According to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, apparently all we need to do to find anesthesiologists willing to work in rural Alberta is hand the power to hire them over local hospital managers. Former Wildrose Party MLA Rob Anderson, now Danielle Smith’s office manager, long ago on a snowy day in
Continue readingTag: Alberta Politics
Alberta Politics: Alberta Health Services ordered back to the future: A catastrophe in the making, or just ideological window dressing?
The premier who centralized the management of Alberta Health Services under a single administrator who answers only to her now says she wants to decentralize the province-wide public health agency “to enhance local decision-making authority”? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). What’s wrong with this picture? According to Danielle
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: Kaycee Madu is the third former Conservative justice minister subject to an Alberta Law Society investigation
On Thursday, without fanfare, the Law Society of Alberta posted a notice stating that one “Kelechi Madu, KC engaged in conduct that undermined respect for the administration of justice when he contacted the Edmonton Police Services Chief of Police regarding a traffic ticket he received on March 10, 2021, and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Sounds like the UCP’s terrible Alberta pension scheme is right back on the front burner
Given the wide unpopularity of the idea of taking Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan, it’s simply astounding that Alberta voters, the province’s professional commentators, and an Opposition party that had a shot at forming government allowed Premier Danielle Smith to get away with saying she just didn’t want
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Mission Impossible, Conservative style: Making the B.C. port strike settlement look like a disaster for Justin Trudeau
Good morning, Mr. Poilievre, your mission, should you choose to accept it … Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: Justin Trudeau/Flickr). … is to make the settlement of the Vancouver port strike yesterday after less than two weeks look like a disaster for Justin Trudeau. This will not be easy. Indeed,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Labour Board ruling yesterday in response to 2020 wildcat strike could cost AUPE $1.6 million
The Alberta Labour Relations Board has ruled that the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees broke the law when some of its health care members took part in a short illegal strike in the fall of 2020 and yesterday ordered Alberta Health Services to stop collecting union dues, assessments and other
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier’s meeting with PM sparks petulantly hyperbolic ‘readout,’ Postmedia hysteria
Danielle Smith’s petulant afternoon “readout” from Friday’s Calgary Stampede meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggests Alberta’s premier didn’t get very far trying to bully the feds into abandoning their energy emissions targets. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, looking steely eyed (Photo: Liberal Party of Canada). In other words, my assessment
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadian prime minister and Alberta premier exchange vapidities in public for 5 minutes and 10 seconds
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had a five-minute-and-10-second televised conversation of remarkable vapidity in Calgary yesterday. Why is this man smiling (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Notwithstanding the frenzied spinning of some local newshounds, what little news there was at the Calgary Stampede photo-op needs to be prised
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Compare and contrast: Convoy occupations and border blockades versus B.C. port strike
It was almost two weeks after the trucks rolled into Ottawa and blockaded the Canada-U.S. border at Coutts, Alta., before the leaders of the Conservative Party of Canada began to admit there might be a wee problem with the convoyers’ illegal activities. Candice Bergen, then the interim leader of the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That interim report of the Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel? Nothing to see here, folks
Having promised back in January that an interim report of the COVID-19 review panel for which former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning was to be paid $235,000 would be handed over to the Alberta government by the end of June, the UCP government had to say something. Alberta Premier Danielle
Continue readingAlberta Politics: News coverage of B.C. port strike unfolds according to the usual predictable, misleading formula
The strike by 7,400 longshore workers in Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Nanaimo and Port Alberni is no exception to the rule that news reporting of labour disputes impacting West Coast ports tends to unfold according to a predictable, misleading formula. An ILWU member mans a mobile picket Sunday in Vancouver Harbour
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Departing Take Back Alberta finance boss takes aim at Take Back Alberta leader for ‘disgusting’ comments
Apparently disillusioned by the “disgusting” stuff said by Take Back Alberta’s founder and éminence grise about the president of the United Conservative Party’s board, TBA’s chief financial officer is splitting with the militant wing of the UCP and taking to mainstream media with his complaints. Take Back Alberta founder David
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Take Back Alberta leader’s Twitter rant casts some light on the war within the United Conservative Party
The internal workings of the United Conservative Party under Premier Danielle Smith are nowadays quite murky. But now and again we hear of wars, and rumours of wars, even if the end is obviously still to come. United Conservative Party Provincial Board President Cynthia Moore (Photo: Facebook/Cynthia Moore). So it
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: Deena Hinshaw can’t be called a hero, but she is a victim of vindictive UCP retribution for things she did right
The enemy of mine enemy is my friend and all that, but it’s not clear that supporters of sound public health policy are on the right track if they decide to portray Alberta’s former chief medical officer of health as a public health hero. Dr. Hinshaw with then agriculture minister
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 readingAlberta Politics: Red Deer-South MLA Jason Stephan, on ‘previously planned trip out-of-province with family,’ a no-show for swearing-in
Silly me. I simply assumed that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith didn’t pick Jason Stephan as her justice minister because he showed signs of being too much of a wingnut. Opposition NDP House Leader Christina Gray (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Turns out that probably wasn’t it. He may have been one
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Smith to Legislature: Sorry/Not sorry!
Sounding about as sincere as the proverbial used-car salesman and not as convincing, Premier Danielle Smith whipped through an apology to the Alberta Legislature yesterday for breaking the Conflicts of Interest Act back in January when she talked to former justice minister Tyler Shandro about extremist street preacher Artur Pawlowski’s
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