Alberta Premier: Sorry About My History Of Batshittery

CTV News reports:

In her address to Albertans on Tuesday, Premier Danielle Smith admitted she is “far from perfect” and said she can “make mistakes” – though she hasn’t yet said which mistakes or positions she was referring to. “Having spent decades in media and hosting talk shows I discussed hundreds of different topics and sometimes took controversial positions, many of which have evolved or changed as I’ve grown and learn from listening to you,” Smith said in her address.

“But I know I’m not a talk show host or a media commentator any longer. That’s not my job today. My job today is to serve each and every Albertan with everything I have, and to the best of my ability, however imperfect that may be at times.” From saying cancer patients can do more to prevent their disease from progressing to Stage 4, to referring to unvaccinated people as the “most discriminated group” she’s witnessed in her lifetime, to justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – Smith has upset many Albertans.

The CBC reports:



It’s not just the scattered thoughts of her past. This is who Danielle Smith is, or at least has been up until this moment— a Margaret Thatcher-worshipping libertarian who absorbs ideas from all manner of different corners, who likes to cast doubt on “mainstream narrative” and what’s established as the consensus.

Meanwhile, the premier brings up constantly that federal environment minister Steven Guilbeault used to be a tower-scaling Greenpeace activist. That was in 2001. Smith would have us believe that this Liberal leopard cannot change his spots, while Albertans need not to pay heed to her words from last summer.

But is she asking Albertans to do the opposite, to blanket disregard everything she’s said or written before? Does the slate get wiped clean as of her swearing-in on Oct. 6, and do we render null and void all the positions she took before and the controversial voices she championed that helped persuade United Conservative activists and vaccine skeptics to vote for her?