J Hastings

@HankAcorpio @Martyupnorth And just like every other liberal, you think you’re better than “them”

@Martyupnorth Conservatives across the board are less educated and lower IQ . Getting really tired of drywallers who think they know better then a PHD in economics. If you are wearing steel toes everyday you should have no opinion on the economy .

"No matter how stupid you think Mark Carney supporters are…. You are underestimating how stupid Carney supporters are." Fact checked TRUE

@Martyupnorth Tried signing up this past week. My bank wasn’t listed for direct deposit (ALBERTA Treasury Bank!). Clicked on send e-transfer instead but still have to send pictures of my ID, etc. - EVEN THOUGH I WAS APPLYING THROUGH THE VERIFIED AB PORTAL !!! What a joke @ABDanielleSmith

I had the opportunity to chat with one of the clerks at the registry office about the $100 energy rebate, and the stress it caused to many people. "They're just not teck savy" But that wasn't the most interesting thing she told me. She personally admitted that she didn't sign up for it because it requires divulging too much information to the government.....and she's a registry clerk.

@Martyupnorth Awww!! Happy birthday to you both!

59 trips around the sun for both of us. Yes, Karen and I were each born on July 14, 1967. We met while we were celebrating our birthday with our respective groups of friends at Boston Pizza in Edson in 1999. We've had a lot of funny incidents because of this coincidence. Like the border agent in Montana who thought we were twins, and didn't believe we were each the parents of the kids in the car with us. For the record: 59 Earth orbits equals a cumulative travel distance of about 55.4 billion kilometers. "What are the odds of two people born on July 14, 1967, at opposite ends of the country, meeting 32 years later, falling in love, and getting married? " The answer: Approximately 1 in 147,000,000,000 A comparable event would be winning the jackpot in a Powerball lottery with a single ticket when the odds are at their longest (approximately 1 in 292.2 million) and simultaneously being struck by lightning on the same day (1 in 500,000). Combining these independent events yields a probability on the order of 1 in 150 billion (292.2 million × 500,000 ≈ 1.46 × 10^11). Happy birthday my love, you're one in a 150 billion.

@KevinVuongxMP Congratulations!

This #FathersDay is extra special—our little captain is getting a little brother this fall! Crew of three, soon to be four. 🩵 As a fun aside, my wife absolutely HATED my #HMCSYork Centennial kisby ring (she AI’ed the front) and had immediately banned it to my Hill office at the time. But now that she’s decided our baby boy’s nursery will be sailor themed, it’s one of her new favourite things! 🤣

@AndrewKnack Get back to work! Do the jobs you were “hired” to do!

🧵As the Mayors of Alberta’s largest cities, we are standing up against the referendum for a referendum and encouraging Albertans to vote this October.

@HMcPhersonNDP So, you don’t support democracy??

Alberta belongs in Canada. Danielle Smith is playing a dangerous game, giving oxygen and credibility to far right separatists. Albertans deserve better.

@DimitrisSoudas Just another “federalist” who thinks we’re idiots

“Just vote yes and we’re our own country.” Cool. Here’s the actual to-do list you’d have to negotiate first You’d have to settle: → Share of the national debt → Split of federal assets → Embassies & foreign property → Crown corporations → Federal pensions → Keep the loonie? Make a new currency? → Central bank access → Deposit insurance & banking rules → Foreign reserves → Citizenship & dual nationality → Passports → Free movement across the new border → Exact land borders → Maritime borders → Indigenous treaty rights (these don’t just transfer) → Whether Indigenous nations can stay with Canada → A whole new trade deal → Status under USMCA, CETA, CPTPP (not automatic) → Tariffs, customs, standards → Professional licensing across the border → UN membership (you re-apply) → Hundreds of treaties, renegotiated → Diplomatic recognition → NATO & NORAD membership → Splitting the armed forces → Military bases & equipment → Intelligence sharing (Five Eyes access) → Border security & the RCMP → Coast guard & airspace → CPP & pension portability → Old Age Security → Health transfers → Employment insurance → Pipelines & the power grid → Railways, highways, seaways → Shared rivers & water → Telecom & spectrum → Air traffic control → Tax systems & taxpayer data → Courts & appeals (no more Supreme Court of Canada) → Every federal regulator: food, drugs, aviation, broadcasting → Thousands of federal employees → …and what happens if talks just collapse 50%+1 creates a duty to negotiate — not a guarantee you get what you want, or that a deal even happens. “Independence” is the easy word. That list is the actual job.

@aaronpaquette Seriously, get back to work!!

Popping into twitter because it seems folks only read headlines, ha. Here is my blog post that explains what I am looking for in my motion. There is the short version, and the notes for nerds afterward. #yeg #ableg #cdnpoli aaronpaquette.ca/blog-2-1/separ…

@JasonLavigneAB And people believe him 😞

Carney is wrong on two fronts. One, that the Clarity Act applies to the October 19th referendum question as posed. It does not because the question is not binding on the question of secession. In fact, that's exactly why so many people are frustrated with the question, it's non-binding. Two, 50%+1 is a democratic majority. There's no question about that. With someone who literally has 50%+1 seat to hold a majority government, he know this is true. What Carney is doing is what Carney does best, lies with a smile.

