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
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The 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
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP addiction to inflicting ideological solutions on real problems means plague of drug deaths is unlikely to abate
In a better world, the conveniently timed post-election release of statistics showing Alberta had the deadliest month on record in April for fatal drug poisonings would have discredited the “Alberta Model” for treating addiction. Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Tragically, that is unlikely to happen. Alberta’s United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Yes, Danielle Smith can just apologize and shrug off her ethical failings – so it’s time for a new NDP strategy
Irfan Sabir, the NDP Opposition’s justice critic, wasn’t wrong when he complained on Saturday that Danielle Smith shouldn’t be able to rattle off a meaningless apology in the Legislature and then just sashay away from any consequences for breaking the law. Alberta NDP Justice Critic Irfan Sabir – his outrage
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Stephan, temporarily missing MLA, suggests he had no idea in March there would be an election in May
Jason Stephan, the Red Deer-South electoral district’s absentee MLA, apparently now wants us to believe he had no idea in March that there was an Alberta election scheduled at the end of May. Christina Gray, the NDP MLA for Edmonton-Mill Woods, who is acting as the Opposition party’s spokesperson in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Matthew Cunningham-Cook and Andrew Perez highlight how Suncor and other dirty energy giants have poured loads of windfall profits into stock buybacks while simultaneously repudiating their environmental promises and obligations. – Jonathan Barrett discusses how Australia has seen the same spate of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley is no Jim Prentice or Danielle Smith, so she’s not about to quit in a tantrum or a snit
Bored reporters were trying to gin up a little post-election excitement yesterday speculating about whether Rachel Notley will stay or go now that her New Democrats are back in Opposition, albeit with a significantly larger caucus than before May 29. The late Alberta premier Jim Prentice, just before the election
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Consequence culture strikes! Former health minister Tyler Shandro finds himself out of a job
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – By any reasonable standard, Tyler Shandro was an appalling minister of the Crown. Calgary-Acadia’s new MLA, Registered Nurse Diana Batten (Photo: Alberta NDP). It’s hard to think of any file he handled well, although it’s fair to say that it was during his tenure as minister of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Despite complaints from the left the NDP shifted too far right, it was a left policy blunder that lost the Alberta election
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – It’s ironic how, despite complaints from the left about the Alberta NDP’s undeniable shift to the right, it was the party’s sole left-wing policy concession that appears to have sunk its chance to win the election. This may well have been meant as a gesture to placate
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley’s unforced error – that 3% corporate tax increase – probably cost the NDP the election
SAINT JOHN, N.B. – The principal unforced error that most likely cost the Alberta NDP the May 29 election was the foolish decision to blab about a 3-per-cent tax increase for the largest corporations. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). When Rachel Notley said that, with an explanation that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier Danielle Smith, fresh off election victory, suggests resurrecting the Family Compact to run Edmonton!
Even before the dust from the historically close 2023 Alberta general election has settled, Premier Danielle Smith was blabbing about creating an extra-parliamentary council of UCP electoral losers to act as Edmonton’s MLAs. University of Calgary Law Professor Martin Z. Olszynski (Photo: University of Calgary). Of course, the day before
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hot take: If you were hoping for sanity in Alberta after yesterday’s election, you can forget about it
Those praying for a degree of sanity to prevail after yesterday’s Alberta provincial election were bound to be disappointed by the apparent result last night. NDP Leader Rachel Notley concedes the victory to Danielle Smith last night in Edmonton (Photo: Twitter/Saif Kaisar). At the witching hour, the United Conservative Party
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No predictions today, but the stakes are high, maybe existential, so just go vote!
One of the dirty little secrets of Canadian politics at the end of the beginning of the 21st Century is that a lot of political professionals have come to recognize the awesome power of fear. Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper (Photo: Screenshot of UCP video). And nothing instills fear
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Evening Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Cox talks to Akiko Iwasaki about the reality that we’re still far from being done with major harm from COVID-19. Keith Muziguchi discusses the stories of some of the people living with long COVID and finding few receptive listeners for either
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s economy has lagged the rest of Canada under the UCP, well-known economist’s study concludes
No matter how badly they mismanage it, Alberta Conservatives can usually expect to get a pass on the economy. Tomorrow is election day in Alberta (Photo: Michael J/Creative Commons). There’s no point carping about this. It’s not just Alberta. Public opinion research suggests it’s a common delusion among the populations
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Emmett Macfarlane discusses how the stakes in Alberta’s election are no less than democracy and the rule of law – as Danielle Smith has made her contempt for both abundantly clear. But Andrew Nikiforuk points out that nothing in the current campaign holds
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s driving Brian Jean, whose enthusiasm for politics waxes and wanes? Just Monday’s election, or something more?
Brian Jean – once upon a time the leader of the Wildrose Party Opposition and more recently twice an unsuccessful candidate to lead the United Conservative Party – seems to be as energized as that famous battery-powered bunny these days. Danielle Smith and the late Progressive Conservative premier Jim Prentice
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Copy editors checking facts? That’s thing of the past at Postmedia, apparently, as election column illustrates
This may surprise some readers, but back in the early 1970s, when your blogger was a callow youth working as a cub reporter for the Calgary Herald, newspapers did their own fact checking! A Calgary Herald paperboy (Photo: Calgary Herald Archives). This important task was done by a special category
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Pensions don’t seem to be much of an issue in this election – pension governance expert says they should be
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she didn’t want to talk about the idea of taking Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan and creating an Alberta pension plan until after the election, and by and large the province’s political commentators have co-operated. Pension governance advisor Tom Fuller (Photo: David J.
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