A new “think tank” with close connections to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation received $50,000 last year from the Donner Canadian Foundation, a prominent funder of right-wing ideological organizations in Canada. SecondStreet.org describes itself on its website as “a new think tank that will be launching in early 2019.” The organization’s
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Alberta Politics: Brian Topp, NDP strategist who led Rachel Notley’s 2015 war room, describes what Jagmeet Singh must do this year to win
With a federal election looming this fall, mainstream pundits have already written off the federal New Democratic Party and its leader, Jagmeet Singh, relegating Mr. Singh to history’s discard bin and declaring the party to have already returned to perpetual third-party status. Maybe they shouldn’t, suggests long-time NDP political strategist
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Washington Black by Esi Edugyan tops Audreys Books Edmonton Fiction Bestseller list for final week of 2018
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Dec. 30, 2018. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Washington Black – Esi Edugyan 2. Wake for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guest Post by Olav Rokne: America’s Democrats need to saddle up a dark horse
Considering his scandal-ridden administration, a shaky economy, and his disagreeable public presence, it’s easy for progressives to assume that Tovarishch Trump will be a one-term president. But here’s the bad news: There’s a very real chance that Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, will be re-elected. For
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brief late-evening message from premier signals departure of Calgary MLA and former cabinet minister Stephanie McLean
If there’s an Alberta version of what used to be known as a “Kremlinologist,” they’ll be puzzling over yesterday evening’s social media announcement by Premier Rachel Notley about the departure of former Status of Women Minister Stephanie McLean. Premier Notley’s statement on Facebook at about 10 p.m. begged a few
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Not a lot of light between UCP and Alberta Party ‘Ministry of Truth’ schemes, or for that matter the NDP approach
Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel got a couple of things right about Jason Kenney’s plan to establish a “war room” in the Ministry of Energy to pump out belligerent propaganda attacking environmentalists, other governments and private citizens who fail to support of Alberta’s wishes for endless oilsands expansion with sufficient
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy New Year! What’s Brian Jean up to? Is the former Wildrose leader plotting a comeback?
Happy New Year! So, now that it’s 2019, what’s Brian Jean up to? Maybe it’s just me, but he’s sure acting like a guy who’s thinking about being a political candidate again! You remember Brian Jean, don’t you? He used to be the leader of the Wildrose Party. Indeed, he
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s Top Ten Political News Stories of 2018: It’s not all about that pipeline …
Trying to come up with a list of the most important Alberta political news stories of 2018 is more challenging than one might imagine since the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion brouhaha sucked all the oxygen out of this place for most of the year. A court challenge was inevitable. So
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Highwood Conservative discloses past conviction for failure to provide breath sample; UCP seems untroubled
With an investigation by the Alberta Elections Commissioner under way into allegations of irregularities in the United Conservative Party’s conduct of its nomination vote in the Highwood Constituency last fall, the winning candidate published a statement Friday admitting he was convicted and fined for failing to provide a breathalyzer sample
Continue readingAlberta Politics: MLA asks Elections Alberta to investigate claim Jason Kenney’s UCP leadership campaign ‘deliberately hid’ donation
“The UCP denies the allegations.” We should probably get used to reading this phrase. I suspect we’re going to be seeing it quite a lot in stories about Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party during the first half of 2019. It was included in an Edmonton Journal story yesterday about allegations
Continue readingAlberta Politics: AlbertaPolitics.ca: still here after 11 years writing about Canada’s most interesting provincial political scene
Today marks the 11th anniversary of the first post published on this blog, known at the time as St. Albert Diary. And thank God for that, since I’m in a post-Christmas funk with barely an idea in my head about what to write next. By the standards of the Internet,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Has Trudeau committed treason?’ The answer is no and the question is completely bonkers!
Donna Kennedy-Glans, by all accounts an intelligent and accomplished Alberta Conservative, recently posted and pinned a Tweet asking, “Has Trudeau committed treason?” If her intention was to grab the attention of Alberta’s chattering classes, she succeeded. If she was out for attention, though, I’m not sure she really wanted the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Peak Separatism has passed in Alberta, no thanks to Postmedia’s sly campaign to undermine the Trudeau Government
Happy Holidays! It may take a few days for its perpetrators to admit this, but Alberta has all but certainly already passed Peak Separatism. The current 2018 spasm of Alberta separatist sentiment peaked late last week, probably some time Thursday afternoon. By the time we’re all saying Happy New Year
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Photographer David Aaron’s ‘Edmonton Then and Now’ tops Audreys Books non-fiction bestseller list
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Dec. 16, 2018. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Kingdom of the Blind – Louise Penny 2.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Questions about UCP party votes abound: There’s smoke, but is there fire? Brian Jean’s ship was sunk, but did a kamikaze sink it?
There’s smoke! Is there fire? On Friday, StarMetro’s Edmonton and Calgary editions reported that the Office of the Elections Commissioner has hired a retired Edmonton Police detective to dig into reports Jeff Callaway’s 2017 “kamikaze” United Conservative Party leadership campaign was illegally funded. Ken Brander, who has a background investigating
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Political Traffic Report: Watch out for flaming clown cars on the right
With the announcement of the Freedom Conservative Party’s election platform yesterday, leader Derek Fildebrandt appears to have taken Alberta’s already bizarre case of Trudeau Derangement Syndrome to a new level – one that is actually deranged! To do so, Mr. Fildebrandt had to execute a rare political triple flip-flop. Well,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: About the cost of operating that truck convoy: Was it a political donation, and was it strictly legal?
I have questions about that massive truck protest convoy in south Edmonton yesterday, the one that tied up commuter traffic and prevented people from reaching Edmonton International Airport and just happened to take place at the same time as a visit to the neighbourhood by federal Opposition leader Andrew Scheer.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: FAQ: Perfesser Dave returns after a long absence to explain Alberta Politics to the Rest of Canada
Some stories are just too confusing for ordinary bloggers to explain. That’s when we turn to the expert knowledge offered by distinguished academics such as Perfesser Dave, The Answer Guy™, Canada’s No. 1 expert on Alberta politics. As a result of his years of studying Alberta politics, Perfesser Dave knows
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Athabasca University and its faculty approach an impasse in bargaining; the province drops a hint of what might be next
Is Alberta’s NDP Government getting ready to bring some serious pressure to bear if that’s what it takes to get a contract agreement between Athabasca University’s administration and its faculty association? If I’m right about the meaning of changes to the Athabasca University Regulation ordered by the provincial cabinet last
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With friends like these … it’s sure depressing to compare Canada in 1979 to the U.S. in 2018
Canadians of a certain vintage will clearly remember “the Canadian Caper,” that dangerous moment in 1979 when our diplomats put their lives on the line to smuggle six of their American colleagues out of revolutionary Iran. Given the situation in Iran – revolutionaries storming the U.S. Embassy, diplomats held hostage,
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