Happy Victoria Day! I’m feeling good about my prediction that the next Premier of Ontario will be Andrea Horwath. When I made that prediction back on Feb. 27, scads of commenters on social media and quite a few on this blog and at Rabble.ca said I was crazy. This being
Continue readingTag: Alberta NDP
Alberta Politics: ‘NRA Strategy’ to block connection of climate change dots won’t work when the climate disaster’s in B.C.
As fear rises in British Columbia this week along with the province’s record floodwaters, the likelihood B.C. voters will connect the dots between man-made climate change and “natural” catastrophes is rising too. Politically speaking, this is not exactly good news for the determined advocates in Alberta and Ottawa of aggressive
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Dispatches from the front lines of Alberta politics: Jason Kenney reveals his nasty streak … again
My, my, Jason Kenney’s vow to become the new Mr. Congeniality of Confederation sure didn’t last very long, did it? Twitterists are having fun comparing the Alberta Opposition leader’s response to a gentle jab by Premier Rachel Notley in the Alberta Legislature Tuesday afternoon with what he had to say
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Notley NDP pass bill to halt oil and gas to BC as Jagmeet Singh finally shows up to the pipeline party
What a day. Turn off the taps: Bill 12: Preserving Canada’s Economic Prosperity Act passed third reading Alberta’s Legislative Assembly and once the bill is given royal assent, proclaimed into law and accompanying regulations are written, New Democratic Party Premier Rachel Notley‘s government would have the power to halt the
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Alberta Candidate Nomination Updates: 3 NDP MLAs nominated and another UCP MLA announces retirement.
New Democratic Party MLAs nominated: Three NDP MLAs were chosen as their party’s candidates for the next election at meetings held on May 6 and May 12, 2018. MLA Maria Fitzpatrick was nominated in Lethbridge-East and MLA Christina Gray was nominated in Edmonton-Mill Woods on May 6 and MLA Brian
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Episode 11: UCP policy, NDP abortion clinic bubble zones, and turning off the oil taps to BC
The United Conservative Party‘s founding convention, the New Democratic Party‘s abortion clinic bubble zone and plans to turn off the oil and gas taps to British Columbia, are just some of the topics Dave Cournoyer (live from Halifax) and Ryan Hastman (live from St. Albert) dive into in this episode of the Daveberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Call it what it is, says labour minister: successive Conservative governments denied Alberta working people their rights
CALGARY – For many years, Alberta working people were routinely denied rights other Canadians take for granted, Alberta Labour Minister Christina Gray said last weekend in a bluntly worded speech on labour relations policy in Alberta. The speech provided insights into the direction the NDP government of Premier Rachel Notley
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The United Conservative campaign strategy after Red Deer: Tom Olsen and the Wreckage offer hints
I think I’ve figured out the United Conservative Party election strategy for 2019. In light of the embarrassingly revealing policy resolutions passed at the UCP’s founding convention in Red Deer over the weekend and the party leadership’s subsequent effort at damage control, not to mention the emerging behaviour of candidates
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Admirably true to their Iron Age code, UCP delegates defy their leaders and the zeitgeist
Modern Conservatives indeed! The Wildrose Party base – by which I mean the United Conservative Party base, they are the same people – is a wild horse that cannot be ridden safely or broken easily for reasons of mere political expedience. This is partly because it contains many people of
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: UCP draws huge crowds, huge controversy to its first policy convention
(Photo credit: @Alberta_UCP on Twitter) With more than 2,500 party members in attendance, this weekend’s United Conservative Party founding convention was one of the biggest political events in Alberta’s recent memory. It was a big show of force for the official opposition party, which continues to dominate in the polls
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta then and now: Marking the third anniversary of the unexpected victory of Rachel Notley and the NDP
CALGARY Three years ago today, Albertans did the unexpected in the province’s 29th general election and elected a majority New Democratic Party government. In truth, despite Albertans having been instructed for generations by those who are supposed to know better that they lived in the most conservative province in Canada,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Just get over it, WestJet! It’s time to negotiate like grownups with your pilots’ union
Message to WestJet: It’s time to negotiate with your pilots like grownups. After all, this is Canada and they’ve got a constitutional right to bargain collectively, so you need to just get over it. At this point, you’ll do more harm to your business by fighting them than you will
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP policy list controversies will disappear in a puff of smoke as Jason Kenney performs his best-known magic trick
Alberta’s Opposition United Conservative Party has distributed to its members a list of 782 policy proposals to be considered at its founding convention in Red Deer this weekend. Inevitably, the list was immediately handed over to media and the blogosphere by Conservatives unknown. Much was immediately made by the UCP’s
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Read the nearly 800 policy proposals from United Conservative Party members
You might have read about them in Don Braid’s Postmedia column today, but if you want to take a deeper look, here are the full list of draft policy proposals submitted by United Conservative Party members for debate at the party’s founding convention on May 4, 5 and 6, 2018
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Review of Canada’s energy systems unlikely to cut through noise generated by pipeline hysteria
The furious debate about the merits of current and future pipeline projects underscores the need for an evidence-based long-term energy strategy for our country, the conclusions of a new review of Canada’s energy systems suggest. Alas, the report released yesterday by the Corporate Mapping Project and its partners at the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Was the UCP practicing ‘cultural Marxism’ when it fled the Legislature to avoid the ‘Bubble Zone’ debate?
We’re all “cultural Marxists” now, I guess. Consider Jason Kenney and the Legislative caucus of the ephemerally named political entity known as the United Conservative Party. (By which I mean, like a bad homebuilder, whenever Alberta Conservatives are caught doing stuff voters don’t approve of, they adopt a new name
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Today’s Day of Mourning pieties aside, Alberta workplace injuries are vastly underreported
Today is the International Day of Mourning. Who we mourn are the untold, uncounted numbers of women, men and children who have been killed, injured, disabled or sickened while doing their work. The occasion is mostly marked with modestly unobtrusive ceremonies where organized working people gather – union halls, lunchrooms,
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Alberta Candidate Nomination Updates: 2 NDP cabinet ministers announce re-election and 3 more UCP MLAs plan to retire.
Photo: Oneil Carlier, Shannon Phillips, Sonya Savage, and Tyler Shandro. Nominations are picking up speed. Three more United Conservative Party MLAs have announced their plans to retire when the next election is called. Grande Prairie-Wapiti MLA Wayne Drysdale, Livingstone-Macleod MLA Pat Stier and Little Bow MLA David Schneider will not seek re-election
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney joins attack on David Suzuki; complains too many U of A honorary degrees go to progressives
Where is the Globe and Mail, the National Post, federal Opposition leader Andrew Scheer? After all, they were all such convincing defenders of intellectual freedom on campus when the barbs were being directed at Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto professor who is “the Darth Maul of tenured campus bad
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Episode 10: Week 300 of the Trans Mountain Pipeline debate, and predictions for Alberta’s 2019 Election.
This episode includes analysis from Dave Cournoyer and Ryan Hastman about week 300 of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline dispute (including updates from Ryan, who was behind enemy lines in Vancouver) and the latest candidate nomination updates ahead of Alberta’s 2019 election. Ryan leads this week’s ‘So you want
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