Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Bill McGuire discusses why anybody with an understanding of climate science is terrified of a living environment that’s careening out of control. Carbon Brief notes that there’s plenty of public support for meaningful climate action. But Andre Mayer observes that while the wealthiest and most
Continue readingTag: Brian Mulroney
Politics and its Discontents: Dare I ‘Blaspheme’?
I dare. Given the hagiography that has unfolded since the passing of Brian Mulroney, I now take a step into waters that his enthusiasts might deem sacrilegious, even blasphemous. Despite his achievements (which largely look good in contrast to those of today’s ‘leaders’), the late prime minister, in my view,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Sorry, but we’re still on the royalty roller coaster! Budgetary sleight of hand notwithstanding, Alberta is in deficit already
Good morning, Alberta! It’s March 2024, and we’re still on the royalty roller coaster! Premier Danielle Smith congratulates her finance minister in the Legislature yesterday (Photo: Legislative Assembly of Alberta/Flickr). It feels as if we’re easing back into the bust portion of the formula, and it’s still no fun. Well,
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: With The Passage Of Time
Thirty years ago, Brian Mulroney was looking at the worst defeat in political history. His chosen successor, Kim Campbell, had won just two seats in the House of Commons. Anthony Wilson Smith writes: So, when an invitation to lunch came from his friend, the Quebec Inc. titan Paul Desmarais, Mulroney
Continue readingAlberta Politics: 10 months in the life of Jason Kenney: from bitter foe of illegal protests to fierce defender of protesters’ rights, or something
What a difference a year makes! Not even a year: Ten months in the life of Jason Kenney. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Ten months ago, blockades in support of opposition by members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation to pipeline construction on ancestral lands in north-central British
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Gary Mar on Keystone XL: Likely the only guy who can save Jason Kenney’s Keystone XL pipe-dream is Justin Trudeau
It may not quite be impossible for Jason Kenney to see his dream of completing the Keystone XL Pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast on his watch come true, but it will be almighty difficult with Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. What’s more, if the project is to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How propaganda became memory: Pierre Trudeau, Alberta and the National Energy Program
On this day 40 years ago, prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s finance minister and deputy PM, Allan MacEachen, rose in Parliament to introduce a new national budget. Warning that Canada could become increasingly dependent on foreign supplies of oil and subject to the vagaries of the world oil market, Mr. MacEachen
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Leadership and legacies.
This was prodded by a reader. He asked me to search my mind for leaders of Canada’s federal parties and determine what I would consider their legacy to the country. It was a somewhat disappointing search. While hardly a recent leader, I started with Sir John A. Macdonald. It is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thatcher brouhaha: When your slippery opponent’s on the ropes, maybe you should focus on keeping him there!
When you’ve got a slippery political opponent on the ropes with a completely legitimate issue, what’s it profit a New Democrat to stand up in the Legislature and create a massive distraction from the fight the party’s winning with one that has no advantage for it? This is what NDP
Continue readingAlberta Politics: We do face a national crisis in Canada; it’s not caused by a few non-violent Indigenous blockades
We do face a serious national crisis in Canada. It is not caused by a few rail and road blockades by First Nations activists and their allies, however. Nor is it caused by environmentalists to some of whom the grave issues facing Indigenous Canadians may be secondary but who view
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: John Crosbie #nlpoli #cdnpoli
Left to Right: Bill Doody, Brian Peckford, John Crosbie, Jane Crosbie,and Beth Crosbie at the 1983 federal PC leadership convention The outpouring of praise in memory of John Crosbie, who died on Thursday, has been such a flood of cliché and, in some cases, fiction that it does a disservice
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Ten reasons why Jean Charest should run
Will he? Won’t he? Postmedia muse John Ivison says he will. I think he will, too. Here’s ten reasons why I think he should seek the Tory leadership, and why he could win – both the leadership and the country. The Big One. The Rest of Canada mostly doesn’t know
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No way Conservatives will admit they look foolish for calls to legislate CN strikers back to work
Now that a tentative agreement in the national strike by 3,200 CN yard workers and train crew members has been reached in collective bargaining as God and the Canada Industrial Relations Board both intended, you’d think the Conservative politicians who were screeching for Ottawa to intervene and order the strikers
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Preston Manning, the bad penny of Canadian politics, turns up again on Alberta’s sovereignty-association commission
Preston Manning is the bad penny of Canadian politics. So no one should be surprised he’s turned up again! Much good rarely comes from Mr. Manning’s interventions in politics, which never seem to end, so don’t expect positive results from his appointment by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to what might
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Canada Day! In a troubled world, Canada stands out as a genuine triumph of bureaucracy
Happy Canada Day! One way or another, our Canada always seems to end up on every list of the world’s Top Ten economies. Granted, we are almost inevitably No. 10 of 10, which may leave the intensely competitive dissatisfied. But, realistically, this also means we’re No. 10 of 193, if
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Atlantic Accord: background to the 1985 agreement #nlpoli
The Atlantic Accord functions in Newfoundland and Labrador politics in two ways. There is the agreement between the Government of Canada and the provincial government that established the joint management framework for the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. At the same time, there is the political prop and the associated mythology that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Be careful what you wish for, Conservatives: Canadians may like a tougher Trudeau
Memo to Conservatives, New Democrats and others who are crowing about how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to have been revealed as a harsher and less cuddly politician than he has been thought to be till now: Be careful what you wish for. If Mr. Trudeau is revealed as a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brexit Redux: Looking back at Jason Kenney’s strange comments when the U.K. shot itself in both feet
Back in June 2016, hours after Britons had narrowly voted to leave the European Union, a lot of Albertans scratched their heads at Jason Kenney’s bizarre Brexit commentary on social media. At the time, Mr. Kenney was still drawing a paycheque as the Conservative MP for Calgary Midnapore. He was
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former NDP leader Brian Mason says farewell with words of wisdom and warning
Former Alberta New Democratic Party leader Brian Mason has been a gale force presence in Alberta politics for so long it’s hard to imagine the place without him. Yet there he was yesterday at lunchtime, on stage in the ballroom of Edmonton’s Westin Hotel, saying farewell to politics, the NDP
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Doug Ford achieves the impossible: he’s gotten Canadians interested in constitutional reform!
Office-holding Conservative politicians and operatives of their well-funded Astro-Turf and think tank support network across Canada have now virtually to a man and woman jumped aboard Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford’s runaway constitutional train, defending his use of Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ override clause to gerrymander electoral districts in
Continue reading