@ABDanielleSmith You’re right it’s time for a vote!! What you’ve decided to do is to kick the can down the road and have a vote to vote!! We’ve already said we want a vote!

I am fiercely loyal to Alberta and Canada and will be voting for our province to remain in confederation Kicking the can down the road only prolongs an emotional and important debate, and muzzling the voices of hundreds of thousands of Albertans who want to be heard is unjustifiable in a free and democratic society. It’s time to have a vote, understand the will of Albertans, and move on. Read my full op-ed here: calgaryherald.com/opinion/column…

David Staples captures something important about Alberta. Our province is not merely an economic unit within Confederation; it has a distinct culture rooted in freedom, opportunity, personal responsibility and a wide-open spirit. Many Canadians may find that outlook unfamiliar or even uncomfortable. But for many Albertans, it is precisely what makes this place home. For me, Alberta independence is not only about economics. It is also about a people with a distinct culture seeking the freedom to govern themselves according to their own values. @dstaples edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/… via @edmontonjournal

@ABDanielleSmith I’m deeply disappointed at this decision!! 700,000 Albertans ALREADY took the time to vote to have a referendum on separation. This referendum to have another referendum is redundant and unnecessary and is a waste of time for all those people who have already spoken!!

Fellow Albertans, please join me this evening for an important update on the 2026 Referendum. x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

@AndrewKnack Premier Smith is FOR democracy. Are you not FOR democracy?

Edmonton is and always will be a vital part of Canada. Premier Smith and the UCP Government's separatist agenda is catastrophic for Edmontonians, Albertans, and all Canadians.

@AlbertanMitch Thank you! Thank you!!

Every small step we take. Every small action we complete daily with discipline brings our voice to government. Thank you Mr. RC.

That’s not even close to the whole story. For most of us, one, two, three, or even ten pipelines changes nothing. When oil crashed in 2014, the industry had tens of thousands of layoffs. The province was hurting but there were signs of hope: Northern Gateway, Energy East, and TMX. Northern Gateway had its approval cancelled by Trudeau. Energy East was cancelled because Ottawa wanted to count upstream and downstream emissions, which put the project on shaky ground. But the coup de grace came when Québec’s prime minister at the time, François Legault said that there was “no social acceptability for a pipeline.” TC cancelled it shortly after. Finally, we fought over TMX because Ottawa wouldn’t assert its jurisdiction. Trudeau let Horgan and BC make it so risky to try to build TMX that Kinder Morgan had to pull out. Nobody wanted the federal government to buy the pipeline, they should have simply enforced the conditions to ensure it was safe for Kinder Morgan to proceed. Albertans had stayed quiet for a long time over equalization because Ottawa was staying out of our faces, so it was just the price to pay to operate in this country. But when came time to help Alberta after the oil crash, the whole nation turned its back on us and proceeded to crush the three beacons of hope we were counting on to turn the corner. That’s when a lot of us started paying closer attention to politics to figure out how to get our voices heard. It didn’t take very long before we started looking at seats in the House of Commons and the Senate and realizing how unequal and unfair our representation is in Ottawa. Bottom line is that we’re effectively screwed and that the people we subsidize through equalization continuously vote for governments that attack our industry. Fixing the constitutional mess is impossible because it would require either Ontario or Québec and all the maritime provinces to vote in favour of curtailing their own political power. It will never happen. In 2019, we figured that Canada was going to be smart enough to realize that Trudeau was a disaster and we’d get back some common sense. Wrong. Trudeau was voted in for a second time. If you were in the oil and gas industry at the time, you probably had your first taste of western alienation with the Wexit movement instantly polling above 30% in support of independence. Next up is covid and that’s when all hell broke loose with the spending, the OIC to prohibit common guns, etc. Albertans’ living standards were the most impacted by Trudeau and now Carney’s insane deficit spending. We watched as Trudeau pranced around on the world stage, virtue-signalling with our money while the cost of living was sky rocketing. In FY 2024-2025, we watched the Liberals send $13B abroad between gender equality and climate change foreign aid, while running a $36.3B deficit. We had one last hope with Pierre looking like he was going to get elected and stop the bleeding. But they parachuted Carney in and the rest is history. The country’s finances are in shambles and it would take 3 generations to fix this mess if we started today by doing the obvious, which Ottawa is still refusing to do. Ottawa is fiscally irresponsible and now headed down a very dangerous path of authoritarianism with all the bills that were passed in this parliamentary session. Alberta independence supporters see the writing on the wall and don’t care about any number of pipelines. Once you’ve looked close enough at the system, you realize it can’t be fixed and there’s no coming back from realizing the true extent of the mess Canada is in. The Canada we grew up in doesn’t exist anymore. It is a sinking ship and independence is the only way to save Alberta.

