The Joyful Dinos created our first video to inform Albertans that the best way to avoid the voting line on referendum day on October 19 is to order your mail-in ballot now.
This is where Canadian citizens in Alberta can apply for your mail in ballot
The Joyful Dinos created a tool to help unpack the referendum questions. Read and share. A downloadable file is below.
Note that the first five questions scapegoat immigrants. And the last constitutional questions are, according to Mount Royal political scientist Duane Bratt, “stealth separation.” That is by answering yest to these questions one is effectively creating separatist initiatives while potentially voting Yes to stay in Canada.
Make copies of our Referendum Question Guide and share with friends.
On September 9, 2026, 90 people attended our very successful teach-in to break down the ten referendum ballots and clarify questions and issues that surround the UCP referendum. Estimated to cost $130M, the referendum betrays the UCP’s separatist impulses.
This panel features Ricardo Acuรฑa, Director, Parkland Institute; Senator Paula Simons, Senate of Canada; Funke Olokude, Acting Director, Multicultural Health Brokers; and Dr. Matthew Wildcat, Native Studies & Political Science, U of Alberta. After 8-10 minute presentations from each speaker, a lively question and answer session explored the issues in diaglogue for the following 75 minutes.
Panelists: Ricardo Acuna, Funke Olekude, Paula Simons, Matt Wildcat & Moderator: Janice Williamson The evening sparked intense discussionUrban Green Housing Cooperative
Mysterious Dino and Laura
Anna & Amanda
Kristi, Nabila, & Janice B
Michell, Janice W, Laura, Don, Kristi, Nabila, Janice B, (front) Anna & AmandaJanice W, the Moderator (photo by Lorna Thomas)
It is no accident that the first four of the nine UCP Referendum questions scapegoat immigrants.
Do you wonder who is leading this government? Many of the ultra right followers hold White Supremacist views. But the Premier’s Office itself, the center of power, shelters a highly paid UCP worker Bruce McCallister who tweets support for the extremist German AfD party.
The German Chancellor recently accused the AdF of “ethnic cleansing.”
McCallister is on a first name basis with the co-leader of the AdF. Though he claims, after the fact, that he doesn’t support all of the AdF policies. But the AdF economic plan and their immigration policies are intimately linked.
McCallister’s walk back is a bit disengenuous. Imagine someone making laudatory comments about the Klu Klux Klan and then saying their afirmation didn’t extend to their racial policies when their key to their raison d’etre is White Supremacy.
Your tax dollars pay this bureaucrat $188,000. He must be fired or resign. Stay tuned for a petititon to this end.
Don Braid, a Calgary Herald journalist, wrote that a social media post by the Executive Director in UCP Premier Danielle Smith’s office provides:
a “harsh perspective” on these referendum questions. It’s also nostalgic for the glory days of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, a feeling not shared by the French, whose own right-wing leaders have disowned Alternative for Germany. The party is aligned with the Kremlin against Ukraine. Why any Alberta government official would want to tweet into this ideological cauldron is beyond understanding. McAllister, however, offered praise. He even assumes first-name terms with the co-leader of the German party, Alice Weidel. On the weekend, McAllister posted on X: “Finally someone on a major stage saying it out loud instead of hiding behind slogans. Shout it from the rooftops please Alice!” (*Full text of Don Braid’s column below).
Patrick Mercier writes on the Alberta Never 51/Never UCP facebook page:
“What is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s response to her executive director praising Germany’s extremist AFD party?
Bruce McAllister is the Executive Director of the Office of the Premier of Alberta. Not a backbencher. Not some staffer running a social media account. The Executive Director. He draws $188,000 a year from your taxes, and yesterday he used his verified public account to praise Alice Weidel and the AfD.
So let’s be very clear about what the Executive Director of Danielle Smith’s office is publicly celebrating.
The AfD was classified as a “proven right-wing extremist” organization by Germany’s own domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, in May 2025. Not by activists. Not by political opponents. By the agency whose job is to identify threats to Germany’s constitutional democracy.
