There is an Arab folk tale about two cats. One is owned by an old woman who is poor and practically starving. Belonging to such an owner means the cat lives off crumbs and the odd mouse. She’s not much more than skin and bones. On a foray in search of something to eat, this cat meets an extraordinarily sleek and fat cat. This one must be an egalitarian, because she doesn’t hesitate to converse with the half-starved cat.
The upshot is that the fat cat invites the starving cat to the palace where she lives. On the day before, there had been a great feast at the palace. Sadly, the huge amount of food left on the floor has now attracted a host of scavenging felines. The result is the sultan requests that archers be brought in to do away with the scavengers. The end.
What this has to do with the controversy involving premier Danielle Smith’s visit to Saudi Arabia in the fall of 2025 is no doubt unclear. I’ll get to that.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the Saudi minister of energy, evidently met the premier of Alberta in November 2023, when Calgary hosted the World Energy Congress. The prince and the premier toured a few pavilions together and had a sufficient meeting of minds that the former invited the latter to visit him in Saudi Arabia.
Premier Smith accepted, and the visit occurred. While in the Middle East the premier met an impressive roster of dignitaries, including the Saudi artificial intelligence boss and officials from OPEC.
Months later, back in the Alberta Legislature, Opposition leader Naheed Nenshi asked Smith about some missing receipts. Where she’d been and the list of receipts didn’t jibe. Her explanation was that the oilfields and other spots she’d visited weren’t accessible by commercial aircraft. She’d flown on private jets. This might have seemed a trivial matter, but since the government voyageurs had managed to rack up $64,000 in expenses in Saudi Arabia, for which Albertans were on the hook, Nenshi wasn’t ready to drop the topic.
No one from the UCP side was (or is) offering to have the cat assayed, so we’re still dealing in hypotheticals.
And then there was the cat. A sharp-eyed individual had noticed that in a McDougall Centre office there was a new golden statue of a cat. It appeared in the background of a photo that included the premier. A question was put to the premier: “What’s with the golden cat?” And the answer was: “Oh that. Just a little something from Prince Abdulaziz…?”
The cat was a hefty looking specimen standing on all fours. Inevitably people speculated what it was made of. The initial eyeball assay was that it was made of gold. In the old Arab tale of the two cats, then, this would have been the sultan’s cat rather than the scavenger.
Albertans started doing some math. The cat was hefty, not something you could shove in your purse. Chunky, not light. At the current price of gold (around $7,000/ounce), the cat was one heck of a gift! As news of the statue spread, the possible value bounced around. Some said the cat might be worth millions. More-conservative types said, “Nah. $300,000 tops.” Also unclear was whether the premier or the province owned the cat. It should have been the province, but it wasn’t clear.
When the Opposition leader brought up the trip and the receipts in the Legislature, inevitably the subject came around to the cat.
Initially the government attempted to brush it off. Members portrayed Nenshi’s concerns as a rube-like fuss launched by someone who doesn’t get out much. But wait a minute. Nenshi was the mayor of Calgary for 11 years. And he was awarded the title of the World’s Best Mayor in 2018, for which he got a pretty handsome statue of his own (albeit stainless steel). Anyway, the man has been around, and he wasn’t letting the golden cat escape from public attention quite yet.
The next thing the UCP government had to say about the cat was that it wasn’t gold at all. No, it was a copper cat with a touch of gold paint. Worth maybe a few hundred dollars. One pundit pegged its real value at $80. No one from the government side was (or is) offering to have the cat assayed, so we’re still dealing in hypotheticals.
And I must say I have a hypothetical or two. When the cat went from being solid gold to being (maybe) copper with a paint job, it changed my view of the Saudi royal family’s generosity. And of the esteem in which on our premier is held.
Oh, heck. What should we give that politician from Canada?
I don’t know. What about that old copper kitty the maid found at the bazaar?
Is no one concerned about the implications of this…?
But, then, it might be a damn long time before any Albertans are asked to visit Saudi Arabia again. Like the sultan in the Arab folk tale, the leaders of that country aren’t exactly known for their sentimentality. And next time the Saudis might suggest that our premier rent a car. Drive in the desert for a few days and see how high and mighty she feels.
Fred Stenson has published 20 books. A new novel, Carpenter Creek, is forthcoming from Thistledown Press in fall 2026.
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