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There are two kinds of political weeks.
Type One: a normal week... where a government messes something up, apologizes, and then quietly tries to fix it before anyone notices.
Type Two: this week... where Alberta’s premier faces a citizen-led recall petition for the first time in nearly 90 years, and the United States releases a “National Security Strategy” that sounds like it was written by a guy who thinks “manifesto” is just a spicy synonym for “vision statement.”
Let’s start in Alberta, where Danielle Smith is now officially in the recall zone. And the best part... is that the recall law was brought back by the UCP. Which is like installing a trap door in your own kitchen because you think it’ll catch raccoons, then acting shocked when you disappear during breakfast.
The recall threshold is brutal: you’ve got three months to collect signatures from 60% of the voters in the riding. In Smith’s case, that’s just over 12,000 names. Which is both a lot of people... and also not a lot of people, considering this is how many humans it takes to start the process of unseating a sitting premier.
And when the government’s response is to mutter about “shadowy foreign actors,” it’s hard not to hear the subtext: “The only way regular Albertans would be mad at us is if they were secretly controlled by a villain with a swivel chair.”
Now, down south, the U.S. drops a 33-page National Security Strategy under Trump’s second term. It’s America First, border control as destiny, tariffs as personality, and a whole lot of “everyone else is in decline.” Europe gets described like a civilization with a low battery warning. The “Western hemisphere” gets mentioned like it’s a fenced backyard. And Canada—barely named—still gets the strong implication of: don’t worry, little buddy, we’ll tell you what to do.
Then there’s the tourism cherry on top: visitors from many visa-required countries now have to hand over five years of social media history. Five years. That’s not “entry requirements.” That’s a background check for a reality show called So You Think You Can Cross The Border.
Canada’s move is pretty clear: we need economic snow tires. Diversify trade. Build resilience. Stop assuming the neighbour will stay friendly just because he used to borrow your ladder.
Because right now... he’s not borrowing it.
He’s measuring your driveway.
And grinning.
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Find the audio podcast here: https://pod.link/1730993828
Find the full-video version here: https://www.youtube.com/@PoliticsIsBroken