Bjรถrn Hรถcke, one of the AfD’s most prominent figures, has been convicted and fined twice for using a banned SA slogan at party rallies. The SA was Hitler’s paramilitary. German courts found he used the phrase deliberately. Twice.
Alexander Gauland, former AfD co-leader, publicly called Hitler and the Nazi era “just a speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.”
In November 2023, senior AfD officials attended a secret meeting in Potsdam where the agenda included mass deportation of immigrants and German citizens of immigrant descent. Correctiv, one of Germany’s most respected investigative outlets, broke the story. It put over a million Germans in the streets in protest.
The party’s official platform declares “Islam does not belong in Germany.” Not radical Islam. Not Islamist terrorism. Islam.
Alice Weidel, the leader McAllister is praising by name, defended her own past reference to immigrants being “disposed of.”
This is not a conservative party. This is a party that Germany’s own government surveils as a threat to democracy. A party whose leaders use Nazi slogans from the podium and shrug off the Holocaust as a footnote.
And when Andrew Coyne pushed back, McAllister didn’t pause, didn’t clarify, didn’t walk it back. He doubled down and dismissed the criticism as “Laurentian elite” posturing. The same deflection this government reaches for every single time someone gets caught saying the quiet part out loud.
So here’s the question Danielle Smith needs to answer: what is the Executive Director of your office doing publicly endorsing a party that Germany classifies as extremist, and what are you going to do about it?
Because silence is an answer too. If McAllister still has his job tomorrow, Albertans are entitled to ask whether this reflects a staff problem or a values problem in the Premier’s Office.
Last year Bruce McCallister made shameful comments and cut the microphone to a young Albertan respectfully raising a question at the UCP “consultative” travelling panel
Student Silenced at UCP Town Hall What were they thinking? Danielle Smith’s UCP government is being roasted after a high school student had his mic cut at an Alberta Next town hall. Even worse, moderator Bruce McAllister suggested the student should be spanked (seriously). Thoughts? WATCH THE FULL SEGMENT: https://rtrj.info/100125ABNext Subscribe to Real Talk Ryan Jespersen on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. #abpoli#ableg
Well, this puts Premier Danielle Smith’s immigration referendum questions in a harsh new light.
The executive director of her office, Bruce McAllister, has praised and cheered a far-right, anti-immigrant party in Germany.
After swamping a state election, Alternative for Germany stands on the verge of gaining national power.
Among many other things, this party proposes mass deportation of immigrants.
It’s also nostalgic for the glory days of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, a feeling not shared by the French, whose own right-wing leaders have disowned Alternative for Germany.
The party is aligned with the Kremlin against Ukraine.
Why any Alberta government official would want to tweet into this ideological cauldron is beyond understanding.
McAllister, however, offered praise. He even assumes first-name terms with the co-leader of the German party, Alice Weidel.
On the weekend, McAllister posted on X: “Finally someone on a major stage saying it out loud instead of hiding behind slogans. Shout it from the rooftops please Alice!
“You can’t run a welfare state, bring in millions who need support and keep energy prices this high without the books blowing up.
“It’s also tearing up the social fabric and native culture. People are waking up.
“Now watch the mainstream media ignore all of it โ while twisting themselves into pretzels labelling her alt-right.”
We don’t have to twist very hard. Alternative for Germany is half-Nazi on its own record.
The party calls for mass deportation under the name “remigration.” It aims to end “illegal, culturally alien and anti-indigenous mass immigration.”
In this case, “indigenous” is best defined as “good German.”
U.S. President Donald Trump was pleased. Various MAGA figures were delirious. Elon Musk celebrated the victory.
Then there’s the Alberta guy who runs many of Smith’s public relations drives and has significant influence on government policy.
To be clear, McAllister doesn’t endorse these extreme immigration policies, but he echoes the lingo and repeats the trope about immigrants wrecking the social order.
