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UCP MLA says Albertans do not want Kenney 2.0

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Article submitted by Red Deer South MLA Jason Stephan

Time for Kenney to Put His Straw Men Away

Kenney wanted a new base. The base wanted a new leader. Despite Kenney’s political games seeking to manipulate his own democratic check and balance, he lost, and popular sovereignty won.

Popular sovereignty is the principle that the authority of government is created and sustained by the consent of its people. Benjamin Franklin expressed this principle as follows “free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns”.

Alberta needs more popular sovereignty, more checks and balances on the use and abuse of power. Kenney gave a “grassroots guarantee”. The grassroots said stand up to Ottawa. Kenney said “yes” and did “no”.

Kenney is a career politician. Soon he will be able to start receiving his Ottawa gold-plated pension at 55, much more than a hundred thousand each year, for the rest of his life. Kenney has a vested interest in the status quo.

What about Salma Lakhani, Alberta’s lieutenant governor? Prior to her appointment by Trudeau in 2020, she donated over $25,000 to the corrupt Trudeau Liberal party. Was she appointed because she was one of the largest, and only donors in Alberta, to Trudeau’s party? Is her obvious support for Trudeau, the worst prime minister in Canadian history, representative of Albertans? Like Kenney, she also chose to cast aspersions on a Sovereignty Act for Alberta, but she is a figurehead enjoying privilege of a political elite, also having a vested interest in the status quo.

Great leaders lead in love and inspire the best in those they serve. They remember the principles of popular sovereignty, that their position is only “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

In his leadership review, Kenney called the people of Alberta who disagreed with him “kooks”, “lunatics” and “bugs”. How did that work out for him?

Kenney is now calling the Sovereignty Act “nuts”, “cockamamie” and “catastrophically stupid”. Is that going to produce unity? No.

Kenney says he is “not endorsing or opposing a particular candidate”. We all know that is not true.

Kenney not only engages in patterns of name calling, but also patterns of saying one thing and doing something else. Many no longer trust Kenney.

Is Kenney thinking that if he cannot win, or his intended Kenney 2.0, then he will sabotage to try to make sure no one can?

Kenney is calling the Free Alberta Strategy, the organization who formulated the original version of an Alberta Sovereignty Act, a “far right extremist group”. I participated in some of their townhalls. So did Danielle Smith and Todd Loewen. So did some of my MLA colleagues seeking to protect Alberta businesses and families from Ottawa. Kenney sounds like Trudeau. Are we now part of a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views”?

Kenney knows it is inappropriate to intermeddle in the leadership race to replace him, so Kenney is trying to be sneaky, doing indirectly what he knows he should not do directly.

Isn’t Kenney acting like Trudeau? Doesn’t Ottawa seek to do indirectly, what constitutionally it is not allowed to do directly, such as with Alberta’s constitutional authority over its oil and gas resources? Didn’t Alberta’s Court of Appeal describe Trudeau’s carbon tax as a sneaky “constitutional trojan
horse”?

Isn’t Trudeau proposing a new carbon tax or cap and trade that singles out and disproportionately punishes Alberta? Wouldn’t that inflict more economic “chaos”, chasing out additional billions in investment and Alberta jobs with it? What is Kenney doing about it? Drafting a sternly worded letter?

Isn’t the purpose of the Sovereignty Act, to assert and defend constitutional parameters that Ottawa habitually ignores and attacks?

I know and respect each of the UCP leadership candidates. But Albertans do not want Kenney or a Kenney 2.0 and some of them need to take care to not act like Kenney, put the straw men away, and stop misrepresenting the Sovereignty Act and then attacking the worst version of it manufactured out of their misrepresentations, only existing in their minds. If Sovereignty Act is so bad, instead of fear mongering with straw men, let’s hear your ideas and solutions.

If candidates want to walk the talk on unity, stop looking the other way, and ask Kenney to do what he said he would do and be quiet. That will produce more unity and that is what Albertans want.

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2025 Federal Election

The Cost of Underselling Canadian Oil and Gas to the USA

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Canadians can now track in real time how much revenue the country is forfeiting to the United States by selling its oil at discounted prices, thanks to a new online tracker from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. The tracker shows the billions in revenue lost due to limited access to distribution for Canadian oil.

At a time of economic troubles and commercial tensions with the United States, selling our oil at a discount to U.S. middlemen who then sell it in the open markets at full price will rob Canada of nearly $19 billion this year, said Marco Navarro-Genie, the VP of Research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Navarro-Genie led the team that designed the counter.

The gap between world market prices and what Canada receives is due to the lack of Canadian infrastructure.

According to a recent analysis by Ian Madsen, senior policy analyst at the Frontier Centre, the lack of international export options forces Canadian producers to accept prices far below the world average. Each day this continues, the country loses hundreds of millions in potential revenue. This is a problem with a straightforward remedy, said David Leis, the Centre’s President. More pipelines need to be approved and built.

