As the documents that lay out the government’s policy agenda for the next couple of years, Throne Speeches are by nature tendentious. In the service of making what is a curse to many citizens appear to be a blessing they tend to be faintly Orwellian as well. That is, they
Continue readingAuthor: David Climenhaga
Alberta Politics: Nathan Cooper chosen as Legislative Speaker – so how about those early mornings?
Now that Nathan Cooper has been chosen as Speaker of the Alberta Legislature, I wonder if the business of the Assembly will be getting under way at a more civilized hour, say 10 a.m., suitable for bankers, gentlemen of leisure, and elected Conservatives? Mr. Cooper, United Conservative Party MLA for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On the streets of Edmonton with Dale the Street Preacher: ‘It’s really tough’
Dale the Street Preacher is doing the Lord’s work. We can acknowledge this, even if we don’t share his idea of whom the lord is, or accept his view about what’s going to happen when we die. In addition to standing on a soapbox containing an electronic amplifier and preaching
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Keep your eyes on the story of Jason Kenney’s ‘War Room’ – it’s going to be a boondoggle!
The discovery last week Postmedia was trying to cash in on Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s promised $30-million anti-environmental “war room” at the same time it has its hand out to Ottawa for a federal bailout has rather surprisingly turned out to be a story with legs. The irony of a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Postmedia bid for role in UCP ‘war room’ illustrates the folly of Trudeau’s lifeline for failing newspapers
Connect the dots, Mr. Prime Minister! That newspaper industry bailout package you’re foolishly planning in the name of preserving democracy is principally designed to keep a corporation afloat that will do anything, no matter how unethical, to destroy your government. If you want proof, look no further than Postmedia’s astonishing
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Uh-oh! Look for unhappy campers: Premier Kenney has vowed to end ‘the War on Fun’
Hey, who can be against ending Canada’s War on Fun? Not me, and not Jason Kenney either by the sound of it. You have to admit, though, the Alberta premier’s announcement yesterday that he plans to end what he calls “the War on Fun” by allowing the booze to flow
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of Justice: Vice-Admiral Mark Norman gets an apology and Conrad Black gets a pardon
Remember this important fact: None of us knows whether Vice-Admiral Mark Norman is guilty of the crime with which he was charged. Well, Vice-Admiral Norman knows, presumably, and his legal team would have a pretty good idea, as would a few Crown prosecutors and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP posturing around public sector wages portends a return to perpetual crisis in health care
The United Conservative Party Government’s transparent early manoeuvres around public sector wage negotiations and the heavy hints found in a paper by the chair of Premier Jason Kenney’s “blue ribbon panel” on Alberta’s finances portend a stormy period ahead in public sector labour relations, especially in health care. Since health
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Cuts & Critics: Expect fireworks in the Legislature, but no real brakes on radical UCP agenda
Alberta’s 24 NDP Opposition MLAs were sworn in yesterday and Opposition Leader Rachel Notley, not so long ago the province’s premier, named the MLAs who will fill her shadow cabinet portfolios. Meanwhile, Premier Jason Kenney’s MLAs will have to wait a few days while their boss gets on with his
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Mandel, as impudent as ever, pleads for public subsidy for his Alberta Party
Hello, Alberta! Stephen Mandel here! My Alberta Party didn’t manage to elect a single MLA last month, but we’re good guys and we got 9.1 per cent of the vote. How about you give us some money? That wasn’t really Stephen Mandel saying that, of course. It was me, your
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Lest we forget? Does Veterans Affairs’ video blooper signal something more seriously amiss in Canada?
On Thursday 13,000 soldiers of what used to be known as the Red Army marched through the heart of Moscow to military bands playing “The Sacred War” as Russia marked the 74th anniversary of the surrender of Berlin and the end of the road for Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich.” According
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Richard Van Camp’s Moccasin Square Gardens spends another week atop Audreys Books Edmonton Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton during the week ended May 5, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Moccasin Square Gardens – Richard Van Camp * 2. The Death
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP Health Minister Tyler Shandro hesitates over risky ideological plan to pull plug on medical ‘Superlab’
When it opted to build a $590-million “Superlab” in Edmonton, Alberta’s former NDP government was relying on sound advice from the Health Quality Council of Alberta, which recommended medical lab services be consolidated under “a single public sector platform.” But never mind the HQCA was set up under legislation created
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Your tax dollars at work: Looks like public funding for religious schools likely helped today’s large anti-abortion march
Taxpayers’ contributions to publicly funded parochial schools appeared to be hard at work today in Edmonton as a throng of students from religious high schools throughout the province marched through the capital city’s downtown in opposition to women’s reproductive rights. The annual anti-abortion March for Life sponsored by the Roman
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Albertans, in their ‘bitumen bubble,’ may have missed the significance of West Coast Green goings on
We Albertans have been living in a bit if a bubble – a bitumen bubble. As a consequence, we may not all have noticed what’s been happening on Canada’s West Coast. So the potential significance of the victory in a federal by-election Monday by Paul Manly of the Green Party
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Feeling blue? Don’t worry, Jason Kenney’s got a ‘blue ribbon panel’ sharpening its razors for you!
Brace yourselves, people. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has announced his “Blue Ribbon” panel to do a “deep dive” into the province’s books and figure out how to get them into the black in less than three years, eliminate debt, and do it all without raising taxes or introducing a sales
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Moccasin Square Gardens by Richard Van Camp returns to top of Audreys Books Edmonton Fiction Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton during the week ended April 28, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Moccasin Square Gardens – Richard Van Camp * 2. A Gentleman
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley sets out to do a little narrative building of her own about what Jason Kenney is up to, now that he’s premier
CALGARY – In her first major speech since losing the Alberta election to Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party on April 16, Rachel Notley called on her supporters not to allow conservatives to rewrite history to suit their own ends. “Make no mistake,” she warned a friendly crowd at the Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Vindication? Board of Internal Economy renders a Scotch verdict on Jason Kenney’s ethical lapse
CALGARY – Jason Kenney’s been in power for less than a week and already his election promises are falling like dominoes.* Yesterday, another wobbled when the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ruled that the federal government has the power to establish limits on greenhouse gas production that provinces must meet, and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Meanwhile, back on the Alberta farm, when in doubt, blame Ottawa
CALGARY – Meanwhile, back on the farm, a new template for government of Alberta news releases is a-birthin’. Henceforth and forevermore, presumably, all news releases issued by Alberta’s New Government ™ – a phrase that hasn’t appeared yet, but likely soon will, I reckon – will have to include the
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