His comment โ “Tearing up the social fabric and native culture” โ sure doesn’t refer to First Nations.
Immediately under attack, McAllister dismissed critics as the “Laurentian elite.”
In response to one, he said, “I pointed at unsustainable welfare, mass migration and energy prices. Call me out on those points if you like, but please, no need to hyperventilate.”
We are entitled to a deep breath, at least.
The referendum set for Oct. 19 features four tough government questions aimed at limiting immigration and curbing costs.
First, the UCP asks if Alberta should gain control of all immigration.
Next, Albertans are asked if rights to health care, education and other social services should be taken from those who aren’t Canadian citizens, permanent residents or holders of Alberta-approved immigration status.
Another question seeks support for denying provincial programs to non-permanent residents living in Alberta for less than a year.
Finally, the UCP floats charging fees for non-permanent residents to access health care and education.
All this is a reaction, as McAllister himself suggested, to the absurd open immigration policy of former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
That put serious pressure on budgets and fostered ill-will toward many immigrants.
The hyper-immigration period is over, but it leaves behind bitterness that the UCP is exploiting with these referendum questions.
Businessman and philanthropist Brett Wilson tweeted what I believe is the long-standing view of many Albertans.
“Immigration is a wonderful way for the world to mingle โ to educate โ and help others. Not for invasion.”
The issue is delicate and divisive. The referendum questions already raise doubts about the UCP’s deeper intentions. For instance, are they meant to please the separatists in Smith’s party?
Painting an extremist German party as part of the answer is both revealing and deeply troubling.
Arrive curious about the issues. Leave informed and ready to fight back with joy! Time: Wednesday September 9 6-9p Location: Urban Green, 10115 88 Ave NW
October 19 is Referendum Day in Alberta. Join the Joyful Dinos for a free Referendum Teach-In Panelists: Ricardo Acuรฑa, Director, Parkland Institute; Funke Olokude, Acting Director, Multicultural Health Brokers; Senator Paula Simons, Senate of Canada; Dr. Matthew Wildcat, Native Studies & Political Science, U of Alberta Break down all ten referendum questions and discover what they really mean for Alberta. Join in the Q&A and discussion.
Ricardo Acuรฑa has been executive director of Parkland Institute since 2002. He has a degree in Political Science and History from the University of Alberta, and has almost 30 years of experience as a volunteer, staffer and consultant for various non-government and non-profit organizations around the province. He has spoken and written extensively on energy policy, democracy, privatization, and the Alberta economy, and is a regular media commentator on public policy issues. He is co-editor, with Trevor Harrison, of the 2023 book Anger and Angst: Jason Kenney’s Legacy and Alberta’s Right, available from Black Rose Books.
Funke Olokude, BA, BSW, M.Ed. (Adult Education), RSW, is the Interim Co-Executive Director of the Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MCHB).
The Multicultural Health Brokers Cooperative is a member-owned Workers’ Cooperative, started by immigrants and refugees over three decades ago to serve their own communities and bridge across communities to empower migrant, immigrant and refugee communities to achieve their full potential in a peaceful and just intercultural society. Funke brings deep experience in cultural brokering, community organizing, equity-driven community-based research, and systems change. In addition, she brings lived experience as a first-generation immigrant and deep cultural and intercultural knowledge gained through years of working with ethnocultural communities and bridging with dominant culture organizations and institutions.
Senator Paula Simons
Appointed to the Senate of Canada in 2018, Senator Simons is a member of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications and the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, and the past deputy chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.