@cnm5000 @edmontonjournal @ABDanielleSmith what say you??

An Open Letter to Premier Danielle Smith, The delivery of 301,620 verified signatures to Elections Alberta on Monday is not merely a bureaucratic milestone; it is a thunderous demand for self-determination that your government cannot ignore. These names represent Albertans who stood in the freezing cold, IDs in hand, to ensure their voices were counted. They have met and nearly doubled the legal threshold required to bring the question of Alberta’s future to the ballot. You gave your word that if the signatures were gathered, the question would be put to the people. Now is the time to honor that promise. We are acutely aware of the legal maneuvers and injunctions seeking to silence this movement. However, the political authority of the Premier of Alberta is derived from the people, not from the delays of the court or the objections of interest groups. The Referendum Act provides you with the clear power to place this question on the ballot for October 19. Any attempt to use judicial "pauses" as a shield to avoid this democratic duty will be seen as a betrayal of the very sovereignty you claim to defend. This movement has done the hard work of democracy under the most grueling winter conditions. They have operated with transparency, verifying every participant to ensure a pristine list that stands above reproach. The possibility that these 300,000 citizens must wait indefinitely while their rights are debated in a courtroom is an insult to the provincial electorate. You have the mandate, you have the numbers, and you have the legal framework to act. We demand that you bypass the legal static and immediately take the necessary executive steps to include the independence question in the October referendum. The eyes of the province—and the country—are on you. Do not let this historic expression of the democratic will be buried in legalities or process. Put the question to the people on October 19 and let Albertans decide their own destiny. Sincerely, Colin N. MacLeod

Danielle Smith says Alberta separation referendum timing uncertain amid court challenges edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/…

@JeffreyRWRath @CoryBMorgan The both of you should STOP! I agree with the post that said you should grab your phones and go private!

@RiseOfAlberta F’n A!!

🚨 BREAKING: 301,620 signatures have officially been announced for the Alberta independence petition. That is far beyond the required threshold to trigger the Alberta independence vote on October 19th. A massive day for the Alberta Independence movement.

@FoodProfessor So very sorry for your loss!

Some personal news. Lost my brother this week. The guy who looked after me when I was a kid. The one who coached my baseball teams. The one who loved his hometown, Farnham, with everything he had. The one who taught me how to play hockey. The one who inspired me to become a DJ. The one who got me my first board seat at the Farnham youth center. The one who bought me my first car. The one who helped me start a business when I was young… that guy. He’s gone. Jean—“Charlie” at home—passed away wednesday at 61. A father of three, a grandfather of two, taken far too quickly by an aggressive cancer that gave us only weeks. I broke down when I found out in early March. I was at the Toronto airport, waiting for a flight. I’ll never forget that moment. I knew time wasn’t on our side. We asked him what he wanted to do. He wanted to see the Blue Jays play Los Angeles Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani in Toronto. My twin brother Patrick pulled off something incredible—planned a trip in days. Early April. The Fairmont Royal York. Even some curling, dressed as bananas with the “Peel,” before the game. The Jays lost 14–2. Didn’t matter. We were together. And deep down, we all knew it would be the last time. Tonight, I’m thinking about my father, who just lost his first son. No parent should have to live that. I’m thinking about his daughters—Roxanne, Laurie, Rosalie—his granddaughters Élise and Alice, and Alex, the father. An entrepreneur for over four decades. Vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce. President of the Farnham golf club. He loved Farnham—and Farnham loved him back. This is a brutal loss for our family. But that’s life. F*ck cancer. Rest easy, my big brother. Go join Mom—she’s been watching over us for nearly 17 years. Give her a hug for all of us. Salut, Charlie.

@echipiuk Happy birthday!!

It’s my birthday, and yes… in this upside down, nutty world we are living in, and I could cry if I wanted to. But I won’t. I am going to keep doing what I’ve been doing, pushing for better, promoting education, and encouraging real dialogue in this country. Because I know we can do better. To those who support this, thank you. I genuinely appreciate the messages and encouragement more than you probably realize. If you want to support what I’m doing, the best way to do that is to educate yourself. I wrote Reconnect to Canada because I was honestly embarrassed by the level of conversation in this country, especially from our so called leaders and the media. We cannot keep expecting better outcomes if we are not willing to become more informed and more capable ourselves. So instead of waiting, hoping, or complaining that someone else will fix things, start with you. Get fit. Mentally and physically. And laugh… laugh through the noise, the haters and the nonsense, because there is plenty of it! One step, one day at a time, we can create real change. But we need to be smart about it, and we need to be strong enough, physically and mentally, to actually follow through. Let’s be better. Together ❤️ a.co/d/023n1Ave