I hate this framing so much. The nine questions were intentionally designed to appear rational to the average person at first glance and were improperly presented to voters by the very nature of their framing.
It’s NINE QUESTIONS. The Forever Canadian campaign solely focussed on Question 10, other campaigns focussing on the other nine questions as well had a MASSIVE uphill climb for educating voters on those questions and why they were either deceiving or generally poor choices, WHILE having much less reach. Had voters been properly educated on these questions and had Question 10 not acted as a cover for the importance of the other nine, I’m 100% certain the votes wouldn’t have swayed the same way they did.
But hey, let’s just go ahead and keep framing Albertans as everything bad in the book, not include nuance, and then somehow claim that you’re in favour of unity when you get clicks off an inflammatory title against people who live here, while burying the facts of the wording of the questions over twenty paragraphs deep in your article. It’s also so rich of Rachel Gilmore to go ahead and say this blanket statement as if she isn’t publishing this story on a platform infamous for making a profit in platforming white nationalists and neo-nazis.
Congrats, I’ve been here all my life, and I know plenty of people that are the opposite way. There’s literally multiple non-profits to support immigrants both in Edmonton and Calgary, and while yes, you get the asshole here and there that’s generally racist, people are more frustrated at things like the LMIA program than they truly are at immigrants.
You know what a dogwhistle is, right? By it’s very definition the significance isn’t understood by the average person. I see your other comments and know what you’re trying to imply.
You’re trying to frame things in a way that makes it seem as if most people understood the dogwhistle, where in that case, it wouldn’t be a dogwhistle anymore if it were true. You’re literally trying to make a point, but proving yourself wrong in trying to make said point.
Once again, nuance magically doesn’t exist when it comes to Alberta.
Are you suggesting that a significant portion of the people who voted for racism, didn’t understand the questions, or thought they were answering yes to questions they didn’t understand?
Which is it, is Alberta proudly racist or is Alberta stupid as fuck?
I find this hilarious that people throw people here in no-win situations constantly where when you’re not being labelled as both simultaneously, you have to choose one or the other.
Like I’m not over here calling Ontarians a bunch of idiots for electing Doug Ford, Nova Scotians for Tim Houston, or British Columbians for the polling Conservatives are having there, and yet because “it’s Alberta” it’s justified to blanket insult people here constantly.
You’re blatantly ignoring context in order to score cheap and easy points online because “Alberta bad” is easy and popular. People are rightfully frustrated that they can’t find a job and that the federal government is doing nothing about blatant LMIA abuse by companies for entry-level positions or positions that they can’t fill because of blatant underpaying wages. They’re frustrated that they see news stories of international students using food banks to cut their costs, and aren’t provided proper context by the media at large of the federal government’s failing to properly inform those students of what it costs to get by here. The questions were also clearly framed to make things sound rational.
Being misled is not the same as being outright stupid, and if you want to go ahead and claim that it is, then I fundamentally disagree with you. All these cheap insults do is fan people’s thoughts of western alienation in a time where we’re supposed to be unifying.
If you had read the actual questions, you’d understand that they were all of the form “if you feel disenfranchised by immigration, do you support Alberta seizing or colluding with other provinces to usurp power from the federal gov?”
By answering the x/y questions about power shifting, the negative connotations are entirely borne by the respondents.
You saying “Alberta is racist, full stop”, not only are you painting with a broad brush, you’re feeding into exactly what the UCP want when they intentionally worded the questions the way they did.
I said Alberta is racist - you are the one who introduced the idea that they did so because they were too dumb to understand what they were voting for. I’m not saying they’re stupid, I’m saying they’re racist, and are on the record as such.
I think yall have a massive racism problem that has just been brought to the surface, like a boil for the rest of the world to see on our nation’s face. If you want be angry at someone, be angry at the racists who showed up, and the “good” people who could not be arsed.
But make no mistake, you have humiliated us all. Fuckin’ Alberta.
I hate this framing so much. The nine questions were intentionally designed to appear rational to the average person at first glance and were improperly presented to voters by the very nature of their framing.
It’s NINE QUESTIONS. The Forever Canadian campaign solely focussed on Question 10, other campaigns focussing on the other nine questions as well had a MASSIVE uphill climb for educating voters on those questions and why they were either deceiving or generally poor choices, WHILE having much less reach. Had voters been properly educated on these questions and had Question 10 not acted as a cover for the importance of the other nine, I’m 100% certain the votes wouldn’t have swayed the same way they did.