Senator Paula Simons has been a CBC radio producer and documentary maker, a playwright, and a popular historian. She spent 23 years with the Edmonton Journal as a reporter and opinion writer, winning two National Newspaper Awards. She has also won many other impressive awards. See: Her work has also been recognized with awards and honours. See: https://senatorpaulasimons.ca/en/
You can follow her on Mastodon @Paulatics@mstdn.ca and on BlueSky at @SenatorPaulaSimons
Matt Wildcat
Matt Wildcat is a member of Ermineskin Cree Nation and an Associate Professor and the Director of Indigenous Governance in the Faculty of Native Studies at UofA. Wildcat leads the Relational Governance Project โ an Indigenous policy concept that explores the practice of how First Nations co-govern service delivery organizations. This emerges from his experience with the Maskwacis Education Schools Commission that led to the creation of a unified school system for the four Nations of Maskwacis. Wildcat is also the co-director of the partnership grant Critical Approaches to Indigenous Relationality.
Matthew Wildcat, PhD, is appointed to Indigenous Studies & Political Science at the University of Alberta. https://mattwildcat.ca/
The stars as if knowing that no one could see them now, frolicked in the black sky. Now flaring up, now going out, now quivering, they busily whispered among themselves about something joyful but mysterious.
Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace (1869)
He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise.
William Blake. “Eternity” (1790s)
The great English poet William Blake advised us to kiss “the joy as it flies.” For joy is indeed transitory and we should catch it while we can. Our Joyful Dino motto includes this line: “Joy is how we fight back.” Let’s keep in mind how hope and longing inspire our ability to act to change the world. We act because we long for a better future. And imagining what that will look like is part of what keeps us going. Why shouldn’t we imagine that our Joyful Dinos energy is active throughout history? Here is one possible instance…
Let’s imagine the Joyful Dinos in the whispers of Tolstoy’s frolicking stars โ “something joyful but mysterious”? Or is my desire to find an origin story here for the Joyful Dinos merely wish fulfillment? Leo Tolstoy’s remarkable historical novel War and Peace was published in 1869. It is the story of Russia’s war against Napoleon’s 1812 invasion. And it was originally published in serial form from 1865-1867.
Is our connecting of the dots, spots of light in the night sky, merely a result of our desire to root out the first glimmerings of the lost early lives of the Joyful Dinos?
I am rooting for the stars! What do you think?
Photograph by reader Susan Ardill, Sydney, Australia. 10 Aug 2026. From Leo Tolstoy. War & Peace. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Vintage Classic Russians Series, 2017.
What is written in the stars? Rooted in longing and desire? Look to language to teach us in this short history…
Consider this: Desire is rooted in desiderare – to be away from the stars – a longing. And note that “consider” is rooted in con-siderare – to be with the stars. The Latin root was established in the 13th century after the Norman invasion of England. An etymological dictionary reveals the following.
Considerย is a 14th century import to the language that has meant “to think about carefully” since its earliest days. It’s taken on other meanings over the years, but its original meaning is still its primary one. Likeย desire, it dates to the era known as Middle English, the time when English was taking on many words from Latin thanks to the Anglo-French spoken byย the invaders of Norman Conquest fame. To desire something has, since the 13th century, meant to long or hope for something. Over the centuries the verbย desireย has developed other related meanings as well, but it’s this original meaning that’s most often called into service: the lover desires the beloved; the cat desires the mouse. The nounย desireย arrived about a century after the verb to occupy the same basic semantic territory. In its most common use, the nounย desireย is about the feeling of longing or hoping, or about the thing so longed for: the lover’s desire for the beloved; the object of love that is the heart’s desire.
The Latin forebears ofย considerย andย desireย have a stronger family resemblance than their English descendants do.ย Considerย is fromย consฤซderฤre, meaning “to observe, think about.”ย Desireย is fromย dฤsฤซderฤre, meaning “to long for, miss, desire.” Both are bipartite, with prefixes that have familiar English analogues:ย con-ย means “with, together, jointly,” andย de-ย means “from, down, away.” Both word’s remaining syllables trace to Latinย sฤซder-ย orย sฤซdus, which is where things get a bit more complicated.
