Thank you to the readers of Vue Weekly, Edmonton’s alternative-weekly magazine, for voting daveberta.ca as the city’s Best Local Affairs Blog as part of the magazine’s annual Best of Edmonton list for 2017. Mack Male’s excellent mastermaq.ca blog – a solid standard of Edmonton’s online media establishment – and Jeff
Continue readingTag: Alberta Politics
daveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Sturgeon River-Parkland by-election competing with Alberta’s municipal elections
As if voters won’t already have enough candidates knocking on their doors with Alberta’s municipal elections scheduled for October 16, 2017, a federal by-election will be held in the Sturgeon River-Parkland electoral district with a vote on October 23. It is widely expected that whoever wins the Conservative Party of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thank you, Ralph! While Alberta awaits the Green Apocalypse, Norwegian version of Heritage Fund hits $1-trillion US
PHOTOS: A Norwegian oil rig in the North Sea. (Photo: Norsk Teknisk Museum, Wikimedia Commons.) Below: The late Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, who founded the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund; the late Alberta premier Ralph Klein, who gave every one of us Albertans enough money to buy an iPod and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The game’s afoot! The time is now to demand candidates reveal their donors, not after the Oct. 16 municipal election
PHOTOS: St. Albert’s renowned city hall, designed by Canadian architect Douglas Cardinal, formally known as St. Albert Place. Below: The three candidates for mayor who are now now officially in the race, Cathy Heron, Cam MacKay and Malcolm Parker. ST. ALBERT, Alberta Is it just my imagination, or does the
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Nomination Day kicks off Edmonton’s 2017 Municipal Elections
Photo: Sarah Chan (left) and her husband, Mayor Don Iveson (right), at Nomination Day at Edmonton City Hall. Dedicated citizens across Alberta gathered this morning in town halls and community centres to submit their nomination forms to become official candidates in this year’s municipal elections. In Edmonton, 132 candidates and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Documents show B.C. ‘Climate Leadership Plan’ was cooked up in Calgary boardroom of powerful petroleum industry lobby
PHOTOS: British Columbia’s beautiful Legislature Building in Victoria – not, as it turns out, where the province’s climate policy is set! Below: CCPA-BC’s Shannon Daub, former B.C. Liberal premier Christy Clark (Photo: Wikimedia Commons), B.C. NDP Premier John Horgan, and environmentalist Tzeporah Berman. Using documents obtained through a Freedom of
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Edmonton’s Election officially starts tomorrow.
There are only 28 days left until Edmontonians go to the polls to vote in this year’s municipal elections. Tomorrow is Nomination Day, which will see candidates line up from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm at City Hall to officially register their intentions to stand in the election. I will
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘What would Lois do?’ asks leader of St. Albert’s Vote Yes for the Library campaign at Saturday evening launch event
PHOTOS: In the foreground, former St. Albert Public Library Board chair Charmaine Brooks, who now leads the Vote Yes for the Library campaign, and mayoral candidate Cathy Heron, a city councillor, at last night’s campaign launch. Below: A band perked things up and Library Director Peter Bailey addressed the crowd
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘What would Lois do?’ asks St. Albert Public Library Board chair at launch of Vote Yes campaign for a branch library
PHOTOS: In the foreground, St. Albert Public Library Board Chair Charmaine Brooks and mayoral candidate Cathy Heron, a city councillor, at last night’s Vote Yes for the Library campaign launch. Below: A band perked things up and Library Director Peter Bailey addressed the crowd of about 200 people at the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Legislature Members’ Services Committee passes ‘Derek’s Rule,’ banning Airbnb rentals of MLA apartments
PHOTOS: Former Wildrose and UCP caucus member Derek Fildebrandt, now an Independent Alberta MLA, in happier times for him when he was an employee of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Below: UCP interim Leader Nathan Cooper, former Progressive Conservative interim leader Ric McIver, NDP MLA Estefania Cortes-Vargas, and Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadian government publications still don’t belong to the people as Ottawa maintains its iron grip on Crown copyright
