some scary music in here Chris… great thanks….they began to lose sight of the little people and then the little people threw the bums out and in one of the most stunning reversals in Canadian political history, Albertans elected a woman from the leftist New Democratic Party…which would be like Bernie Sanders winning the governorship of Alabama if he was named Bernice Sanders and was more of a leftist.   

For both of my right-wing listeners, allow me to comfort you, the leftist woman has since been defeated, though now the leftist woman sits as the leader of the Loyal Opposition.  Her name is Rachael Notley. She was a lawyer who took her party from 4 seats to 54 seats, formed the government and ended the 80-year reign of Alberta conservatism. 

I’m always a sucker for that moment when a politician who has overcome great odds is making their victory speech and looks skyward to thank a departed parent who never got to see them obtain this incredible prize.  Of course, I think of Obama who lost his grandma Toot, who raised him, just two days before he was elected the first Black President of the United States. 

Well for Rachael Notley, the moment she turned Alberta orange – oh, yeah, that’s the colour of the leftist NDP party, when the NDP has a landslide in Canada it’s called an “Orange Crush”.  When Racheal had her Orange Crush it must have been deeply emotional.  You see her dad, Grant Notley, was the leader of the New Democratic Party in Alberta until he died in a plane crash in 1984.  After decades of one-party rule, let’s face it, for the leader of the NDP was there really any realistic hope of forming a government in Alberta?  Nah.  And yet, she did it!  Papa would have been some proud. Oh yeah, and just so you know where Rachel got her pluck – her mama was one of youse guys, born and raised in Massachusetts.

Alas in the 2019 election the Alberta economy was in a tailspin because the price of oil was in the dumper.  Orange Crush Rachael was beaten by an ultra-conservative, former federal cabinet minister named Jason Kenney.  He’s a 52-year-old “confirmed bachelor”, who lived in his mother’s retirement home basement while he was a federal cabinet minister in the government of Stephen Harper.  Living in your mama’s basement as confirmed bachelor of course creates much chatter from the chattering classes about Mr. Kenney’s sexual preferences. In 2016 when he was leader of the opposition in Alberta, he took the position that parents should be informed by the school administration if their children join a “gay straight alliance club” at school. Fellow 

Albertan, singer songwriter kd Lang Tweeted at Kenney;

 “You’re gay, right?”  

Ouch. 

Right-wing American conservatives…come, come – you’ll be happy in Alberta. It’s the only right way you’ll ever get gun control and free health care. 

Ok, lets, move on to Saskatchewan before Jason Kenney’s lawyers get here.  See you next week.