Published as an open letter to Premier Ralph Klein in the National Post (Jan. 24, 2001), it was signed by Stephen Harper, Tom Flanagan, Ted Morton, Rainer Knopff, Andrew Crooks, and Ken Boessenkool.
It’s framed as a response to the federal Liberals treating Alberta as a “soft target” after the 2000 election, and its core proposal โ the “Alberta Agenda” โ argues the province should use constitutional powers it already has but hasn’t exercised:
withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan for an Alberta Pension Plan (“If Quebec can do it, why not Alberta?”);
collect Alberta’s own personal income tax instead of letting Ottawa do it;
let the RCMP contract lapse in 2012 and stand up an Alberta Provincial Police Force, one that would “not be misused as a laboratory for experiments in social engineering”;
and resume full provincial control of health policy, fighting Ottawa in court over Canada Health Act penalties if it comes to that.
It closes with the line the letter is named for: “It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.”
The 2021 Free Alberta Strategy
This “strategy” subtitled “A Strong, Free & Sovereign Alberta Within Canada,” was published by Rob Anderson, Barry Cooper, and Derek on Sept. 28, 2021. It’s a direct legislative update of the Firewall Letter’s agenda.
The centerpiece is the proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act, granting “the Alberta Legislature absolute discretion to refuse any provincial enforcement of federal legislation or judicial decisions that, in its view, interfere with provincial areas of jurisdiction or constitute an attack on the interests” of Albertans. This language became, almost verbatim, the actual Sovereignty Act passed in December 2022.
A sourced briefing โ fact-checking the โ$600 billionโ claim
1. The Free Alberta Strategy (2021)
Authors: Rob Anderson, Barry Cooper, and Derek From. Published September 28, 2021, subtitled โA Strong, Free & Sovereign Alberta Within Canada.โ A direct legislative update of the 2001 Firewall Letterโs agenda. Its centerpiece โ the proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act โ became, almost verbatim, the actual Sovereignty Act passed in December 2022.
2. The โ$600 billionโ claim
The documentโs economic case rests on the claim that Albertans โhave transferred well in excess of $600 billion more to the federal government over the last 60 yearsโฆ than they have receivedโฆ in programs and benefits.โ This figure is real, not fabricated โ a University of Calgary School of Public Policy study found Albertaโs net federal fiscal transfer topped $600 billion cumulative, 1961โ2017. More recent StatCan-based figures: $267.4 billion net (2007โ2023, every year except the COVID years); annual net contribution running $15โ$27 billion over the past decade.
What the claim leaves out: equalization is only a small slice of that total. Per economist Trevor Tombeโs breakdown of 2019 Statistics Canada data, 72% of the fiscal gap is simply the mechanical result of Alberta having higher average incomes and a younger population (fewer seniors drawing OAS/GIS) โ not unequal treatment. Equalization itself accounts for only about 12% of the gap. Everyone pays the same federal tax rates and follows the same formulas; higher earners and profitable businesses simply generate more revenue in absolute dollars.
3. What Alberta actually receives
Not zero โ the imbalance is about proportion, not absence of return:
Federal program / category
What Alberta gets (approx.)
Notes
Canada Health Transfer
$6.6B (2025โ26)
Per-capita formula, same as every province
Canada Social Transfer
$2.1B (2025โ26)
Same formula basis
Equalization
$0
None received since the 1960s โ this is the one program that is genuinely one-directional
OAS / GIS (seniors)
Lower than national avg. per capita
Albertaโs population skews younger
Defence spending / bases
$1.1B+/year direct investment
CFB Suffield, CFB Wainwright, etc.
