Danielle Smith wants to believe
Danielle Smith wants to believe
Alberta's premier says she hasn't seen any evidence of chemtrails, but she's keeping an open mind.
On Sept. 28, Edmonton-based journalist Katie Teeling wrote a detailed Twitter thread of a local town hall with Premier Danielle Smith and 500 members of the ruling United Conservative Party.
Smith faces a leadership review at the party’s annual general meeting in Red Deer on Nov. 1 and 2, so she’s been traversing the province as of late rallying the party faithful in support of her continued premiership.
There’s one tweet in particular from Teeling’s thread that I want to hone in on for what it reveals about how conservative politicians navigate a base that is increasingly detached from reality.
During the event’s Q&A portion, an attendee asks Smith about chemtrails, the conspiracy theory that the government and/or private interests are spraying chemicals in the sky as a means of mind control.
The premier says she asked the person who controls the capital city’s airspace about chemtrails and they assured her that nobody is spraying chemicals over Edmonton.
(Imagine being a fly on the wall for that conversation.)
Twitter account @disorderedyyc posted a minute-long video of Smith’s response, which shows the fuller extent of her non-denial.
“[An]other person told me that if anyone is doing it, it’s the U.S. Department of Defense,” said Smith. “I don’t know that I would have much power if that was the case.”
The premier promised to “do what I can to investigate,” but emphasized that she’s found “no evidence that there’s any private sector company involved.”
“I’m kind of dead-ended here. If you have some special lead that you want to give me afterwards, please let me know and I’ll track it down,” she said.
Smith promised to do just about everything short of putting Fox Mulder and Dana Scully on the case, but that evidently wasn’t good enough for many attendees, who responded by booing her.
This exchange reminded me of a passage from journalist Stephen Maher’s new-ish book, The Prince: The Turbulent Reign of Justin Trudeau, which is fresh in my mind after finishing the book yesterday.
In the chapter detailing federal Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre’s ascendancy to the party leadership, Maher explains how Poilievre and his wife, Anaida, navigate his more conspiracy-minded supporters’ concerns.
Maher describes a video that circulated on TikTok of an exchange with supporters outside the Elks Lodge in North Bay, Ont., in April 2022. A supporter, who said she drove four hours to meet him, asked Poilievre whether he’s confronted Trudeau about the claim that he’s made millions of dollars from vaccines, which she read about online.
Poilievre didn’t question the veracity of her claim, but simply said that, no, he hadn’t.
“The woman went on,” Maher continues on page 291:
“I have heard you have shares in that company. Stepping away from her husband, Anaida took the woman’s hand and gazed into her eyes. “I do not, darling,” she said. “I really do not.” The crowd applauded. “I hope to God that’s true,” the woman said. “I hope you guys are who we think you are.”
The video provided a behind-the-scenes look at Poilievre’s cultivation of what we might call disinformed Canadians. Standing in front of the lodge that day, Poilievre fielded questions about Bill Gates, the World Economic Forum, all elements of the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory—the claim that elites are using the pandemic to collapse the world’s economy and install a tyrannical global government. He parried and deflected, explaining away a 2015 photo with Gates by saying that the Microsoft co-founder was simply visiting Parliament. His answers seemed to satisfy the group, but what he didn’t do is contradict their mistaken beliefs or try to convince them that it is silly to worry about the World Economic Forum or Bill Gates injecting people with microchips. He was enthusiastically harnessing the energy of deluded people who get their ideas from social media fever swamps.
Poilievre’s approach of not denying conspiracy theories but calmly reassuring their supporters that they’re not involved in them in any capacity helped him, in Maher’s words, “ride that tiger to the leadership of his party,” just as it did for Smith.
But now Smith’s in power and, if consistent polling is any indicator, Poilievre will be too in the next year or so.
It’s one thing to rile up a conspiracy-addled base for the purposes of achieving power. But as former Alberta premier Jason Kenney learned the hard way, once you’re in power, these same people expect results.
We’ll find out next month to what extent the Edmonton crowd who booed Smith for her lack of action on chemtrails are satisfied with some of her other conspiracy theory driven policies.
The A/V Corner
Listen: Let’s Talk Native released an episode for Orange Shirt Day, or National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.
Host John Kane is from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in Quebec and lives on occupied Seneca Territory in upstate New York. While the episode focuses largely on the U.S. side of Turtle Island, all his critiques of the Biden administration’s empty symbolism and political failures on Indigenous issues are easily applicable to Canada.