{"id":558764,"date":"2026-03-25T02:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T02:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/558764\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T02:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T02:18:10","slug":"albertas-infamous-golden-cat-statue-sparks-legislature-hissing-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/558764\/","title":{"rendered":"Alberta\u2019s \u2018infamous\u2019 golden cat statue sparks legislature hissing match"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\tBy Lisa Johnson<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Canadian Press\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tPosted March 24, 2026 4:18 pm\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t1 min read\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>The mystery of a gold-coloured cat perched in the office of Alberta Premier <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/danielle-smith\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Danielle Smith<\/a> is now a full-on hissing match.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>It began in the house last week, when Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi publicly accused Smith of questionable judgment for accepting lavish gifts from foreign leaders, including a \u201cgiant golden cat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A statue of a gold-coloured feline can be seen in the background of <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ABDanielleSmith\/status\/2002061793166782830\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">a picture sent out by Smith\u2019s office on social media<\/a> and has since become a popular internet meme, with the critter even <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/THudson59618056\/status\/2035897821346566530\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">hopping up on Smith\u2019s lap to be petted in one false, manufactured video<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you'll never miss the day's top stories.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get daily Canada news delivered to your inbox so you&#8217;ll never miss the day&#8217;s top stories.<\/p>\n<p>Smith\u2019s chief of staff Rob Anderson has since weighed in on social media to say the \u201cinfamous\u201d cat is made of copper \u2014 not gold \u2014 and is, in his words, worth \u201ca few hundred dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Anderson says the cat was a gift given to the province during a visit from Saudi Arabia\u2019s energy minister in 2023 and is on display in the premier\u2019s Calgary office.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson says Nenshi\u2019s criticism just shows he\u2019s not fit to lead, and he dismisses those who think there is anything lavish or untoward about the cat statue as conspiracy loving tinfoil-hat wearers.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Politics<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">To all those Nenshi followers who buy your tinfoil in bulk, here are the facts around your latest conspiracy theory about the now infamous cat sculpture.<\/p>\n<p>1. The cat sculpture is worth a few hundred dollars and is made of copper \u2013 not gold.<\/p>\n<p>2. It was gifted to the People of\u2026<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Rob Anderson (@FreeAlbertaRob) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FreeAlbertaRob\/status\/2036248501458444514?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 24, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Lisa Johnson The Canadian Press Posted March 24, 2026 4:18 pm 1 min read Descrease article font&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[7611,76,354,355,49,48,53105,356,75,186003,714],"class_list":["post-558764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-alberta-legislature","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-danielle-smith","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-golden-cat","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}