Finally. After seizing Gerald Butts’ government-issue laptop and cell phone – after all of the senior PMO staff lawyered up – one would’ve thought the criminal probe was already underway. At least they have now confirmed that it is. How helpful is it that your party and your leader are
Continue readingTag: Andrew Scheer
Babel-on-the-Bay: Diogenes, Leadership and SNC-Lavalin.
There is no time left for what might have been. Canadians are going into an election when what we so desperately want to say is ‘None of the above.’ Are we condemned to face a future of failure? Are we helpless? Have we found there is no honest man? Justin
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Oh, dear, what can the matter be? They promised to bring us a pretty ‘Blue-Ribbon,’ but all they deliver is cant!
Once upon a time, your blogger worked for a famous newspaper publisher who announced one day that since we journos hadn’t had a raise for a couple of years we could expect a small one in six months. There was a caveat, though. We would only get the raise if
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: When the real campaign begins.
They remind me of a bunch of outlaw bikers, warming up their hogs for a race. They have all taken off their mufflers for that extra bit of speed. The full-throated roar of those bikes makes the ground seem to tremble. And the clouds of exhaust fumes obscure the start. When
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta discourse may still be mired in climate change denial, but the rest of the world is moving on
Public discourse in Alberta may still be mired in climate change denial, but the rest of the world is changing and changing fast. Even the New York Times, which along with much of the mainstream media in the United States could be accused until recently of seriously underplaying the climate
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Seth Klein summarizes new polling showing that Canadians are eager for far stronger action to fight climate change than the Libs or Cons will even consider. And Andrew Leach points out that the Cons’ excuse for a climate plan is a study
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Who is this guy Scheer?
The conservative party has been working hard over the summer at getting ‘Chuckles’ Scheer better known. It reminds me of that old Rodgers and Hammerstein song, Getting to Know You, that Julie Andrews made famous in The King and I. What should be remembered about the song is the point
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: My latest: Trudeau is likelier to win
Dief’s jowls jiggled. His brows bristled. “I’ve always been fond of dogs,” the Conservative leader declared, and the assembled media throng — the ones who had just informed him that Gallup had him losing, badly, to the Liberals — leaned ever closer. “And they are the one animal that knows
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why Does Andrew Scheer Remind Me Of Mr Bean?
It's a strange thing. Although I truly believe that Andrew Scheer is an ugly Con and a danger to this country and its values, he keeps reminding me of the comic character Mr Bean.So instead of standing there shaking an outraged fist in his general direction, as all decent Canadians should.I
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau’s Secret Weapon.
You have probably been wondering why prime minister Justin Trudeau is so cheery and ebullient these days. It is probably not just the fact that his pal Gerald Butts is back to back him up in the campaign. Nor is it the pollsters who are saying that the conservatives and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fallout from dual probes into 2017 United Conservative Party leadership campaign still drifting down
It may not be fair, and you may not like it, but politics is like French justice: Guilty until proven innocent. OK, the French say it ain’t so, and we have to take them at their word. They’ve signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, bien sûr! But in politics,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Symbolic MLA pay cut set stage for attack on public services – so why did the NDP support it?
Like neoliberals everywhere, Alberta’s Conservatives overrate the virtues of big business and undervalue those of democracy. This is not exactly news. This was a clear message yesterday from the vote of the Legislature’s Member Services Committee to cut MLA salaries by 5 per cent, and twice that for the premier’s
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Andrew Scheer’s Disastrous Long Weekend
As I'm sure you know by now, Andrew Scheer has been trying to soften his image.By among other things promising to give the medicare system he wants to privatize, a shot in the arm. Or more likely one in the heart.But sadly for Scheer his PR offensive went horribly wrong over the course
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Washington Post reports that July 2019 set new records as the hottest month ever measured on Earth. David Suzuki offers a reminder of the catastrophic consequences of failing to put and end to our climate breakdown. And Roger Harrabin warns against
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney pledges ‘I will never give up on Canada’ while stoking Alberta separatist sentiment
Maybe Canada needs a Clarity Act for pollsters’ questions intended to gauge the level of support for provincial secession from Canada. The Clarity Act, of course, is the federal law passed in 2000 in response to the scary 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum that came within 1 per cent of destroying
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Chuckles Chooses Cheap.
Conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer was not out to look cheap the other day. It was just the effect when he again announced that the conservatives would guarantee Canada’s health care system a three per cent increase per year. It seems that the Trudeau government made a deal recently to
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Trudeau does a Harper.
There was a strong sense of déjà vu as our prime minister headed to the far north to kick off his election campaign. It was just four years ago when prime minister Stephen Harper headed for Iqaluit, Nunavut, to kick off conservative Leona Aglukkaq’s bid for re-election. This is despite
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Andrew Scheer’s Desperate Medicare Scam
Andrew Scheer has managed to conceal what he really thinks about our medicare system, like he has managed to conceal so many other things.His religious fanaticism, his grotesque misogyny, his vicious anti-gay views. But he has been overheard in private excitedly discussing what he would like to do to our healthcare system
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP Government, with no apparent short-term Plan B, seeks leave to appeal injunction suspending Bill 9
Unsurprisingly, the United Conservative Party Government has filed notice of appeal on the temporary injunction granted by the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench that halted application of Bill 9, playing havoc with Premier Jason Kenney’s strategy for putting off a crisis with the province’s public sector unions until after the
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