There are two things you need to remember about that new poll from Think HQ Public Affairs that suggests the number of Alberta voters who still approve of Premier Jason Kenney’s job performance has now sunk below 30 per cent. First, it’s a survey of a sample of Albertans, not
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Alberta Politics: After six years of exemplary service as Alberta Health Services CEO, Kenney Government sacks Verna Yiu
Verna Yiu led Alberta Health Services through the darkest hours of the pandemic with grace and a steady hand. The 20-year-plus veteran of public health care administration is the kind of leader whose name invariably appears in print in close proximity to the word “respected.” So why wouldn’t the Kenney
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney provides unintended comic relief at the pumps; changes are coming to AlbertaPolitics.ca
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s bungled effort to pump a little gas yesterday to make a point about his government’s gas-tax cut illustrates why it’s always a good idea to warn your audience if you’re about to try something new. So I’m taking this opportunity to advise readers of AlbertaPoltics.ca that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Five Little Indians by Michelle Good – CBC’s Canada Reads winner – leads independent bookshops’ fiction bestseller list
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, March 27, 2022. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. Perennial bestseller Five Little Indians
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta to ban all public wearing of COVID masks, establish tip line, and fine violators $99
Alberta will take the next step today in its transition to the elimination of all public COVID-19 restrictions by banning the use of cloth and paper face masks in public places. “As Alberta leaves broad-based COVID-19 restrictions behind and moves into the endemic phase of the disease, it’s important that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Impossible dreams: Former Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith says she’ll seek UCP leadership if Jason Kenney loses party vote
She’s baaaack! Apparently Danielle Smith – the other former leader of the Wildrose Party – has made it official that she intends to make a run to lead the United Conservative Party. Danielle Smith in 2008 on the day she announced she was running to lead the Wildrose Party (Photo:
Continue readingAlberta Politics: After nearly a year gathering dust on a shelf, Kenney Government proclaims politician recall law and its sister act
After letting it sit un-proclaimed in legislative limbo for nearly a year, the Kenney Government has finally gotten around to taking the necessary steps to bring its politician-recall legislation into force. In a press release yesterday, the United Conservative Party Government announced the Recall Act and its sister act, the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Controversy over sophomoric meme, admission police interviewed premier, distract from lame Axis of Inflation news conference
The adults definitely don’t seem to be in charge any more over in Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s office. It didn’t take very long after the slap heard ’round the world during last night’s televised Academy Awards presentation before a sophomoric meme about the dramatic moment appeared on Premier Kenney’s social
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Pundits pivot to theory UCP orchestrated leak to media of recording of Jason Kenney’s ‘lunatics’ speech to political staffers
Much of the Alberta commentariat pivoted Friday to the theory Premier Jason Kenney himself was behind the leak of a recording of his speech to political staffers in which he accused the right wing of his United Conservative Party of bigotry and lunacy. “I did not think that Kenney orchestrated
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Desperate times call for desperate measures: Kenney labels the UCP’s rightward fringe ‘lunatics,’ ‘kooky people’
In a secret pep talk to his troops Tuesday, revealed yesterday by the CBC, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said he’s only sticking around as leader of the United Conservative Party to keep the “lunatics” from “trying to take over the asylum.” In May 2020, Mr. Kenney’s social media flying monkeys
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calling UCP leadership review rule change illegal, unethical, and ‘a travesty,’ Jason Kenney’s rival Brian Jean vows legal response
Alberta’s United Conservative Party hasn’t even held the vote yet in its review of Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership and his chief rival is threatening legal action. Yesterday the party board, dominated by Mr. Kenney’s supporters, changed the rules for the April 9 leadership review vote to make it easier for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hysterical Conservatives outdo themselves with ‘coalition’ histrionics, but Parliament is operating exactly as it should
Let it be conceded that the Conservative histrionics over yesterday’s confidence and supply agreement between the Liberals and the New Democrats in Parliament has far outdone the “spectacular national Conservative tantrum” predicted in this space. Naturally one would have expected a right-wing Opposition party to argue that any deal between
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A Liberal-NDP confidence and supply deal takes shape? If so, brace yourself for a spectacular national Conservative tantrum!
If the deal the federal Liberals and New Democrats seem to have cooked up to keep the Trudeau Government in power until 2025 in return for national pharmacare and dental care programs turns out to be for real, brace yourselves for a spectacular national tantrum by the Conservatives led by,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: United Conservative Party factions – Jason Kenney’s Mods and Brian Jean’s Rockers – square off over premier’s future
Are rival gangs of UCP Mods and Rockers* heading for Red Deer spoiling for a fight? If you thought the recent opposing demonstrations by outlaw truckers, most of whom don’t seem to own trucks, and local residents in Calgary’s Beltline neighbourhood were rough, imagine how ugly it could get if
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A Burning by Megha Majumdar tops Alberta independent bookshops’ fiction bestseller list for week ended March 13
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, March 13, 2022. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. ALBERTA FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. A
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stolen data: Respected pollster refuses to publish private poll to suit Kenney Government; UCP leaks it anyway
Janet Brown is an independent Alberta pollster with a solid track record for accurate polling, so when a couple of media reports appeared this week saying one of her recent polls showed the United Conservative Party leading the New Democratic Party, political observers paid attention. For one thing, other recent
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ammolite, soon to be yet another official Alberta emblem, even comes with a cryptocurrency angle!
“Ammolite is an important part of our heritage and economy,” Ron Orr said yesterday in the Kenney Government’s news release announcing that the little-known gemstone would soon become one of Alberta’s official emblems. Mr. Orr is Alberta’s minister of Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women. It’s the latter portfolio on
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guest post by Bradley Lafortune: It really is time for Alberta to end the fiscal insanity and get off the revenue rollercoaster
By Bradley Lafortune In quiet Zoom meetings of economists and energy analysts around the province you can almost hear the murmurs: “Fiscal insanity … again!” But there is hope, however faint, because the imperative could not be more clear that Alberta must plan for a long-term recovery through savings, reinvesting
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brian Jean, Jason Kenney’s rival, wins Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election in a walk for UCP; turnout was disgracefully low
No surprise, it was Brian Jean in a walk. The well-heeled local lad, former Conservative Member of Parliament and former leader of the Wildrose Party of Alberta didn’t even have to break into a sweat to capture an overwhelming majority of the votes for the United Conservative Party in yesterday’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: At a fraught moment for Jason Kenney, just before a crucial by-election, new poll shows NDP with solid provincial lead
On the eve of today’s Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election and less than a month before the review of Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership by United Conservative Party members, a new poll shows the NDP Opposition strongly leading the UCP in decided-voter support. If the findings of the online survey of
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