It’s been more than 25 days since April Fool’s Day and we’re still learning almost daily about $#!+ Danielle Smith says … and does. This is Alberta, where it often feels as if every day is April 1, and by some kind of strange cosmic convergence, it’s Ground Hog Day
Continue readingTag: Alberta Politics
Alberta Politics: In another unsurprising Danielle Smith flip-flop, Calgary to get $330 million in provincial cash for new Flames arena
Among other things, Danielle Smith’s announcement yesterday afternoon of big provincial bucks for a new downtown arena for the Calgary Flames represents yet another flip-flop for Alberta’s premier. Billionaire Calgary Flames Part owner N. Murray Edwards (Photo: Facebook video screenshot). Alberta taxpayers will sink $330 million or more into the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How to blow up a pipeline hearing: AER boss just won’t say when regulator told Alberta government about toxic leak
Anyone who watched the head of the Alberta Energy Regulator refusing to answer questions yesterday during the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development’s hearings into Imperial Oil’s Kearl site tailings pond spill in May 2022 has to wonder what the actual purpose of the provincial agency is. Alberta Energy
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP would repeal Sovereignty Act, restore balance to workplace law, Christina Gray tells AFL convention
CALGARY – An NDP Government will repeal the Sovereignty Act and other controversial UCP laws while creating better jobs in a more affordable Alberta, Opposition Labour Critic Christina Gray told delegates to the Alberta Federation of Labour’s biennial convention today. Delegates to the AFL convention heard from NDP leader Rachel
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith flips another flop – takes credit for federal child-care program she recently reviled
CALGARY – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took to social media on Tuesday to take credit for the federal Liberal Government’s $10-a-day daycare plan, which Alberta only reluctantly signed onto and to which the province contributes nothing. Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has pledged not to fund $10-a-day child care
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tales from the Crypt: UCP unearths Stephen Harper whose bloodless video ‘endorsement’ falls somewhere short of inspiring
How do you make a political endorsement without making a political endorsement? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who was not mentioned in Mr. Harper’s “endorsement” of her political party, which he also didn’t name (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Canada’s former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper has offered us a lesson! Yesterday, Alberta’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP’s Rachel Notley targets radical Take Back Alberta group taking over the United Conservative Party
It’s hard to imagine David Parker, founder and de facto leader of the Take Back Alberta political action committee, was very happy to hear Opposition Leader Rachel Notley signal clearly last week that the NDP considers his group a legitimate target in the election campaign already unofficially under way. Take
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Message to Alberta’s media: Danielle Smith has neither the authority nor the power to restrict you to one question – ignore her decree!
It’s in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s nature never to admit she’s wrong, so it was no surprise after her announcement Friday that she wouldn’t allow reporters at a government news conference to ask more than one question prompted a storm of criticism, she doubled down yesterday. Some politicians, like Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The victim of her own repeated blunders, Danielle Smith decrees a limit on reporters’ questions
It looks like Alberta’s going to need a Sam Donaldson in this election campaign. Former ABC White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson in 1995 (Photo: John Matthew Smith via Wikipedia). You know, someone with a voice big enough to be heard over the noise of Alberta’s premier and her United Conservative
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘National Citizen’s Inquiry’ into COVID-19 objects to TikTok ban; meanwhile, Alberta’s official version of the same thing is doing something
The so-called “National Citizens Inquiry” established last fall by Preston Manning complained on Easter Sunday that TikTok has joined YouTube in suspending its account, presumably for spreading misinformation about COVID-19. Mr. Manning in Ottawa in 2013 when he was still talking about the need “Green Conservatism” and warning his fellow
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith versus Danielle Smith on public health care: Methinks the premier doth protest too much!
Danielle Smith renounced and denounced Danielle Smith’s health care policy objectives at a United Conservative Party at a press conference yesterday in the Edmonton suburb of Sherwood Park. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney at a similar stunt in 2019 (Photo: Twitter). The Danielle Smith doing the renouncing is the one
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ethics Commissioner says she’ll investigate Smith’s conversation with rebel pastor; Premier’s Office clams up
In a terse statement this morning, the office of Danielle Smith said Alberta’s premier “was recently contacted by the Ethics Commissioner, who is undertaking an investigation into whether or not the Premier has interfered with the administration of justice in relation to a COVID prosecution. NDP Justice Critic Irfan Sabir
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier changes Pastorgate story again, claiming she thought preacher facing charges just wanted to talk politics
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has changed her story again about her controversially congenial telephone conservation with street preacher Artur Pawlowski about the criminal charges against him. Controversial street preacher Artur Pawlowski (Photo: Independence Party of Alberta). This time, using the Saturday morning Your Province, Your Premier call-in radio program provided
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Easter! Danielle Smith doesn’t apologize, but she certainly does explain!
Happy Easter! Canadian Press reporter Dean Bennett in a typical pose in 2018 (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Astonishingly, a full week after the CBC broke the story, the brouhaha continues unabated over Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s inappropriate chitchat in January with unsavoury anti-vaxx preacher Artur Pawlowski and the criminal charges
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Embarrassed by premier’s telephone tête-à-tête with extremist facing criminal charges, UCP retreats to its safe space: Law ’n’ Order rhetoric
Sounding a mite panicked by the negative public response to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s willingness to bend rules to help political allies in trouble with the law, the United Conservative Party has retreated to its ideological safe space: Law ’n’ Order, with a side of dog-whistles and urban crime stereotypes.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On Monday Danielle Smith quoted government lawyers; now Alberta’s premier says the UCP is paying for her to sue the CBC
Can you imagine the almighty hoo-ha that would break out across this country if the Alberta NDP ponied up the dough for its leader to sue Postmedia or the Western Standard for defamation? Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Don’t worry. It’s not going to happen. And
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta premier hides behind lawsuit that hasn’t happened to dodge reporters’ difficult questions
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith hid behind a lawsuit that doesn’t exist yesterday to avoid answering reporters’ questions about her sympathetic telephone chat with an unsavoury political ally facing criminal charges. Premier Smith’s controversial telephonic interlocutor, Artur Pawlowski (Photo: Facebook/Artur Pawlowski). If this gambit proves anything, I suppose, it’s that there’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Last week wasn’t a good one for Alberta’s UCP – this week holds the promise of more … snow
They say a week is a long time in politics, but last week must have felt like eternity to the United Conservative Party brain trust. Deputy Premier Kaycee Madu (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Its efforts to make the revelations of that leaked phone call between Premier Danielle Smith and anti-vaxx, pro-Convoy
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Biden offers to send election observers to Canada to oversee Alberta vote in May
During his Ottawa visit last week, U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau he was sure the respected Carter Center would be willing to send a team of international election observers to Alberta for the provincial election expected on May 29. An international election observer from the Carter
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If you’re not talking to a Crown prosecutor, it doesn’t count as interference – that’s the UCP’s story, and they’re stickin’ to it!
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith never spoke directly to a Crown Prosecutor when she set out to interfere in the administration of justice on behalf of pandemic public health scofflaws, and nothing else matters. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith with the giant sausage statue in Mundare, Alberta (Photo: Facebook/Danielle Smith). That’s the
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