EI benefits paid out
Roughly matches contributions
Small net outflow historically
Total federal spending in AB
~$56.1B (2025 est.)
vs. ~$68.8B collected โ a ~$12.7B annual gap
4. Context that complicates the “raw deal” framing
Economist Trevor Tombe’s analysis for Finances of the Nation adds texture that the “shortchanged” framing usually leaves out. Working from annual Statistics Canada data going back to 1961, he shows that a province’s status as “net contributor” or “net recipient” is not fixed — it shifts with the economic cycle. Ontario, historically a large net contributor, briefly became eligible for equalization for a ten-year stretch starting in 2009–10 after the financial crisis hit its manufacturing sector hard. Alberta’s own pattern rises and falls with oil prices: booms in the 1970s, early 1980s, and the post-2000 years pushed federal revenue collection from the province up sharply, while downturns in the late 1980s, early 1990s, and mid-2010s pulled it back down. That volatility peaked in 2020, when the oil price collapse met COVID relief spending and Alberta became a net receiver for the first time in 55 years — taking in roughly $22 billion more than it contributed that year. Tombe’s broader point, drawn from comparing Canadian provinces directly against U.S. states, is that this kind of regional redistribution isn’t unique to Canada or evidence of unfair treatment: wealthier regions everywhere send more to their central government than they get back, in the U.S. as in Canada, simply because income and demographics vary by region. As Mount Royal University’s Duane Bratt put it: “fiscal transfers aren’t a policy to ‘screw over’ Albertans, it’s just that there are more wealthy people in the province… in bad times this shows the value of the federal government.”
Alberta doesn’t technically “pay into” equalization. Per Tombe: it’s a federal program funded by federal taxes at the same rate nationwide — not a province-to-province transfer. Alberta contributes more in absolute terms because its tax base is larger, the same way a high earner pays more income tax than a low earner at an identical rate.
Disagreement is genuinely live, even among economists. Alberta Views ran a point-counterpoint between the Fraser Institute’s Tegan Hill (equalization’s formula quirks are real and disadvantage Alberta specifically, e.g. resource-revenue treatment) and Tombe (the program isn’t designed to send money to the richest province, and design tweaks would barely move the numbers — he estimates fixing the flagged quirks would shrink total equalization by about 1%, with Alberta still receiving nothing either way).
5. Bottom line
The $600B / $267B figures are accurate and StatCan-sourced โ safe to cite. The โshortchangedโ or โstolenโ framing is the contested part: itโs better characterized as โnet contributor by design,โ a predictable outcome of flat federal tax rates applied to a wealthier, younger province, not evidence of unequal treatment or policy targeting Alberta.
The protest was organized by a 20-year-old resident of Sturgeon County and several hundred very engaged local people and visitors from surrounding areas showed up. The discussion and speeches were lively and there was a steady stream of cars down Morinville’s street, many honking approval at the throng.
Albertans speaking out against Meta’s new data centre
CBC News Alberta Aug 2, 2026ย #cbcnews#artificialintelligence#protest :58sec – “Protestors gathered in Morinville, Alta., on Sunday afternoon to push back against a new data centre being built in Sturgeon County. The CBC’s Tristan Mottershead reports.”
Interviewer: “And like dominos falling, protesters fear one data centre will lead to many more.”
Laura Joyful Dino: “I think if we start letting them in without any oversight, we’re opening the floodgates, so to speak. There’s no stopping the expansion of data centres everywhere.”
Sometimes Joyful Dinos put on our human disguises โ we didn’t think they’d let a dinosaur near the pancakes. So in plain clothes, on the south lawn of the Alberta Legislature, at the Premier’s own pancake breakfast, I walked up and asked her a simple question.
Why is she supporting right-wing Christian nationalists โ misogynist, racist, transphobic โ and letting them run this province at the rest of our expense?
She said she hoped she wasn’t.
She is.
She told me: I’m talking about regular Albertans. Not the majority, I said. And I I named who I meant: the separatists โ as in, she supports the separatists.
“I’m voting for Canada,” she said. “And I hope you do too.” Suddenly post-new-pipeline, she has become a federalist.
And then I asked her the question she didn’t answer, because security moved the line along before she had to:
Are you voting for trans kids? Are you voting for women? Are you voting for the immigrants you’re targeting with your nine referendum questions?