But hey, let’s just go ahead and keep framing Albertans as everything bad in the book, not include nuance, and then somehow claim that you’re in favour of unity when you get clicks off an inflammatory title against people who live here, while burying the facts of the wording of the questions over twenty paragraphs deep in your article. It’s also so rich of Rachel Gilmore to go ahead and say this blanket statement as if she isn’t publishing this story on a platform infamous for making a profit in platforming white nationalists and neo-nazis.
Temporary Albertan here. There isn’t a lot of love for immigrants here… It’s Canada’s Texas.
“Temporary Albertan here”
Congrats, I’ve been here all my life, and I know plenty of people that are the opposite way. There’s literally multiple non-profits to support immigrants both in Edmonton and Calgary, and while yes, you get the asshole here and there that’s generally racist, people are more frustrated at things like the LMIA program than they truly are at immigrants.
BC here. It’s the same here in the interior. Vancouver area is going to be another story as white folk seem to be the minority in places.
AKA dogwhistles.
Yeah, exactly that.
You know what a dogwhistle is, right? By it’s very definition the significance isn’t understood by the average person. I see your other comments and know what you’re trying to imply.
You’re trying to frame things in a way that makes it seem as if most people understood the dogwhistle, where in that case, it wouldn’t be a dogwhistle anymore if it were true. You’re literally trying to make a point, but proving yourself wrong in trying to make said point.
Once again, nuance magically doesn’t exist when it comes to Alberta.
Are you suggesting that a significant portion of the people who voted for racism, didn’t understand the questions, or thought they were answering yes to questions they didn’t understand?
Which is it, is Alberta proudly racist or is Alberta stupid as fuck?
I find this hilarious that people throw people here in no-win situations constantly where when you’re not being labelled as both simultaneously, you have to choose one or the other.
Like I’m not over here calling Ontarians a bunch of idiots for electing Doug Ford, Nova Scotians for Tim Houston, or British Columbians for the polling Conservatives are having there, and yet because “it’s Alberta” it’s justified to blanket insult people here constantly.
You’re blatantly ignoring context in order to score cheap and easy points online because “Alberta bad” is easy and popular. People are rightfully frustrated that they can’t find a job and that the federal government is doing nothing about blatant LMIA abuse by companies for entry-level positions or positions that they can’t fill because of blatant underpaying wages. They’re frustrated that they see news stories of international students using food banks to cut their costs, and aren’t provided proper context by the media at large of the federal government’s failing to properly inform those students of what it costs to get by here. The questions were also clearly framed to make things sound rational.
Being misled is not the same as being outright stupid, and if you want to go ahead and claim that it is, then I fundamentally disagree with you. All these cheap insults do is fan people’s thoughts of western alienation in a time where we’re supposed to be unifying.
Edit: Rob to Doug, oop
They voted for racism, full stop. If they thought they were voting for not-racism, they are not smart. One or the other is true.
If you had read the actual questions, you’d understand that they were all of the form “if you feel disenfranchised by immigration, do you support Alberta seizing or colluding with other provinces to usurp power from the federal gov?”
By answering the x/y questions about power shifting, the negative connotations are entirely borne by the respondents.
You saying “Alberta is racist, full stop”, not only are you painting with a broad brush, you’re feeding into exactly what the UCP want when they intentionally worded the questions the way they did.
“Nuance doesn’t exist, I am very smart, unlike those stupid Albertans”
I said Alberta is racist - you are the one who introduced the idea that they did so because they were too dumb to understand what they were voting for. I’m not saying they’re stupid, I’m saying they’re racist, and are on the record as such.
Despite my slight slip-up, I feel I’ve made my point that this line of thinking lacks critical thought.
Cheers.
I think yall have a massive racism problem that has just been brought to the surface, like a boil for the rest of the world to see on our nation’s face. If you want be angry at someone, be angry at the racists who showed up, and the “good” people who could not be arsed.
But make no mistake, you have humiliated us all. Fuckin’ Alberta.
If you think racism is just an alberta problem, I’d like to introduce you to this thing we call ‘the world’.
Jesus Christ. Tell us you don’t actually know what the questions were without telling us directly.