It took absolutely no time for the premiers – particularly the western ones – to start laying down markers now that Justin Trudeau had walked away wounded but still standing from Monday’s election. While Blaine Higgs of New Brunswick struck a more conciliatory tone and decided to back down from his carbon price rhetoric, and Doug Ford even striking a more workable tone (though no word yet if he’s going to abandon his fight against the carbon price), it was up to Scott Moe and Jason Kenney to try and flex their muscles and start howling about the prospects of separation because they lost at politics when it came to fighting the aforementioned carbon price.

To that end, Moe presented a letter with a list of three demands for a “new deal” for the province in the federation – scrapping the federal carbon price, reforming equalization to be “fair,” and new pipeline projects – plural. This after the same chuckleheads that put billboards across Alberta and Saskatchewan demanding that the Liberals in those provinces be voted out to “send a message” only to realize that they no longer had any representation in Cabinet. Oops. As for Moe’s demands, the carbon price is not going anywhere – if anything, this election was a confirmation that the country was in favour of carbon pricing, if you look at the seats won by parties who support it. Moe has already tried to propose a reform to equalization that was not actually equalization, but some per capita funding allocation that, again, had nothing to do with what equalization is or represents. As for pipelines, there are several already in process, Trans Mountain chief among them, but if you look at the market, there is no actual future demand for expanded capacity once the current projects are online. We are in an era of a global supply glut and we can expect demand to start diminishing as more low-carbon measures increasingly come online both in Canada and abroad. Not to mention, all of Moe’s demands involve the other provinces in some capacity, and are not things the federal government can do unilaterally (and in fact, his demand to scrap the carbon price is an implicit demand that he doesn’t think provinces should have a level playing field when it comes to carbon pricing, which is the whole point of the pan-Canadian framework). And with all of these demands, Moe claims he’s offering a “fire extinguisher” to the “prairie fire” of regional alienation. Not likely.

And then there was Jason Kenney, not only creating a panel to consult with Albertans about ways to secure our role and fairness in Canadian federation,” before he presented his own laundry lists of demands, such as the “national energy corridor,” Trans Mountain (already in progress), killing Bill C-69 (because the previous system of constant litigation was apparently better), exempting the mortgage stress test for Alberta (which isn’t the government’s call and is really dumb), but he’s threatening a (non-binding) referendum on equalization over this (which will accomplish exactly nothing). And while he started his press conference with the veneer of being statesmanlike, it quickly degenerated to this kind of raving that showcases that Kenney’s real goal, which is simply about stoking more anger at Trudeau because that suits his political purposes.

It’s worth noting that Manitoba premier Brian Pallister is having none of this talk (possibly because he sees where the wind is blowing, and Paul Wells has called him “Canada’s tallest weather vane).

'I have no time for that': Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister was dismissive of any talk of western separation. Here's the comparison he made. #cdnpoli #elxn43 pic.twitter.com/XziM0huGgB

— CTV News (@CTVNews) October 22, 2019

But in all of this bluster, we’re getting all of these hyped up warnings about “Wexit,” which is the moronic label that some swivel-eyed loons have started applying to the notion of Alberta separation, which is the dumbest political movement going. But I do worry that Moe and Kenney are playing with fire, because they’re goading the nebulous populism that is building to such a force that will be hard for the either of them or the federal Conservatives to contain. Stop adding fuel to the fire. It will blow up in your faces.

Good reads:

• In election night recaps, here are looks at the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP, the Bloc, and the Greens, plus the Maclean’s grand election narrative story.
• Maclean’s has some infograms that break down the demographics of the newly elected House of Commons.
• Andrew Scheer had a fairly aggressive press conference in which he claimed a bigger victory and insisted he was staying on as leader. (That may not be his choice).
• Here’s a look at how Scheer and the Conservatives will need to contend with how their message didn’t resonate in Eastern Canada.
• Inside the Conservative ranks, the knives are already coming out for Scheer.
• While the Bloc insist they’re the voice of the Quebec National Assembly in Ottawa, Premier François Legault is decidedly muted in his enthusiasm for the prospect.
• Jagmeet Singh says he’s not worried about the prospect of a leadership review after this week’s election results. (Seems to me the last leader wasn’t worried either).
• The seat maths show that the NDP won’t have nearly as much influence as they think they will in the next parliament.
• Here’s a profile of the NDP’s new MP for Nunavut, Mumilaaq Qaqqaq.
• Here’s a recap at the doomed campaign of the Green Party.
• Here’s a look at Jane Philpott’s electoral defeat.
• The National Post got a couple of political scientists to call out the Maxime Bernier Fan Club for what it was, and to note that it’s pretty much dead in the water.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column looks at first steps after the election, and what some of the implications about the results will be for the parties and leaders.
• Kevin Carmichael lays out the global economic situation barrelling down on the country and wonders if the parties can work together to do anything about it.
• Paul Wells pens a grand narrative of the election, particularly in context of a changing Canada, and why each of the parties failed in their own ways.
• Wells has a few further thoughts on the stirred up Western sentiments and what it means for the two main parties.
• Chris Selley says that Scheer should be blamed more for his terrible platform than his (lack of) personality, and wonders if all that Quebec-pandering paid off for him.
• Matt Gurney wonders about Scheer’s future.
• Chantal Hébert suspects that François Legault may come to rue the influence he had in the revival of the Bloc.
• Susan Delacourt isn’t seeing the prospects for a nice, cooperative parliament after the last campaign.
• Robert Hiltz has had his fill of the cynicism of the campaign, and offers the lessons that neither of the leaders will wind up taking.
• My column looks at what it will take for Canadians to take back the parties so that we can avoid future awful elections like the one we just lived through.

Odds and ends:

The farmer whose family land (dating back to the United Empire Loyalists) was expropriated by the government for a JTF2 facility that never got built, has died.

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