A dignified official portrait of Jim Prentice, last Progressive Conservative premier of Alberta, was unveiled in the Alberta Legislature yesterday. It’s a very nice piece of official portraiture that does justice to the beautiful third-floor hallway of the Alberta Legislature’s Rotunda where portraits of the province’s former premiers hang. Its
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Alberta Politics: UCP Leader Jason Kenney, political lifer elected at 29, mocks 29-year-old NDP candidate with sophomoric and offensive joke
I hear, “a gay 19 year old.” Quite clearly. I speak, of course, of Jason Kenney’s notorious cheap shot in Cochrane last Thursday, in which he mischaracterized the NDP’s newly acclaimed candidate in the Airdrie-Cochrane riding for a few laughs. Speaking at a United Conservative Party rally at an upscale
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What gives? Polite crowd, no visible security, no official UCP critics at Edmonton open house for Bighorn Park proposal
I can’t tell you about the one in Drayton Valley on Friday, but everything seemed copacetic at the Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park proposal open house in Edmonton yesterday afternoon. But what would you expect? As is the case in most of Alberta, one suspects, support is pretty strong in Alberta’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP governments’ approaches to health care funding characterized by fiscal prudence, new study says
Who knew? The facts don’t support the myth that New Democratic Party governments always try to break the bank with health care spending! Just as NDP governments have a better fiscal record than all other Canadian political parties that have formed governments, a new study by the Edmonton-based Parkland Institute
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Supreme Court says bankrupt corporations’ assets must pay for environmental cleanup first, pay off debtors later
CALGARY Stand by for a veritable tempest of wailing about “activist judges” from banking, oil industry and conservative quarters, now that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled bankrupt fossil fuel companies can’t use federal bankruptcy law to walk away from their environmental responsibilities as set out in provincial laws.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadian Geographic’s Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada tops Audreys Books’ Edmonton Non-Fiction Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Jan. 27, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. The Golden Tresses of the Dead – Alan
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Supreme Court ruling tomorrow could leave Albertans on the hook for corporate toxic mess cleanup
The Supreme Court of Canada will announce its ruling tomorrow morning in a case that could leave taxpayers on the hook for a toxic mess left by a bankrupt oil company – and by extension a whole raft of corporate polluters, not just in the oil industry. If the Supreme
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A little homily for churchgoers: Thou shalt do no tweeting from thy pew!
Preachers of many faiths wonder if anyone in their congregations ever pays attention to what they have to say. That complaint was common in clerical circles long before everybody had a direct line to the Internet, instead of God, right in their pocket or purse. Could social media be about
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Justice Minister needs to ask for RCMP investigation of Election Commissioner’s concerns, and quickly
Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley needs to ask the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate concerns raised by Alberta Election Commissioner Lorne Gibson that someone is trying to interfere with his office’s inquiry into alleged irregularities in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race. Mr. Gibson expressed his alarm in a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP leader’s tweet fumbles response to Islamophobic group’s harassment of worshipers at Edmonton mosque
Perhaps United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney needs to engage someone new to compose his tweets for him. Mr. Kenney is a bright guy, so I’m assuming for reasons that will soon become apparent he doesn’t come up with his own contributions to Twitter, the antisocial medium. Last fall, when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Poetry by Smokii Sumac, two-spirited member of Ktunaxa Nation in B.C., tops Audreys Books Edmonton Fiction Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Jan. 20, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. you are enough: love poems for the end
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell keeps the pot boiling under Jason Kenney and his questionable housing expense claims
Just when you thought it was about to fade away over the coming weekend, the saga of Jason Kenney’s dubious House of Commons housing expense claims got a new lease on life yesterday thanks to a Liberal Member of Parliament from Ontario. Jennifer O’Connell, MP for Pickering-Uxbridge, breathed new life
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney then and Now: UCP critics face abuse now, unlike a certain critic of PC housing allowances back in 1992
Public anger at politicians who bill taxpayers for their living expenses when in reality they live close to their work is nothing new in Alberta. Abusive attacks on their critics, up to and including death threats, are new. Back in April 1992, Progressive Conservative municipal affairs minster Dick Fowler, who
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The best solution to gun violence actually possible in Canada in 2019 is an outright ban on handguns
Scream as they might about the idea of a ban on handgun ownership by Canadians, it is interesting to note that the tactics used by advocates of wide-open ownership of firearms against the so-called long-gun registry combined with the legislative strategy pursued by their allies in the Conservative federal government
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney’s domestic arrangements: A wonkish look at how MPs identify their primary and secondary residences
Members of the Canadian Parliament like Jason Kenney in the days he was MP for Calgary Midnapore are permitted to charge expenses for a secondary residence, either in the National Capital Region or within 100 kilometres of the riding they represent. To avail themselves of this benefit, MPs like Mr.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Duffy 2.0? Ottawa lawyer’s allegations about then-MP Jason Kenney’s expenses sets off Internet tempest
Allegations about United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney’s Calgary domestic and travel arrangements during the years he was the Conservative MP for Calgary Midnapore circulating on social media over the weekend had turned into a full-blown Internet tempest by last night. Parliamentary expenditure reports and flight records as well as
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will Canadian Taxpayers Federation credibility suffer from fine for failing to register as third-party election advertiser?
The $6,000 administrative penalty levied against the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for failing to register as a third-party advertiser under Alberta’s election financing law is a long-overdue official recognition of the true role the self-described “tax watchdog” plays in Canadian politics. The CTF has been disproportionately influential in Canadian political discourse
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Derek Fildebrandt and that rule of law thing: it’s for pipeline protesters, not law-abiding gun owners …
It shouldn’t surprise us, I suppose, that Derek Fildebrandt has publicly gone all Charlton Heston on us. I speak, of course, of the recently rebranded Freedom Conservative Party leader’s Hestonesque Twitter outburst yesterday in response to talk the federal Liberal government might actually make an election issue out of banning
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former UCP MLA warns more scandals are coming for party as election nears … but don’t count on it unravelling fast enough!
It would be a huge mistake to count on the United Conservative Party unravelling fast enough to blow its big lead in public opinion polls by the time the next Alberta provincial election is upon us, which will be almost before we know it. It is a virtual certainty that even
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Never mind the facts of Canadian history: Brian Jean says … Make Confederation Great Again!
If former Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean established anything on Monday with his Epistle to the Albertans, wherein he set out his “agenda to move Alberta forward,” it’s that he remains a man desperate to be taken seriously. Much mocked in circles that no longer take Mr. Jean very seriously
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