Will the UCP PLEASE Stop Thinking About the Children?
Will the UCP PLEASE Stop Thinking About the Children?
This isn't what people mean by 'courting the youth vote.'
The right-wing United Conservative Party, currently at the reins of Alberta, Canada, is for all intents and purposes Little MAGA on the Prairie.
Formed seven years ago after a marriage of convenience between the oxymoronic Progressive Conservatives and the weedier, wackier Wildrose Party, the UCP gained power in most of Canada’s version of Texas in last spring’s provincial election outside of key major cities Edmonton and Calgary.
Their supporters love to label anyone who disagrees with them on any given issue as groomers and pedophiles, not unlike their unified reich counterparts do south of the border.
Since typically every accusation is a confession with these freaks, you can probably guess where this post is heading.
In May, the UCP’s constituency association in Lacombe-Ponoka announced they were canceling their upcoming “youth dance and spring social” open only to people between the ages of 14 and 25 after receiving a collective eww on social media.
One of the widely spread hot takes came from an RCMP sergeant named Kerry Shima, who didn’t appreciate a political party’s party plans adding to his potential workload, tweeting:
This right here is a problem. 1) 25-year-olds are NOT youths. 2) Who planned this wanting to see 14-year-olds and 25-year-olds dancing together? 3) The ICE Unit is overworked with cases & the last thing my teams need is a sanctioned dance encouraging adults to cavort with teens.
(It’s worth noting the law enforcement acronym ICE stands for something different in Canada than in America. The Mounties’ Internet Child Exploitation division is dedicated to protecting children from predators, while US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is best known around the world for kidnaping and locking kids in cages. Interagency cooperation would surely be awkward as fuck.)
Leaving the creep factor aside, you have to wonder how this would’ve even worked. We’re all used to showing identification at the door but normally it’s to prove you’re old enough to get in, not too old to get in.
“I’m sorry Mr. Gaetz but this is clearly an alternative ID although Nestor is still welcome to come inside.”
The age of consent in Canada is 16 although it’s legal for someone to have sex with a 14- or 15-year-old so long as one isn’t more than five years older or in a position of authority.
To give the UCP the benefit of the doubt, it’s possible they innocently hoped college-age women might be down to shake their rumps with horny teenage boys and perhaps make men out of them afterward. The country’s plummeting birth rate isn’t just going to solve itself, and it’d sure be a shame to have to rely on immigrants! Or perhaps help theoretical young LGBTQ conservatives find someone special and age-appropriate!
But we all know damn well the idea was to aid awkward white dudes get laid while ideally not ending up charged with statutory rape.
No word on if alcohol was going to be served at the mixer in a province where the legal drinking age is 18 but, if not, hopefully these Harrison Butker types wouldn’t have spiked the punch with anything stronger than vodka.
The cancellation was announced on Facebook, a website all the cool kids surely still use, and the president of the UCP’s board of directors, Rob Smith, defended the party’s pure intentions shortly afterward:
[Fourteen] to 17 year olds look to the 21 to 25 years old for inspiration, mentorship, and leadership generally more than they do 56-year-old geriatrics like me!! This is how we grow our next generation station of political activists and community leaders. There is structure and support for our youth in the United Conservative Party of United Conservative Party of United Conservative Party of Alberta [sic] and we are working to grow this demographic of our movement.
Which, apart from the hilarious and quite possibly drunken redundancy, comes off more as a bitter GenXer whining he can’t pull trim the way he could in his youth than it does a responsible adult who wants to inspire future culture warriors. Smith also pointed to the 4-H Club, a century-old youth leadership organization with an agricultural bent, as a healthy example of intergenerational mingling, although I assume their gatherings don’t normally involve grown-ass men dryhumping teenage girls to Nickelback on the dancefloor. (This is rural Alberta, there would DEFINITELY be Nickelback playing.) Although 4-H’s motto is “learn to do by doing,” which is as good a description for most normal people’s adolescent sexual development as any.
The central electoral district of Lacombe-Ponoka — located a half-hour drive from the city of Red Deer if you’re old enough to drive — isn’t technically UCP territory, or at least not on paper. UCP candidate Jennifer Johnson won in a landslide last year with nearly 68 percent of votes but she was barred from joining caucus by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith a week before the election due to a leaked audio recording where she claimed the province’s highly ranked public education system would be even better if it weren’t for all the trans kids and compared their presence to adding shit to a batch of cookies.
"We can be top three percent but that little bit of poop is what wrecks it," Johnson can be heard saying amongst other awful things, which was a bridge too far for the newly minted premier if not for voters. Or at least being dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud within range of a recording device was a bridge too far. Johnson currently sits in the legislature wearing a duncecap in the corner as an Independent, although the party is currently pressuring the premier to welcome her back with open arms because of course they are.
The news of the canceled party comes as the UCP’s Calgary-Lougheed wing is sponsoring a different kind of shindig without age-restrictions for wingnuts who believe against all evidence that COVID vaccines are deadly for children and hope to "persuade the UCP Alberta caucus to declare the moratorium on all COVID mRNA vaccines."
An event billed as “An Injection of Truth” is set for June 17 at an undisclosed Calgary location, although the CBC has confirmed it will be held and livestreamed at Southside Victory Church, which drew headlines for ignoring public safety restrictions during the pandemic. Which is precisely the sort of reporting that makes the lunatic Right chomping at the bit to defund the country’s public broadcaster, something federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre repeatedly promises to do if given the opportunity to be put in charge.
Never mind that the Public Health Agency of Canada, which keeps track of reported bad reactions, say there’s an average of 40 cases per 100,000 doses for kids four and under, with even lower rates for kids aged five to 17. Or that, of the more than 100 million shots in Canadian arms since vaccines hit the shelves, there’s only been 488 deaths reported shortly afterward, with just four found to have a potential link to getting the jab.
Choosing June 17 for the big day was a gamble though as there’s a chance the Edmonton Oilers might still be competing in the Stanley Cup playoffs by then. If the team manages to dispatch the Dallas Stars in the ongoing NHL Western Conference Final, a potential Game 7 against the New York Rangers or Florida Panthers could mathematically occur on the same date and, if so, pretty much guarantee all of Alberta (or all Canada for that matter) is going to be glued to the TV that night instead.
Which frankly is the sort of thing they would know if they did their own research.
"To give the UCP the benefit of the doubt..."
Why would anyone ever give any conservative the benefit of the doubt? No matter what you think their intentions may be, it's always worse than you imagined.
Unsane Clown Posse?