A Kudatah in Alberta

In Alberta, there is no political middle ground. There is no center. There may be a centrist party, but it will probably never get elected because the vast majority of people in the province identify as either right-leaning conservatives or left-leaning progressives. And so it was on that May day in 2015 when the only real alternative to the 40+ year old, tired, lumbering dinosaur Progressive Conservatives won the election.

Since that time, the NDP has been blamed for everything under the sun that has gone wrong in the province because, well because they are an easy target. Never mind that the seeds for the economic downturn and the fall in the price of oil were sown under the PCs. Never mind that the policy changes the NDP brought in months after they had taken office had the ink still wet on the documents. Nevertheless, the right wingers (as they usually do with their shoot first and ask questions later mentality) in their warped politically-motivated minds, blame the NDP for everything, including their cable bill. All it usually takes is for one of them to make an outlandish, false accusation or statement and it is repeated as fact and brainwashed down the line until the youngest still in its mother’s womb is repeating the lies.

And so it came to be in Edmonton, the capital, where these people gathered to protest the inhumane, third world conditions that they thought the NDP created for them in just over six months. Some of these tortured souls brought signs with them.

It’s good she had her back to the camera. I’d be embarrassed if my children found out I failed spelling in grade four.

Now wait a minute, this is getting redicul…. I mean ridiculous. How old are you lady? Did you commission your two year-old to make that sign?

It was from people of this ilk (you know, that can’t spell) that the now-famous Kudatah came to be. In a rant on social media about overthrowing the NDP government of Rachel Notley (after one of his genetically modified cohorts made more sinister threats) and not knowing how to spell coup d’etat, this chromosome challenged person wrote it phonetically, ending up with Kudatah. Ta da!

This sign is probably the most disturbing sign I have seen in quite some time (and I’ve traveled in rural BC and seen pictures of aborted fetuses on highway billboards). I wonder if the mothers and fathers in this picture (after they packed up their misspelled signs) went home and sat down with their children and explained that the six-month-old democratically elected government in the province in which they are free to live is equal to a monstrous, evil, hate-filled regime that exterminated six million people. The scary thing is that some will say it is much worse.

This is the ignorance, the brainwashed, the head-in-the-sand mentality that people equate with Alberta. People keep saying how times have changed in this province and how progressive it has become. Think again. Alberta just can’t seem to shake this image of a wild west, puritanical, riding-in-the-back-of-a-pick-up-truck-with-shotguns-mob,don’t-take-my-gun-from-my-cold-dead-hands, fear-of-anything-new-so-we’ll-just-hate-it-whatever-it-is society that gets its roots from the fire and brimstone days of Social Credit. Hate and ignorance are still fueled by fear in Alberta.