Apology and choice
Side A. Apology.
The number, which some have been wondering about, is 20%. That was the cost of the Story. In the past month, starting from its publication on Feb 25, the bakery has lost twenty percent of its customers.
This is unprecedented. The ‘gay donuts’ in 2018, the petitions, the recalls, the ‘Not Danielle’ buttons; the Pride flags, the blackboard, the fundraisers, the Canada Day cakes; the city council revolt, the sanctions, the subsequent election, the very sharp attacks I launched against some councillors and candidates - none of my commentary during any of that had any effect on sales, good or bad, that I could detect. Not until I published the Story.
I’ve clearly crossed a line. I didn’t know where it was, but everyone knows I was looking, and I found it.
///
Egotistically, it’s tempting to look at the number and say “20%? Isn’t that how many Albertans are separatists? So all that’s happened is I’ve lost the separatists? That’s a shame, but not surprising. All things considered.”
But it’s not that simple, or that easy. I owe Crestwood School an apology.
///
Of course I knew the story was upsetting - I cried several times writing it. I should have paid attention to that clue. I never cry, and I should have taken it as a warning rather than an affirmation. I’m sorry I missed that.
I published it without guardrails. I could have found more respectful and compassionate ways to make my point, and chose not to. I’m sorry for that.
During the month I was writing the story I kept revising it. It started in past tense and sounded weak. Halfway through I went back and changed the whole tense to present. Use short sentences, cut out description. Focus on action, speed the plot up. Use violence to grab the reader by the heart. Then use more. Turn it up.
All that emotional energy was unfairly focused on one innocent community, Crestwood School. It’s not fair for me to say “It’s just a story” when it was THAT kind of story. It was disrespectful of me to use the School and the members of its community in that way, especially with no warning or consultation. I’m sorry I did that.
I timed it badly, defying the news cycle instead of respecting it. The story was just about finished around Tumbler Ridge time, so I put it on a shelf for a week while that played out. But the story was also dependant on Minneapolis for context. After a month in the spotlight, Minneapolis was dropping out of its top position in the headlines. If I waited any longer, people would forget and I’d have to insert some dull introduction before getting into the story.
I rushed it out. That was a mistake.
Omitting the dull introduction was also a mistake. I thought about a trigger warning. I tried a few intro lines out, but I was in love with the impact of jumping right in with “Sandy was out front planting flowers when the ICE trucks rolled up…”. I deliberately constructed the final post to maximize emotional impact. I was too proud of the story - I wanted it to be a hit, and that decision caused a lot of pain, and I’m sorry for that.
I apologize for the story.
(Readers may choose the TLDR exit now, if they wish. If you would like to join us for Side B, the trigger warnings are covid, convoy, vaccine, Trump, Smith)
///
Side B: Choice
Danielle Smith has allocated $30 million to getting her new provincial force set up and recruitment started. No one asked for this, but she’s doing it anyway.
And she’s doing it, like she does everything, for the sake of the Separatists. “What else are you fellas gonna need when you bust out of Canada? Gonna need your own military, aren’t ya? Well, here, let me get that started for you.”
Danielle says she’s for a united Canada, so Why are all the separatist influencers so absolutely behind Danielle? Because she’s moving their cause forward. It doesn’t matter what she says, it matters what she does, what she IS doing. What she’s doing is giving them her party, putting the the UCP at their disposal.
We have said No to Danielle’s provincial police force in every survey, but she’s doing it anyway. WTF? What part of “No” hasn’t she understood? We’d be idiots to give her this.
///
The blackboard in the bakery says “My Body, My Choice”. It’s there as a pro-choice statement, and as part of the messaging around consent; I am a progressive, after all.
It applies to vaccination, too. People have to be free to refuse vaccinations. It’s a bodily autonomy issue. If we sent uniformed goons out to round people up and inject them against their will in 2021 that would have been state violence. We didn’t do that, but we came too close.
In the second year of covid we created two classes of citizens. Vaccinated parents could go inside the rink to watch their kids’ hockey practice, unvaccinated parents couldn’t. Vaccinated flight attendants could go to work, unvaccinated ones had to sit at home. And so on. That was an awful thing to do, and we’ve never apologized for it. If you have a really good reason to shut down communities and businesses, it has to be done fairly, and if there’s no way to do that, or no agreement on what ‘fair’ means, then don’t do it. The unvaccinated were persecuted, turned into second-class citizens, and we used state power to do it.
Where it finally snapped was a policy of preventing unvaccinated truck drivers from crossing in and out of the US. It was a terrible law, and when the first trucks started rolling they had a legitimate grievance against it.
That the Ottawa occupation got out of hand was our fault. All we had to do that first afternoon when they rolled into the capital was go talk to them. Just put on your toque and your mitts and go out there and talk to them. But we had the wrong guy: Justin Trudeau was a terrible prime minister, and he handled the convoy ineptly. We can acknowledge that the 6-week occupation was awful (although the hot tubs and raves looked cool), but we should admit that the only reason it dragged on like that is because Trudeau failed to deal with it properly from the beginning.
The convoy wasn’t violent. We were. They were cleared out by cops with riot gear and horses.
Looking at Trump and Smith and their gang of Separatists, it’s easy to focus on their lies, harder to find their truth. They have some truths though: there’s no denying that state violence was used against them in Ottawa four years ago.
So it’s ok that some people want out. Remember when Michaela Frey gave up her seat so Danielle Smith could have Brooks-Medicine Hat? Gwen and Barry got what little spotlight she left them, but there WAS a candidate for the Alberta Independence Party in that by-election, plus one for the Wildrose Independence Party. Between them they got about 2% of the vote. Where are they now?
They got 2% of the vote because we weren’t voting for independence: we were voting Conservative, or at least we thought we were.
If the Separatists want to form political parties and run candidates and face elections then I’m all for it. What I cannot go along with is the way Danielle Smith and the Separatists took over the UCP, scooped up the title “Conservative” to get themselves democratically elected, and then dragged us into Separatist hell calling it democracy.
For heaven’s sake, there are separatists going to Washington to talk with mini-Trump dudes about Alberta’s future with the US. How is it that a few unelected screwballs think it’s ok to go talk with foreign governments about breaking up our country? Who elected them? Who do they represent?
Simple answer: they represent Danielle Smith and the UCP. They wouldn’t be able to do what they’re doing without the cover they get from her.
///
My politics these days suffers from not being FOR anything, I’m only AGAINST Danielle Smith. But this is an existential threat. When an asteroid is heading for earth you don’t run around trying to convince people how great life could be if the asteroid doesn’t hit. No, you saddle up and do all you can to blow it out of the sky.
I’m not for the NDP. If I had my way they wouldn’t even run a candidate in Brooks-Medicine Hat this time. I’m not for the Liberals either. What I’m for is anything or anyone that can eliminate the existential threat to Alberta and Canada. I’ve got high hopes for Peter Guthrie and the PCs, but I haven’t learned enough to really be for them yet. In normal times my progressive values and preference for high public spending on high quality health and education would move my vote. But right now there’s an existential threat to the existence of our country. That threat is Danielle Smith and the UCP.
I’m sorry for the vaccine passports and for Trudeau and the Emergency Act. I’m sorry state violence was used against you. The rush to put covid behind us left too many wounds unhealed.
You are owed an apology. But you aren’t owed a province.
