Whoever it was in the Alberta Government that decided it would be a good idea to risk springing the news on the public that COVID-19 social distancing rules won’t apply to classrooms just hours before schools reopen was seriously mistaken. The United Conservative Party government’s “near-normal” back-to-school scheme was already
Continue readingTag: Alberta NDP
Alberta Politics: Kaycee Madu, no stellar cabinet performer, is promoted to where he can do less harm; other stars fall
Kaycee Madu, possibly Alberta’s least successful cabinet member in the estimation of his portfolio’s key stakeholders, as Alberta justice minister? Who saw that coming? Former Economic Development, Trade and Tourism Minister Tanya Fir (Photo: Facebook). Of the three major political events affecting Alberta that took place while your blogger was
Continue readingAlberta Politics: So long and see you soon — AlbertaPolitics.ca will shut down for a week
AlbertaPolitics.ca is shutting down for a week. I expect to be without a wifi connection for much of the next seven days, so if there are posts at all on this blog, they will be poorly illustrated and limited in number. There may have to be none at all. Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The empire strikes back: Understanding the UCP obsession with how history is taught
Anyone who wonders what inspires the United Conservative Party Government’s peculiar obsession with how history ought to be taught, and to what end, probably needs to look no further than Christian P. Champion. Dr. Champion, PhD, as is now well known to social media readers in Alberta, holds startling views
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With a questionable claim to the moral high ground, Postmedia rolls over for the Rebel
Canada’s largest newspaper chain has just rolled over for the Rebel. Last night the National Post published an editorial demanding that the Alberta Legislature Press Gallery admit employees of Rebel News Network Ltd. to its ranks. Retired journalist Heather Boyd, author of a report that could have saved the Press
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thanks to a public-spirited leaker, a risky health-care privatization scheme is exposed
Panicky sounding United Conservative Party “issues managers” were frantically insisting yesterday everything is copacetic and above board with secret plans to build a $200-million private orthopedic surgical hospital in Edmonton. No way will this result in two-tier health care, they contended, often shrilly calling anyone who suggested otherwise a liar,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Education Minister’s K-12 curriculum news conference by turns bizarre, deceptive, incoherent, and a comedy classic
No one who watched Education Minister Adriana LaGrange’s news conference on the United Conservative Party’s plans for Alberta’s K-12 curriculum yesterday could come away with the impression our province’s education system is in capable hands. Putting aside the government’s intention to send students back to schools ill prepared for COVID-19
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Good union jobs! Green jobs! UCP supporters need not panic, they’re not for anyone around here!
Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party, friends of the union man and woman, not to mention the environment! Who would have seen that coming? Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta). Yet there was Energy Minister Sonya Savage, her words in black and white in the text
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Platitudes or new plan? Education minister schedules news conference this morning on back-to-school plan
With the clock ticking down to a “near normal” mid-pandemic school reopening next month for three quarters of a million Alberta students, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange plans to provide an update this morning “on public health measures being taken for a safe return to school.” So, is the Kenney Government
Continue readingAlberta Politics: AHS to Pincher Creek docs: We made a mistake, we gave it to you, now we won’t take it back … and you can’t quit!
Physicians in Pincher Creek who gave three months’ notice they were withdrawing from hospital service in response to Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro’s War on Doctors were told they had to show up for August on-call duty anyway in letters Tuesday from a top official of Alberta Health Services’ South
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta political roundup: The paper-pile premier, furious doctors, rebel ’Roser rumours, Total disaster, and more …
Having rammed through two controversial bills Tuesday night, one opening the door to more health care privatization and the other eliminating workplace fairness and declaring war on unions, the Alberta Legislature wrapped up its business just after 8 o’clock yesterday morning. United Conservative Party social media spent the afternoon bragging
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Whatever happened to the UCP’s belligerent response to inconvenient European bankers and environmental litigators?
Once upon a time in Alberta if some foreign bank had dared to announce it wasn’t about to put money into any more Alberta oilsands projects there would have been a furious roar from Jason Kenney. There would have been threats to unleash a War Room on the bankers as
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada, keep your eye on Alberta — it’s not going to be pretty, but it should be instructive
You can just tell it’s likely to be a crazy week in Alberta politics. To understand just how crazy, you have to think about what the Kenney Government is noisily focusing on, and what is actually happening. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). In the Legislature, Premier Jason
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 58: Alberta Politics Summer Q&A
You sent us your questions and we answered! In this edition of the annual Alberta politics Q&A episode, Daveberta Podcast host Dave Cournoyer and producer Adam Rozenhart dive into the mailbag to answer listener questions about provincial parks, the Heritage Savings Trust Fund, the reopening of schools in September, political
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Auguries aren’t auspicious for September amid UCP’s rush to reopen Alberta schools
Alberta has been relatively lucky up to now with the impact of the global coronavirus epidemic on its population. Premier Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party Government are ready to bet your life that good luck will continue. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Desperate to relaunch
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Side deals with specialists emerge as latest UCP tactic in escalating war with Alberta Medical Association
The Kenney Government yesterday again escalated its continuing war with the Alberta Medical Association, indicating it would consider letting rival groups representing medical specialties quit the doctors’ collective bargaining association and negotiate directly with the government. In a statement obviously intended to rock the AMA, Health Minister Tyler Shandro commented
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s it tell us that a couple of bad-boy Lethbridge cops almost got away with illegal surveillance of an NDP minister?
It’s tempting to write off yesterday’s big story about that pair of none-too-bright county mounties from the Lethbridge Police Service caught stalking an NDP cabinet minister as just a dumb cop comedy without much significance. But Sgt. Jason Carrier and Const. Keon Woronuk were no Gunther Toody and Francis Muldoon,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Whatever it is, former PC MLA Dave Rodney apparently has what it takes to be Alberta’s agent general in Houston
There may have been peaks and valleys along the way, but thanks to a hand up from Alberta Premier Jason Kenney this week, it looks as if Dave Rodney has finally ascended to the summit of his career. That is to say, for some reason Mr. Rodney was the recipient
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thatcher brouhaha: When your slippery opponent’s on the ropes, maybe you should focus on keeping him there!
When you’ve got a slippery political opponent on the ropes with a completely legitimate issue, what’s it profit a New Democrat to stand up in the Legislature and create a massive distraction from the fight the party’s winning with one that has no advantage for it? This is what NDP
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Making Child Labour Great Again! Alberta’s new labour law breaks old ground while undermining unions
Alberta’s about to Make Child Labour Great Again! If you think this is a breakthrough, you’re probably a fast-food franchise owner. Cabinet’s “private sector union liaison,” MLA Searle Turton (Photo: Screenshot of Alberta Government video). Yesterday, Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party introduced a bill called the Restoring Balance in
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