While the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline has helped, more is needed. It commenced commercial operations on May 1, 2024, nearly tripling Canada’s oil export capacity westward from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels daily. This expansion gives Canadian oil producers access to broader global markets, including Asia and the U.S. West Coast, potentially reducing the price discount on Canadian crude.

This is more than an oil story. While our oil price differential has long been recognized, there’s growing urgency around our natural gas exports. The global demand for cleaner energy, including Canadian natural gas, is climbing. Canada exports an average of 12.3 million GJ of gas daily. Yet, we can still not get the full value due to infrastructure bottlenecks, with losses of over $7.3 billion (2024). A dedicated counter reflecting these mounting gas losses underscores how critical this issue is.

“The losses are not theoretical numbers,” said Madsen. “This is real money, and Canadians can now see it slipping away, second by second.”

The Frontier Centre urges policymakers and industry leaders to recognize the economic urgency and ensure that infrastructure projects like TMX are fully supported and efficiently utilized to maximize Canada’s oil export potential. The webpage hosting the counter offers several examples of what the lost revenue could buy for Canadians. A similar counter for gas revenue lost through similarly discounted gas exports will be added in the coming days.

What Could Canada Do With $25.6 Billion a Year?

Without greater pipeline capacity, Canada loses an estimated (2025) $25.6 billion by selling our oil and gas to the U.S. at a steep discount. That money could be used in our communities — funding national defence, hiring nurses, supporting seniors, building schools, and improving infrastructure. Here’s what we’re giving up by underselling these natural resources. 

342,000 Nurses

The average annual salary for a registered nurse in Canada is about $74,958. These funds could address staffing shortages and improve patient care nationwide.
Source

39,000 New Housing Units

At an estimated $472,000 per unit (excluding land costs, based on Toronto averages), $25.6 billion could fund nearly 94,000 affordable housing units.
Source

About the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy is an independent Canadian think-tank that researches and analyzes public policy issues, including energy, economics and governance.

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Automotive

Hyundai moves SUV production to U.S.

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MXM logo MxM News

Quick Hit:

Hyundai is responding swiftly to 47th President Donald Trump’s newly implemented auto tariffs by shifting key vehicle production from Mexico to the U.S. The automaker, heavily reliant on the American market, has formed a specialized task force and committed billions to American manufacturing, highlighting how Trump’s America First economic policies are already impacting global business decisions.

Key Details:

  • Hyundai has created a tariffs task force and is relocating Tucson SUV production from Mexico to Alabama.

  • Despite a 25% tariff on car imports that began April 3, Hyundai reported a 2% gain in Q1 operating profit and maintained earnings guidance.

  • Hyundai and Kia derive one-third of their global sales from the U.S., where two-thirds of their vehicles are imported.

Diving Deeper:

In a direct response to President Trump’s decisive new tariffs on imported automobiles, Hyundai announced Thursday it has mobilized a specialized task force to mitigate the financial impact of the new trade policy and confirmed production shifts of one of its top-selling models to the United States. The move underscores the gravity of the new 25% import tax and the economic leverage wielded by a White House that is now unambiguously prioritizing American industry.

Starting with its popular Tucson SUV, Hyundai is transitioning some manufacturing from Mexico to its Alabama facility. Additional consideration is being given to relocating production away from Seoul for other U.S.-bound vehicles, signaling that the company is bracing for the long-term implications of Trump’s tariffs.

This move comes as the 25% import tax on vehicles went into effect April 3, with a matching tariff on auto parts scheduled to hit May 3. Hyundai, which generates a full third of its global revenue from American consumers, knows it can’t afford to delay action. Notably, U.S. retail sales for Hyundai jumped 11% last quarter, as car buyers rushed to purchase vehicles before prices inevitably climb due to the tariff.

Despite the trade policy, Hyundai reported a 2% uptick in first-quarter operating profit and reaffirmed its earnings projections, indicating confidence in its ability to adapt. Yet the company isn’t taking chances. Ahead of the tariffs, Hyundai stockpiled over three months of inventory in U.S. markets, hoping to blunt the initial shock of the increased import costs.

In a significant show of good faith and commitment to U.S. manufacturing, Hyundai last month pledged a massive $21 billion investment into its new Georgia plant. That announcement was made during a visit to the White House, just days before President Trump unveiled the auto tariff policy — a strategic alignment with a pro-growth, pro-America agenda.

Still, the challenges are substantial. The global auto industry depends on complex, multi-country supply chains, and analysts warn that tariffs will force production costs higher. Hyundai is holding the line on pricing for now, promising to keep current model prices stable through June 2. After that, however, price adjustments are on the table, potentially passing the burden to consumers.

South Korea, which remains one of the largest exporters of automobiles to the U.S., is not standing idle. A South Korean delegation is scheduled to meet with U.S. trade officials in Washington Thursday, marking the start of negotiations that could redefine the two nations’ trade dynamics.

President Trump’s actions represent a sharp pivot from the era of global corporatism that defined trade under the Obama-Biden administration. Hyundai’s swift response proves that when the U.S. government puts its market power to work, foreign companies will move mountains — or at least entire assembly lines — to stay in the game.

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