The former health minister shares her plans for health, climate, and housing NDP MLA Sarah Hoffman joins the Daveberta Podcast to talk about why she is running for the Alberta NDP leadership and her plans for health care, climate, and housing. We discuss Hoffman’s experiences as Minister of Health and
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Alberta Politics: A national pharmacare program at last? Forget about it, says Alberta’s UCP – just give us the cash!
No sooner did the federal Liberal and New Democratic parties say they’d reached a deal on a national pharmacare program at the end of last week than Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government insisted it wanted no part of the plan. Friends of Medicare Director Chris Gallaway (Photo: David J. Climenhaga).
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Is denigrating women in politics by mocking their appearance OK with the UCP? If it isn’t, the silence is deafening
Even before former health minister and deputy premier Sarah Hoffman’s NDP leadership campaign launch was over Sunday, the first tweets insulting her physical appearance began to appear on the social medial platform previously known as Twitter. Take Back Alberta’s David Parker, who’s now setting the tone for the entire United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: MLA Rakhi Pancholi formally joins NDP leadership contest, says she could drop consumer carbon tax
Edmonton-Whitemud MLA Rakhi Pancholi formally joined the NDP leadership race yesterday. Candidate Kathleen Ganley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). This was not exactly a surprise, as Ms. Pancholi, an Edmonton lawyer before starting her career in politics, has made her interest in the province’s top political job quite clear for weeks.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former justice minister Kathleen Ganley makes her bid to lead Alberta NDP official; others to follow soon
Yesterday was the official start of the Alberta NDP leadership race and Kathleen Ganley was the first to make official what pretty well everyone in political Alberta already knew – to wit, that, yes, the former justice minister is running to replace Rachel Notley as the leader of the Opposition
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Nenshimania’ grips social media, but would choosing Calgary’s former mayor to lead Alberta’s NDP really be a good idea?
Before we get carried away by the current outbreak of Nenshimania, let’s just remember that it wasn’t the Alberta Party or the Alberta Liberals that toppled this province’s 44-year Progressive Conservative dynasty in 2015, no matter how much they might wish they had. Departing NDP Leader Rachel Notley in 2019
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What does Alberta’s premier have to say about TBA founder’s call for UCP supporters to join NDP to mess up its leadership race?
It would be interesting to know what Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has to say about the call by the founder of her party’s influential Take Back Alberta faction to his supporters to use the NDP’s upcoming leadership race to infiltrate the Opposition party and try to elect its leader. Take
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley: The woman who made Alberta democracy great again!
Say what you will about Rachel Notley, she made Alberta democracy great again! A steely eyed Rachel Notley on Oct. 18, 2014, moments after she was elected leader of the Alberta NDP (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Ms. Notley, who yesterday announced her plan to step aside as Opposition leader in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley, who made history as Alberta’s first NDP premier, announces she will step down as Opposition leader
Rachel Notley, who led the Alberta New Democratic Party to an unexpected majority government in 2015, announced today she will step down as Opposition leader. Ms. Notley wipes away a year, as her husband Lou Arab stands by (Photo: Screenshot of NDP video). Her noon announcement confirmed what has been
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That was the weekend that was: -38, grid on the brink, UCP flooding the zone, NDP all but struck dumb, and more
The United Conservative Party Government and its supporters appeared to be flooding the zone, Steve Bannon style, today to recover from the embarrassment of the near collapse of the provincial electrical grid during last weekend’s polar vortex deep-freeze. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). There was a stream of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Online speculation about cold-weather electricity crunch highlights the UCP’s lack of credibility
Chances are vanishingly small that Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government somehow managed to intentionally cause last night’s cold-weather electricity crunch that led to every Albertan with a smartphone receiving an emergency alert pleading with them “to immediately limit their electricity use to essential needs only.” Somebody’s screenshot of Saturday’s emergency
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Expect Rachel Notley, NDP premier from 2025 to 2019 and current Opposition leader, to step down today
Look for Opposition Leader Rachel Notley, NDP premier of Alberta from 2015 until 2019, to step aside today. After her election victory in May 2015, Ms. Notley proved to be a capable premier in difficult times, offering a steady hand of leadership and presiding over possibly the only time since
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Adam King discusses how governments and employers have memory-holed some of the most important lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic as to the need for paid sick leave to ensure workplaces don’t exacerbate the spread of dangerous diseases. – Debbie Cenziper, Michael Sallah
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The last thing Alberta New Democrats need is a dumb fight over their name, which is just fine as it is
It would be a pity if the coming NDP leadership race got sidetracked into a silly fight about whether Alberta Opposition party should change its name. Former Calgary-Currie NDP MLA Brian Malkinson, who thinks the NDP should change its name (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). But exactly that could happen when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith summons Ed Stelmach, Lyle Oberg from the Alberta political crypt to help sell the breakup of AHS
It was an interesting strategy for Premier Danielle Smith’s government to trot out former premier Ed Stelmach, the man most associated with the creation of Alberta Health Services back in 2009, to act as a validator at the announcement yesterday of her plan to smash the province-wide health care agency
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s next for Rachel Notley? Is there a path to the PMO for Alberta’s former NDP premier?
So what’s next for Rachel Notley? Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). The buzz grows louder by the day that sooner than later Ms. Notley is going to move on from her present role as Alberta’s Opposition leader. Gossips are hinting at sometime early in the new
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta medical clinic’s ‘membership’ billing scheme won’t hurt a bid by PM to attack Pierre Poilievre through Danielle Smith
There must have been a moment of pure delight in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa when the story broke about Dr. Sally Talbot-Jones’s plan to get her patients to pay thousands of dollars a year to become “members” of her Calgary medical practice. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calgary medical clinic tells patients they’ll need to pay up to $4,800 a year for timely access to physician
Since the Alberta government has the power to outlaw fees like those about to be charged by a Calgary medical clinic for patients to get timely access to their physician, it’ll have to exercise it if Premier Danielle Smith wants anyone to believe her election claim no Albertan would ever
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Ask Me Anything about Alberta politics episode
You shared your Alberta politics questions and we answered them in our annual Ask Me Anything episode of the Daveberta Podcast. New and recent episodes of the Daveberta Podcast are available to paid subscribers of the Daveberta Substack. In case you missed them, you can catch up on recent Daveberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Better late than never, one supposes, NDP hammers Smith Government’s scandalous RStar scheme
It’s not a bad thing for Alberta’s NDP Opposition to hammer the Smith Government’s scandalous RStar scheme, as they did yesterday, but it’s frustrating to have to wonder where they were on the issue during last spring’s election campaign. Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). RStar, which
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