A scene from the Lethbridge-West riding, as seen by the Wildrose Party. Below: Lethbridge-West candidate Kevin Kinahan. During the campaign leading up to the recent Alberta provincial election, the website of Lethbridge-West Wildrose Party candidate Kevin Kinahan had two sections outlining his perspective on the party’s health care policy –
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Alberta Diary: With Alberta’s budget all but balanced, where’s Ted Morton now that we don’t need him?
Cock of the walk: Everybody wanted to talk to Ted Morton on June 26, 2011. His message to then-premier Ed Stelmach: Balance the budget or else. (Calgary Herald photo.) Below: Alison Redford, Rob Anderson. Can it be less than two years since Ted Morton, then Alberta’s steely-eyed finance minister and
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Budget crisis? Civil service raises? Go pop a Valium, Smith!
Hey Marge! Danielle Smith says there’s a budget crisis and this is no time to be giving raises to civil servants! Marge? Typical Albertans may not be exactly as illustrated this summer. Below: Danielle Smith. It’s hard to imagine all that many Albertans getting their knickers in a twist at
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Can one old man with a typewriter really have Fox News North on the ropes?
The Source, With David Climenhaga: Here I am on the set of my new Fox News North TV show with two polite young people from the Progressive Conservative and Wildrose parties to whom I’m about to be rude. Below: Sun News Network commentator Ezra Levant; Senator Patrick Brazeau. Sun News
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Tory Brent Rathgeber knocks cabinet perks? Maverick move or just maverick shtick?
Your favourite blogger, with Brent Rathgeber, the original blogging Tory. What’s up with Brent Rathgeber? Specifically, is he a maverick, or is he just doing the maverick shtick? Mr. Rathgeber, as is well known to readers of this blog, is the Member of Parliament for Edmonton-St. Albert, and he is
Continue readingAlberta Diary: How far will Prime Minister Stephen Harper go with separatists to hang onto power?
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, left, with Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois … or something very much like that. The politicians pictured above may not be exactly as illustrated in real life. Below: Thomas Mulcair, Jack Layton. Now that our sullen neo-conservative prime minister is on speaking terms once again with
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Time to wax philosophical about Ralph Klein and the Order of Canada
Former Alberta premier Ralph Klein, back in the day. Below: Former Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau, also back in the day. Now that the campaign to give the Order of Canada to Ralph Klein has all but met its goal, one wonders when the effort to hang the same gong on
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Broadcast Standards Council tosses latest Sun News Network vulgarity back to CRTC
Sun News Network commentator Ezra Levant assails your blogger for his many ideological imperfections. Great picture! …of me. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has asked the federal broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, to investigate complaints about a June 13 broadcast by Sun News Network commentator Ezra Levant.
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Be very afraid … Prime Minister Harper wants to woo Quebec!
Yikes! Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper: It’s always dangerous when Conservatives decide to counter threats to national unity. Below. W.L. Mackenzie King. Be afraid! Be very afraid! Why should you be afraid, you wonder? It’ll be right there on the front pages of tomorrow’s Alberta newspapers: Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Continue readingAlberta Diary: The trouble with A-Bombs: if the blast doesn’t get you, the fallout just might
A typical Canadian reads the news from the Ottawa Press Gallery while Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney sends another email in the background. Below: Wildrose Party House Leader Rob Anderson; former federal PC leaders Joe Clark and Peter MacKay discuss the interesting pod marked “Return to Preston Manning” they
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Alberta Silly Season starts with fallout from Jason Kenney’s A-Bomb blast
Federal Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, centre, with Public Safety Minister Victor Toews, left, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, right, get ready to assure members of their party’s Alberta caucus they’ll be protected from a*****e visitors from their home province. Actual federal Tory ministers may not appear exactly as
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Sun News Network’s vulgar response reveals CBSC as toothless, demonstrates need for meaningful rules
This Sun News Network truck has now moved on, obviously the result of your blogger’s bullying. Below: Ezra Levant assails the CSBC. Below that: Ezra Levant comments on the passing of NDP leader Jack Layton. Below that: Well, actually, it’s pretty hard to go any lower than that. Radio and
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Pesky people’s politics plague premier’s petroleum pipeline plans
The Gardner Canal, a Pacific Ocean inlet near Kitimat, B.C., planned terminus of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. What’s in the project for British Columbians? Not much, and they know it. Below: B.C. Premier Christy Clark, Alberta Premier Alison Redford. Premier Alison Redford’s biggest problem with Alberta’s leaky pipeline file
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Two additional reasons morale is better at Alberta Health Services: Liepert & Duckett are gone
Dr. Stephen Duckett, right, doesn’t mince words while talking to Doug Knight, then the President of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, in September 2009, Below: former Health Minister Ron Liepert. Morale among doctors, nurses and other medical staff is dramatically better than it was two years ago at Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Turn and face the change – Alberta Diary will soon have a new look
Coming soon to a political website near you: Alberta Diary’s new look. Below: Author David Climenhaga. (Alberta bloggers may not be exactly as illustrated … any more.) Alberta Diary started out as a personal project mainly about the city of St. Albert, Alberta, where I reside. Somewhere along the way
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Wedge politics, not religious freedom, behind Danielle Smith’s refusal to apologize
Police officers walk in Saturday’s Pride Parade. Below: Danielle Smith, Alan Hunsperger. Since she won’t apologize for remarks made by one of her candidates during the recent election campaign that many Albertans thought were offensive and anti-gay, Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith found herself trapped this week between a rock
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Broadcast council’s ruling on Ezra Levant ‘tirade’ a victory for civility in Canadian political discourse
Sun News Network commentator Ezra Levant Today’s ruling by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council that the Sun News Network breached the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Code of Ethics in a December 2011 broadcast of Ezra Levant’s commentary program is a victory for civility in Canadian political discourse. As a result
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Rumble on the right: Conservative candidates stampede into Calgary Centre
Astonished Calgarians watch as the Calgary Centre Conservative candidates ride into Cowtown. Acutal candidates may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Joan Crockatt, Rod Love, John Mar. By the time the dust settles, at least a dozen candidates are likely to contest the Conservative Party nomination for the federal riding
Continue readingAlberta Diary: It’s not necessarily the European economy running out of runway, it’s neo-Cons like Stephen Harper
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper warns his countrymen about the fate awaiting Europe if it doesn’t crush unions and eliminate defined-benefit pension plans. Canadian Conservatives may not appear exactly as illustrated, but pretty close. Below: Francoise Hollande, John Maynard Keynes and Thomas Mulcair. With the anticipated triumph of France’s Socialists
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