PHOTOS: Progressive Conservative candidate Prabhdeep Gill, centre, celebrates after last night’s results were announced in the Calgary-Greenway by-election. (CBC photo.) Below: The night’s biggest loser, arguably, was Opposition Leader Brian Jean. …
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Alberta Politics: Whatever the outcome, today’s Calgary-Greenway by-election is sure to be a spinner’s dream
PHOTOS: Some of the candidates in today’s Calgary-Greenway by-election. (CBC photo) Below: Manmeet Bhullar, the PC MLA for the riding killed in a highway crash last November, NDP candidate Roop Rai and PC candidate Prabhdeep Gill. Today is the day of…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Deplorable Wildrose attack on new government negotiator offers a glimpse of what party leaders really think
PHOTOS: Kevin Davediuk, whose appointment as a senior public sector negotiator by the Alberta Government was announced on March 9. (Screenshot of Global News broadcast.) Below: Recently retired Canadian ambassador to the United States Gary Doer and the…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Retired journalist’s call to privatize control of Legislature media access unlikely to defuse controversy for NDP
PHOTOS: Former Canadian Press journalist Heather Boyd, author of yesterday’s report on media accreditation and access to the Alberta Legislature. Below: Right-wing Internet commentator Ezra Levant, who started the controversy that led to Ms. Boyd’s…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Throne Speech suggests Alberta NDP won’t let oil price crisis go completely to waste
PHOTOS: Status of Women Minister Stephanie McLean with her new son, Patrick, in the rotunda of the Alberta Legislature Building after yesterday’s Throne Speech. Below: Royal Canadian Artillery Band conductor Capt. Patrice Arsenault starts the proceed…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Study highlighting large and growing gender income gap makes grim reading on International Women’s Day
PHOTOS: Status of Women Minister Stephanie McLean, at left, announced the NDP Government’s plan to improve gender equality yesterday. (Government of Alberta photo.) Below: Queen’s University Law Professor Kathleen Lahey, the cover design of the Par…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Deconstructing political discourse in Alberta: Doublethink is alive and well in recessionary Wild Rose Country
PHOTOS: Parson Manning spreads the Gospel of Market Fundamentalism in his days as leader of the Reform Party of Alberta. The actual neoliberal preacher-men of Confederation may not appear exactly as illustrated. Photo grabbed from Elmer Gantry, the mov…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s behind ‘Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation’ campaigns like its stunt calling for rollbacks in Alberta teachers’ pay?
PHOTOS: A typical Canadian Taxpayers Federation stunt, moved from place to place across Canada with the goal of undermining public services and speeding the race to the bottom. The picture at bottom right shows Alberta Wildrose Opposition Finance Criti…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Government asks Athabasca University to hold off on financial details; new minister to meet president
PHOTOS: A scene from Athabasca University’s 2015 Convocation ceremony, where the honorary degrees are handed out. Below: Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt, former AU Board chair and award recipient Barry Walker, AU President Peter MacKinnon,…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There’s nothing ‘independent’ or ‘blue-ribbon’ about the Wildrose Party’s ‘Equalization Fairness Panel’
PHOTOS: How the Frontier Centre views Canada’s Equalization Program. Oh! Wait! That’s a 19th Century temperance poster. Same difference, basically. Below: The Wildrose Party’s four Frontier-Centre-associated “equalization fairness” panelists:…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of the Alberta Party: A mystery created, a mystery solved
PHOTOS: Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, the party’s sole MLA in the Alberta Legislature. Below: Then-Wildrose leader Danielle Smith during the campaign leading up to the October 2014 “mini-election” and Alberta Party President Pat Cochrane (phot…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wherever there’s Alberta unite-the-right chatter, Preston Manning’s name keeps popping up
PHOTOS: Preston Manning, looking right as usual, photo taken at the 2013 Manning Conference in Ottawa. Below: Alberta PC leader Ric McIver, Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean Wildrose Party photo), federal Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose (CBC photo) and…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don Getty, premier who battled economic downturn much like today’s, among the last of Alberta’s Red Tory leaders
PHOTOS: Don Getty and Peter Lougheed, going places politically back in the day. Below: Mr. Getty again, and Mr. Lougheed , as professional football players with the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1950s, the former in an Eskimos photo, the latter in a shot sna…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Appointment of Michael Phair as chair U of A Board of Governors sends exactly the right message
PHOTOS: Newly appointed University of Alberta Board of Governors Chair Michael Phair, left, with Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt at yesterday’s announcement (photo grabbed from MLA David Shepherd’s Twitter feed). Below: Former U of A Boa…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unite-the-right poll results ring alarm bells and raise interesting questions, none of which are asked by the media
PHOTOS: A pollster asks a typical Albertan if she’d prefer to vote for a united Wildrose-PC Party … or the NDP. Actual Alberta pollsters and their subjects may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Pollster Quito Maggi, Alberta Prosperity Fund …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: George Clark’s parking lot putschists deliver an unintended compliment to Alberta’s NDP Government
PHOTOS: Alberta First Plebiscite Warriors leader George Clark, in a screen shot from a video interview shot not long before someone stepped on the hose from his media oxygen supply. Below: Donald Trump and Calgary’s own Ted Cruz, a couple of U.S. pol…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta #Kudatah plan expires with a whimper as George Clark is abandoned by his erstwhile friends on the right
PHOTOS: George Clark explains Plan B to the media in a Calgary parking lot yesterday (CBC Photo). Below: Mr. Clark back in the day when his fair-weather friends from the right-wing vlogosphere used to interview him regularly; and the late U.S. Presiden…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fallout from the ‘Rebel Media’ brouhaha: maybe it’s time to abolish Alberta’s anachronistic Press Gallery
PHOTOS: A screenshot of some of the partisan materials sold on Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media website. Below: Another image of a sale item from The Rebel, in this case a T-shirt with the website’s logo on the back and a slogan supporting the Conservativ…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Athabasca U report on moving IT staff to Edmonton area helps explain motivation for space discussions with City of St. Albert
PHOTOS: The road to Athabasca, well back in the day. Too far for Information Technology professionals to consider travelling nowadays? Below: The Athabasca University headquarters, which if I’ve got this right would be just to the right of where the …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Go figure! Ezra Levant, the Pied Piper of right-wing-nuttery, has the mainstream media singing his tune!
PHOTOS: Right-wing commentator Ezra Levant in a typical pose, photo by David Stobbe of the University of Saskatchewan. Below: stringer Sheila Gunn Reid in a screen shot of The Rebel’s approach to journalism; Mr. Levant in another familiar pose, a few…
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