While Kaycee Madu cools his jets in the political penalty box for phoning Edmonton’s police chief about a traffic ticket, it’s worth noting that acting justice minister Sonya Savage has not exactly covered herself in glory during her two and a half years as energy minister. Touted as a high-profile
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Alberta Politics: What did Jason Kenney know about Kaycee Madu’s phone call and when did he know it?
What did Jason Kenney know and when did he know it? Those are the most important questions arising from now-suspended justice minister Kaycee Madu’s telephone call a little over 10 months ago to tell Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFee he’d been ticketed by an city traffic cop for distracted driving.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney benches Justice Minister Kaycee Madu after revelation he phoned Edmonton police chief about traffic ticket
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney put his justice minister on the bench last night after a CBC story revealed one of the first things Kaycee Madu did after a traffic cop handed him a $300 distracted driving ticket for talking on his cellular phone as he motored through an Edmonton school
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Concordia University of Edmonton strike ends as faculty association members ratify new collective agreement
After 11 days on the picket line, members of the Concordia University of Edmonton Faculty Association have ratified a tentative agreement, ending the first strike by university faculty members in Alberta history. The agreement opens the door for classes to begin at the university on Wednesday, Jan. 19, the faculty
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If the UCP’s Leela Aheer still has political ambitions, she’ll likely need a new political party to pursue them
If Leela Aheer hopes to continue her career in Alberta provincial politics, she’ll probably need to find a new political party. Well, sure, the United Conservative Party MLA who lately has become a frequent and vocal critic of Premier Jason Kenney could theoretically still win the United Conservative Party nomination
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Here’s what happened when a courageous medical officer of heath was fired by Alberta Conservatives
The sudden firing of a medical officer of health was a shocking development in Alberta politics. On Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2002, the medical officer of health for the Palliser Health Authority in southeastern Alberta was informed he’d been terminated for speaking out on the harmful health impacts of burning fossil
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Impact of UCP’s brutal post-secondary funding cuts sparks fear in University of Lethbridge’s Music Department
Faculty and students in the University of Lethbridge Music Department are fearful of the impact of a “drastic restructuring” of academic programs brought about by the Kenney Government’s brutal funding cuts to Alberta’s public post-secondary institutions in last February’s provincial budget. In a letter to published Saturday on the Lethbridge
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There are several reasons for Jason Kenney’s enthusiasm for ‘small modular reactors’ – none of them are particularly good
Small nuclear reactors don’t make any more economic sense now than they did back in the summer of 2020 when Alberta Premier Jason Kenney took to the Internet to tout the supposed benefits of the largely undeveloped technology being promoted by Canada’s nuclear industry. Now that Mr. Kenney has taken
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don’t worry about mandatory vaccinations coming to Alberta – if they do, we’ll call them something different
“Alberta’s Legislature removed the power of mandatory vaccination from the Public Health Act last year and will not revisit that decision, period,” Premier Jason Kenney tweeted yesterday. Just in case any Albertans were in doubt about what he really meant, about an hour later Brock Harrison, Mr. Kenney’s communications director,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If only Alberta had an institution that could support students forced to learn at home – like it did until 2020
With this pandemic disrupting education in Alberta, if only we’d had an institution that could have supported students forced to learn at home, help their parents, and provide digital curriculum resources province-wide! We did, of course. Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange in 2020 (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Before it was closed
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Private Edmonton university sees the first faculty strike in Alberta history – it likely won’t be the last
With labour disputes looming at three Alberta public universities in Alberta, it came as a surprise when the faculty association at a small private university in Edmonton became the first in Alberta history to walk off the job in a legal strike. But at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, some of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Premier Jason Kenney holds a news conference about nothing – the rest of us are just going to have to suck it up!
Jason Kenney held a news conference about nothing yesterday. Alberta’s premier said he’s “very determined” there will be no additional delays and schools will reopen as planned on Monday, the continued rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 notwithstanding. It doesn’t sound as if much has been done to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don’t imagine UCP’s Eastern Slopes coal mining plans have gone away – Jason Kenney still has his eyes on that prize
The plan to approve coal developments on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains is another thing that remains on the United Conservative Party’s agenda – if not for 2022, at least for some point in the future after the 2023 election is out of the way. This is another
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Spinning delay as a favour to teachers and a response to COVID, Kenney indicates he’ll press on with controversial curriculum
The way Jason Kenney told the story, Alberta parents and teachers would like his United Conservative Party government to “go a bit slower” rolling out the new primary school curriculum it introduced in late March to widespread opposition. To those who have been following the controversy created by the curriculum
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A New Year’s message from the author: Please consider signing up for my weekly email roundup of posts
As regular readers of AlbertaPolitics.ca know, there are a lot of posts on this blog, generally divided into three general topic areas: Alberta politics, Canadian politics, and geopolitics. It’s my blog, and I always said that I’d write about topics that interested me, and I wouldn’t necessarily write about topics
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy New Year! COVID, Conservatives and Kenney end 2021 on an ominous note
It would be an exaggeration to say 2021 is ending on an apocalyptic note in Alberta, or even a chaotic one, but it feels ominously as if the boat we’re in is drifting toward the falls with no one looking for the paddle. If our United Conservative Government had plans
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Reports on controversial coal mining plans received, says Alberta energy minister, providing little additional information
Midpoint between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage yesterday issued an 85-word statement saying the government’s Coal Policy Committee has submitted its final report and recommendations on Alberta’s long-term approach to coal mining. In addition, the five-member committee chaired by National Energy Board member Ron
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No plan? Expectation of mass Omicron infection, reduced access to PCR tests, dominate Alberta COVID-19 update
Reading between the lines of remarks by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw at yesterday’s COVID-19 briefing, it seems evident they have reached a point where they no longer have a plan for the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. The disturbing thing about that, of course,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Marking the 15th year of AlbertaPolitics.ca, which begins today, here’s a list the Top Ten UCP Scandals of 2021
With less than 48 hours to go until Christmas Day, I predicted on Dec. 23 that the UCP’s Edmonton pandemic party at the Parlour Restaurant two and a half hours after Premier Jason Kenney instructed Albertans to cut their social contacts in half to slow the spread of the Omicron
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ted Byfield, talented rhetorician and paleoconservative activist, dead at 93
Ted Byfield, publisher of the influential Alberta Reports Magazine and similar hard right spinoffs, died Thursday at 93. Edward Bartlett Byfield was born in Toronto on Bastille Day, 1928. Mr. Byfield in his later years (Photo: Twitter/Ted Byfield). He was talented rhetorician and prominent influencer of the Harper-Manning-Kenney Axis of
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