PHOTOS: Government documents. Really! (Photo: Libraries and Archives Canada.) Legislators in Ottawa need to get cracking to make Canada’s Crown copyright law responsive to the needs of the citizens of a democracy. Below: University of Alberta Copyright Librarian Amanda Wakaruk and Saskatoon West NDP MP Shari Benson. Canada’s Crown copyright
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Tracking MLA endorsements in the UCP leadership race
Members of the United Conservative Party will be selecting the party’s first permanent leader on October 28, 2017. After of this week’s fee payment deadline, four candidates will be listed on the ballot: Brian Jean, Jason Kenney, Doug Schweitzer and Jeff Callaway. Of the 28 UCP MLAs represented in Alberta’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unionization campaign at the National Post is steeped in irony, and not just because hell has frozen over
PHOTOS: A couple of strikers picket the Calgary Herald Building, proudly bearing its National Post sign, in 1999 or 2000. You’ll probably recognize one of them. The other is my friend, the late Brock Ketcham. The building is now for sale and its tiny journalistic staff is holed up, appropriately
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Paul Hinman’s narrow by-election win in 2009 had a big impact on Alberta politics
Former Wildrose Alliance Party leader Paul Hinman staged an odd and brief reappearance on Alberta’s political stage this week when he announced his plans to run for the leadership of the United Conservative Party. But when the Sept. 12, 2017 deadline for candidates to deposit a $57,500 fee had passed,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unable to raise the entry fee, Paul Hinman drops out of UCP leadership race almost as soon as he dropped in
PHOTOS: Would-be/won’t-be UCP leadership candidate Paul Hinman, gone from the contest after the shortest Alberta leadership campaign in living memory, your blogger’s anyway. Below: Jason Kenney and Andy Warhol. Talk about a Minute Man! Paul Hinman, the former Wildrose Alliance leader who ran his flag up the virtual flagpole on
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Paul Hinman wants to contest UCP leadership! He has till tonight to raise $57,500! I’m not making this up!
PHOTOS: Would-be UCP leadership candidate Paul Hinman, back when he was Wildrose Alliance MLA for Calgary-Glenmore. Below: Preston Manning, Ted Hinman, and Ernest Manning. Paul Hinman? Seriously? Has somebody stumbled over a mysterious time capsule buried by the Wildrose Alliance Party way out on the lone prairie? Probably somewhere down
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Outraged when Rebel was shut out, Alberta Legislature Press Gallery won’t help with role it said government must drop
PHOTOS: The Alberta Legislature … no sign of the Press Gallery. Below: Retired journalist Heather Boyd, author of last year’s report on journalist accreditation at the Alberta Legislature; Cheryl Oates, communications director of the Premier’s Office; and Dean Bennett, president of the Alberta Legislature Press Gallery. Where’s Alberta’s Legislature Press
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Edmonton Election Candidate Update: 34 days left until E-Day
Photo: Edmonton City Hall in the cold and dark depths of winter. There are only 34 days left until Edmontonians go to the polls to vote in this year’s municipal elections. And there are only seven days remaining until Nomination Day on September 18, when candidates will have to line
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Political words before elementary school audiences could’ve, should’ve been a teaching moment, literally
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley with the school children at Lois E. Hole Elementary School in St. Albert, before whom she dared to speak political words. (Photo: CBC.) Below: St. City Councillor Sheena Hughes and former Progressive Conservative Alberta premier Alison Redford, who committed the same sin in 2013, and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: United Conservative Party stance on climate change amounts to not much more than hot air
PHOTOS: Hurricane Harvey batters Corpus Christie, Texas. (Photo: ABC News.) Below: Guest post author Barret Weber, Conservative leadership contenders Jason Kenney and Brian Jean, and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives researchers Shannon Daub and Seth Klein. Guest Post by Barret Weber One truly surprising aspect of the United Conservative Party
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