Alberta may be calling but it’s doubtful Toronto is listening

Is it just me, or is it kind of embarrassing to see lame-duck Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and a couple of little-known United Conservative Party (UCP) MLAs from rural Alberta hanging around the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC)’s subway station at Yonge and Bloor trying to tout the bright lights of Wild Rose Country? 

The Alberta Government has spent a lot of money papering over the TTC’s big subway station at Yonge and Bloor streets in Toronto with advertisements hailing the advantages, real and imagined, of life in Alberta.

For example, according signs lining the steps leading up to the street from the subway, Alberta has “AFFORDABLE HOMES” (true, at least compared to Toronto or Vancouver) and “NIGHTLIFE AND CULTURE” (maybe not so much).

For the next month, weary commuters can feast their bleary eyes on these truthy factoids as they hurry up to street level at Yonge and Bloor and make their way to their Dickensian workplaces in the towers of Toronto’s downtown. 

Yesterday morning, the man who is still Alberta’s premier for a couple more weeks brought along UCP MLAs Miranda Rosin and R.J. Sigurdson to hold a press conference in the subway to tell folks that Alberta is Calling.

Rosin is from Banff Kananaskis, where she is renowned for her “STOP the COVID concentration camps” proclamation on social media. Sigurdson represents the Highwood riding south of Calgary, which includes the teeming metropolis of High River where both Conservative prime minister Joe Clark and the locally famous legend of the High River gun grab got their start before petering out without having much impact.

Presumably higher-profile UCP MLAs were otherwise occupied trying to get on the good side of Danielle Smith, the candidate favoured to replace Kenney when the leadership race votes are counted on October 6. 

Which subway station hosted the three Albertans’ stunt seems to be in some dispute, and the government’s news release was not clear. Some news reports said Yonge and Dundas. Others said Yonge and Bloor. The pictures looked like Yonge and Bloor to me, but, really … whatever. 

Hope the Wild Rose trio remembered that Yonge Street – said to be the longest street in the world – is pronounced Young. 

Since all that subway signage seems to have turned out to be Kenney’s political swan song – at least for the short, unhappy Alberta portion of his career – he’s milking it like a Prairie dairy farmer before he’s put out to pasture. 

And…