This Isn’t Weather. It’s the New Normal. And Alberta’s Leadership Is Still in Denial.

People sometimes ask if I have a direction with what I write. Fair question. I cover local, provincial, national, international, whatever’s rattling around in my brain that day. And today it’s climate. It’s chaos. It’s leadership failure. And it's Alberta, where the Premier’s hatred of the federal government now outweighs her responsibility to govern.

Let me start with something I’ve said before: I support Mark Carney. That’s not new. And one reason I do is because he talks about the systems we need, not just slogans. And one of the things I am hoping he will initiate is a National Emergency Response system. Every week, we get another reminder why we need one.

Wildfires are getting more frequent, more dangerous, and more expensive. That’s just fact. Add in hail the size of baseballs, tornadoes that used to be unheard of here, and floodwaters that sweep in without warning, and the reality is: this isn’t “extreme weather.” It’s just "the weather" now. Our new normal.

Last night was another hailstorm in the “Hail Core Corridor.” That’s my new term for what used to be Alberta suburbia and is increasingly more often an uninsurable zone. People can’t get home insurance anymore, or they’re paying premiums that would make a mortgage broker cry. And we pretend this is normal.

It’s not. We need a national climate emergency strategy. Fires, floods, hail, tornadoes, and drought. We need coordinated disaster planning across the country. Maybe it's FEMA-style, maybe something new, but pretending it's someone else's problem has run its course.

Which brings us to Jasper. The Town of Jasper is a municipality, run by local council, governed under the Muncipal Government Act and responsible to the people of the town. It sits geographically inside Jasper National Park. That overlapping setup means both federal and provincial authorities are involved in emergencies. And that’s exactly where things collapsed last year.

Jasper’s independent wildfire review of the 2024 fire found that Alberta’s government hindered the response. Provincial fire crews were told by the province not to assist initially, leaving Jasper’s tiny local team to deal with a growing wildfire. In a normal year, provincial support, especially air tankers, would’ve been automatic. But not under this government.

Why? Because Danielle Smith saw federal land and picked a jurisdictional fight. Instead of working together, Alberta tried to seize control of the fire response, causing confusion and delays. The Premier’s reaction? “This report comes as a shot out of the blue. It's unfair, it's untrue, and I would like them to withdraw it.”
Danielle Smith

It wasn’t a partisan document. It was a third-party review meant to learn lessons. But Smith took it personally, because she always does. I guess the significant loss of property and potential loss of life were not more important than challenging the Federal Government.

Now here is where my concern about local governments deepens. Smith’s government has been centralizing power in ways that should concern everyone, not just progressives. We’ve seen municipal authority stripped or overridden in Edmonton, Calgary, and rural areas. Jasper is just the latest example of a Premier who wants control without responsibility.

We’re watching creeping authoritarianism.

I write about a lot of things but this one touches on everything I care about. My fear for what’s happening to municipal leadership. My heartbreak at what Alberta could be and what it’s becoming. The dangerous, archaic way our provincial government is treating climate change. The pressure on a new federal government to lead while being stonewalled by provinces like ours. And the fact that the news cycle, here and across Canada, and in fact around world is so consumed by the daily meltdown of American politics that climate disasters get buried.

But the smoke isn’t going away. Neither is the hail. Or the floods. Or the fire bans. Or the evacuation alerts. And neither is Danielle Smith, unless people start realizing what’s actually burning.

And so back to wondering who I write these for? I write for those of us who refuse to look away. Who still believe we deserve a province, and a country that leads with honesty, protects with purpose, and plans for a future beyond the next news cycle.

Because climate doesn’t care about jurisdiction. And smoke doesn’t check who’s in charge before it rolls in. Danielle Smith can scream “federal overreach” all she wants, just like Trump screams “fake news”, but neither one of them can gaslight the weather

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