Smith is a fucking nut job. Alberta has always had a raging hard on for oil and gas, but she takes it to the next level

For context, (progressive) conservatives have ruled Alberta for 40+ years. In the early 2000s an even more right wing group (Wildrose) stepped out onto the political stage. This was formed from a schism in the conservatives, where some people thought they were too progressive. The Wildrose drew conspiracy theorists and super right people like you wouldn't believe. They gave voice to the hard right which was lurking beneath the surface and somewhat tempered by the 'progessive' side of the progressive conservatives.

Eventually the two groups reunited, now with 100% more nut bar. After several clowns in government, and renditions of inept leadership, we eventually got the queen turd at the helm

Yeah I unfortunately live in Alberta and many of us are absolutely embarrassed by our provincial leadership. We almost voted them out in May, but we are still working through the problem of many old voters have always just blindly voted Conservative and never critically analyzed what was going on. As someone else said, these are not the same Conservatives we have always had and the Wildrose party merger put extremists in charge of the party. I'm hoping we can ride out these 4 years hopefully more or less in one piece and get these guys out later. The fact that they are trying to sneakily move us to private health care though and are actively doing things to drive young people away, like grossly inflating house prices to drive up boomers returns on their properties, makes me skeptical that I will still be living here come next election. Sadly this does not boad well for renewables in this province forsure and we will likely be living in denial that oil and gas will always be a dependable industry.

"We can be carbon neutral in 26 years" says 52 year old politician.

Why would anyone take Alberta seriously when it comes to fighting climate change? They are the Texas of the north. A measurable percentage of them tried to vote for Trump.