Tag: Alberta Politics
daveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Can Trudeau’s popularity help the Liberals in Calgary-Greenway?
There was a time in the not too distant past when the Alberta Liberal Party went out of their way to distance themselves from the Liberal Party of Canada. The provincial party even formally separated from the federal party back… Continue Reading →
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens, week 10: Justin does Washington
It was a good week to be Justin Trudeau. Just like the other 51, only a little bit more. Trudeau made the official rounds of Washington this week, including a rare state dinner, the ultimate accolade for a visiting leader. The American media has lavished attention on the rookie leader, with the Washington Post calling […]
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Alberta Political Party Fundraising from 2004 to 2015
I was browsing through Elections Alberta Financial Disclosures earlier this week and updated some old charts I created in April 2015, mere days before last year’s election was called. The charts below track political party fundraising over the p…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Big population growth means it’s time to redraw Alberta’s Electoral Boundaries
Alberta’s population has grown by 517,365 since the last time our provincial electoral boundaries were redrawn to reflect population growth. According to population estimates released on the provincial government’s Open Data portal this week…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Throne Speech suggests Alberta NDP won’t let oil price crisis go completely to waste
PHOTOS: Status of Women Minister Stephanie McLean with her new son, Patrick, in the rotunda of the Alberta Legislature Building after yesterday’s Throne Speech. Below: Royal Canadian Artillery Band conductor Capt. Patrice Arsenault starts the proceed…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: For the first time, Women are running the show in Alberta politics
Today is International Women’s Day. Almost one hundred years ago, on April 19, 1916, women in Alberta were granted the legal right to vote through the passage of the Act to provide for Equal Suffrage (Short title: The Equal Suffrage… Continue Readi…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Study highlighting large and growing gender income gap makes grim reading on International Women’s Day
PHOTOS: Status of Women Minister Stephanie McLean, at left, announced the NDP Government’s plan to improve gender equality yesterday. (Government of Alberta photo.) Below: Queen’s University Law Professor Kathleen Lahey, the cover design of the Par…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Deconstructing political discourse in Alberta: Doublethink is alive and well in recessionary Wild Rose Country
PHOTOS: Parson Manning spreads the Gospel of Market Fundamentalism in his days as leader of the Reform Party of Alberta. The actual neoliberal preacher-men of Confederation may not appear exactly as illustrated. Photo grabbed from Elmer Gantry, the mov…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s behind ‘Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation’ campaigns like its stunt calling for rollbacks in Alberta teachers’ pay?
PHOTOS: A typical Canadian Taxpayers Federation stunt, moved from place to place across Canada with the goal of undermining public services and speeding the race to the bottom. The picture at bottom right shows Alberta Wildrose Opposition Finance Criti…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Government asks Athabasca University to hold off on financial details; new minister to meet president
PHOTOS: A scene from Athabasca University’s 2015 Convocation ceremony, where the honorary degrees are handed out. Below: Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt, former AU Board chair and award recipient Barry Walker, AU President Peter MacKinnon,…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There’s nothing ‘independent’ or ‘blue-ribbon’ about the Wildrose Party’s ‘Equalization Fairness Panel’
PHOTOS: How the Frontier Centre views Canada’s Equalization Program. Oh! Wait! That’s a 19th Century temperance poster. Same difference, basically. Below: The Wildrose Party’s four Frontier-Centre-associated “equalization fairness” panelists:…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: “Over My Dead Body” – This week in Alberta’s Big Happy Conservative Family
It was only last week that the leaders of Alberta’s two main conservative political parties – Progressive Conservative interim leader Ric McIver and Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean – were in Ottawa hobnobbing with the conservative …
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Calgary-Greenway Update: Alberta Party sits it out, Larry Heather and Said Abdulbaki run as Independents.
The Alberta Party has decided to not run a candidate in the March 22, 2016 by-election in the Calgary-Greenway constituency. It was a strange choice by the small political party, which brands itself as a centrist alternative. Its leader, Greg Clark, …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of the Alberta Party: A mystery created, a mystery solved
PHOTOS: Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, the party’s sole MLA in the Alberta Legislature. Below: Then-Wildrose leader Danielle Smith during the campaign leading up to the October 2014 “mini-election” and Alberta Party President Pat Cochrane (phot…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wherever there’s Alberta unite-the-right chatter, Preston Manning’s name keeps popping up
PHOTOS: Preston Manning, looking right as usual, photo taken at the 2013 Manning Conference in Ottawa. Below: Alberta PC leader Ric McIver, Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean Wildrose Party photo), federal Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose (CBC photo) and…
Continue readingIn This Corner: Stuff Still Happens, week 8: Deficits, drugs and death
The big issue of the week in Canada, where we worry about these things for some reason, was deficits. The new Liberal government, which promised to run a $10 billion deficit to boost the economy, is instead going to be about $30 billion in the hole. Here in the People’s Republic of Alberta, the provincial […]
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don Getty, premier who battled economic downturn much like today’s, among the last of Alberta’s Red Tory leaders
PHOTOS: Don Getty and Peter Lougheed, going places politically back in the day. Below: Mr. Getty again, and Mr. Lougheed , as professional football players with the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1950s, the former in an Eskimos photo, the latter in a shot sna…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Appointment of Michael Phair as chair U of A Board of Governors sends exactly the right message
PHOTOS: Newly appointed University of Alberta Board of Governors Chair Michael Phair, left, with Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt at yesterday’s announcement (photo grabbed from MLA David Shepherd’s Twitter feed). Below: Former U of A Boa…
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