While nervously awaiting Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews’s budget tomorrow, let’s spare a thought for the uniquely Canadian tradition of finance ministers buying new shoes to wear on Budget Day. According to the Wikipedia, Walter Edward Harris, who served a spell as finance minister in Louis St. Laurent’s Liberal cabinet,
Continue readingTag: Alberta Politics
Alberta Politics: Unsustainable Alberta: Don’t expect the UCP to pay any attention to the Business Council of Alberta in tomorrow’s budget
It’s Alberta Budget Day tomorrow. Finance Minister Travis Toews will table a budget at an afternoon pop-up meeting of the Legislature. Then United Conservative Party MLAs will run like hell for their ridings and hunker down until the Legislature’s business resumes on March 8. Alberta’s pop-up Legislature will open for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Advice for Jason Kenney: If you’re going to sup with the Devil, you need a longer spoon
Jason Kenney didn’t actually say there were very fine people at Saturday’s tiki-torch parade at the Alberta Legislature, but his half-hearted condemnation of the racist overtones of the tawdry “one-voice walk for freedom” surely came from the same place. It took Alberta’s United Conservative Party premier almost 48 hours to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brian Brennan, 77, elegant wordsmith, musician, courageous trade unionist
Brian Brennan, elegant wordsmith, storyteller, professional musician and brave leader of the strike at the Calgary Herald in 1999 and 2000, died yesterday. He was 77. For many years at the Herald, Brian specialized in writing obituaries, each a polished gem of a few hundred words. Often they celebrated the
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 69: Municipal Politics from Lucy the Elephant to 911 dispatch
Dani Paradis and Chris Henderson join the Daveberta Podcast for a deep dive into municipal politics and a look ahead at the October 2021 elections in Edmonton. What issues will resonate with voters and what does a pandemic election campaign looks like? We cover a lot of ground, from Lucy
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Despite giving UCP a hard time, Critical Infrastructure Defence Act no threat to defiant pastor and his COVID-sceptical flock
Small groups of supporters of James Coates, the temporarily jailed pastor of an Edmonton-area church who has been defiantly refusing to obey Alberta’s COVID-19 restrictions, protested in front of the Edmonton Remand Centre Thursday and yesterday. They rallied outside that monumental piece of critical Alberta infrastructure demanding the GraceLife Church’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Judge hopes to rule on Ecojustice effort to shut down energy campaigns inquiry before May 31 – why that shouldn’t be a problem
We’re all just going to have to wait to find out how the legal effort by Ecojustice Canada Society to shut down Alberta’s so-called “Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns” turns out. After hearing arguments for two days last week from lawyers for Ecojustice, the province, inquiry Commissioner Steve Allan,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Is the Kenney Government’s EMS dispatch consolidation plan a prelude to ambulance privatization?
Is the Kenney Government’s determination to force reluctant municipalities to turn over 9-1-1 calls to a provincial Emergency Medical Services dispatch centre a prelude to privatization of provincial ambulance services? It’s certainly unlikely to be the paltry $6 million the United Conservative Party Government claims this will save, especially given
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Our annual Family Day toast to Don Getty, whose best-known achievement was one for the ages
The winters around here are long. Even with social media Canadians need a February holiday. Come to think of it, given what the Internet has turned into in the few years since it arrived on the scene with such promise, we need a February long weekend even more than we
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of Alberta poetry: The United Conservative Party sends us a Kenney Valentine
I choo-choo-chooose To get a fair deal for you — Actual United Conservative Party Valentine’s Day Twitter meme Keystone is dead The billions are lost I blame Joe Biden But I’ll probably get tossed The actual UCP meme published today (Image: Twitter). — Response by @DaveCournoyer The ocean is blue
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Love, From Ralph Wiggum
I’m sure Jason’s message will be well-received. But I like the source material better: Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Mayor in the heart of the oilsands dares Jason Kenney to fire him in fight over declining ambulance service
In case you missed it, while Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was trying to pretend the embarrassing rebellion of two COVID-skeptical MLAs in southern Alberta wasn’t happening, another political rebellion against his policies was coming to a boil in the heart of the oilsands. On Tuesday, defiant members of the council
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney chooses the cake department to unexpectedly announce one-time pandemic ‘bonus’ for front-line workers
Was Jason Kenney channelling Marie Antoinette when he appeared in front of an Edmonton grocery store’s cake counter yesterday to announce a one-time $1,200 pandemic payment to front-line workers? Many of the front-line workers risking COVID-19 to deliver us services from health care to retail confections may be badly paid,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Defying Jason Kenney’s pleas to take COVID-19 seriously, two UCP MLAs join ‘End the Lockdowns National Caucus’
Two MLAs from Premier Jason Kenney’s government caucus have joined a national coalition of elected and former politicians dedicated to the proposition restrictions on social and commercial activities intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 must end. Needless to say, centrifugal force is not a good look for a United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In dizzying turnaround, Alberta abandons plan to drop Lougheed-era coal policy … for now
In what appears to be a tire-screeching reversal, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage yesterday announced full restoration of the Coal Policy established by premier Peter Lougheed’s government back in 1976. “An important part of being a responsible government is to admit when you’ve made a mistake, and to fix it,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP prioritizes businesses that run care homes over workers fighting COVID-19 on the front lines inside them
It’s very hard to resist the temptation to juxtapose the Kenney Government’s response to the plight of underpaid front-line health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the troubles faced by well-heeled owners of private continuing care facilities. When it comes to the former, Premier Jason Kenney and his United
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 68: The 1976 Coal Policy and stopping open-pit mining in Alberta’s Rockies
Kevin Van Tighem joins the Daveberta Podcast to discuss one of the biggest issues in Alberta politics today – the expansion of open-pit coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Kevin explains how the 1976 Coal Policy protected larges swaths of the Rocky Mountains from open-pit coal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Time for your depressing weekly pandemic update: Got whiplash yet?
Watching the Kenney Government respond to COVID-19 could give you whiplash. Back on Jan. 26, Health Minister Tyler Shandro was warning us that the arrival of more infectious COVID-19 variants risked pushing our health-care system to the brink. Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw yesterday (Photo: Government of Alberta).
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Conspiracy theories are for losers: What does this tell us about Jason Kenney’s UCP?
Are Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party nuts? I mean, are they actually nuts, going down the rabbit hole of bizarre and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories like some of their Republican brethren in the United States? Former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, now leader of the Opposition in the provincial Legislature
Continue readingAlberta Politics: We’ve had almost 70 years to fix the problems with Line 5 and very little has happened – what now?
Doesn’t Michigan understand that letting jurisdictions along the route of a Canadian pipeline carry the risk of what’s inside the pipe while only the province at the start of the line gets to pocket the benefits is a fundamental principle of Confederation? Surely we established that much during the debate
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