Article content continued

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or

It’s always a bad sign when Ezra Levant gets something legitimate to campaign against, which is what has happened with the Alberta government decision to ban his The Rebel media channel from press events.

NDP functionaries didn’t just shut out one of their most vociferous critics, they also had their lawyer draw up a sneering letter declaring that employees of The Rebel “are not journalists.”

It’s bad optics, but it’s also bad political strategy. Because, if I was Rachel Notley, I would fervently hope and pray (to my secular, non-denominational sex-positive deity, presumably) that the arrival of The Rebel was only the beginning.

I would throw open the doors to absolutely every single right-wing blog, news site, and social media account in Wild Rose Country. You founded the website NotleyBad4Alberta.tk? Pull up a chair! You’re the administrator for the Facebook group “STOP ALBERTA SOCIALISM”? Here’s a press pass! You run the Twitter account @NDP=Comunists? Have an office!

I would pine for the day when I could walk to the lectern as premier and look out over an auditorium of people clad in “No NDP” T-shirts and “End Race-Based Law” visors.

Then, with a slightly sarcastic “good to see you all,” I would begin the news conference:

CORRESPONDENT: “Madam Premier. We have a petition signed by 7,000 Albertans demanding that you immediately resign. What do you have to say in your defence?” PREMIER: “That I … won’t be resigning, I guess? Seriously, you should try reading the Alberta Act some time.” ASSEMBLED CORRESPONDENTS: “BOO!” CORRESPONDENT 2: “When will you roll back the socialist takeover of Alberta farms and stop your Marxist plan to collectivize the agricultural sector?” PREMIER: “We are 100 per cent against the collectivization of any industry, in particular those hard-working men and women of our agricultural sector. Alberta farms thrive on entrepreneurship, competition and ingenuity, and we would never try to disrupt that.” ASSEMBLED CORRESPONDENTS: “BOO!” CORRESPONDENT 3: “Oil prices remain at $30 a barrel. Why won’t you take action to bring profitability back to the oil sands and put Albertans back to work?” PREMIER: “I tried asking Saudi Arabia to stop glutting the world with cheap oil, but they wouldn’t listen. I thought you people liked the free market. Can anybody here tell me what a ‘commodity trader’ is?” ASSEMBLED CORRESPONDENTS: “BOO! COMMIE!”

I would make damn sure this was all televised. And then, after the barrage of questioning had ended, I’d look directly at the cameras and make eye contact with the Great Silent Majority of Albertans who voted-NDP-but-maybe-dislike-some-things-about-the-NDP-but-whatever.