In the stampede by Canadian politicians of all ideological stripes to support Venezuela’s self-declared “interim president,” has anyone given even a nanosecond’s thought to the impact the handover of the troubled South American petrostate’s government to Juan Guaido would have on Alberta’s oilpatch? It won’t be pretty. The federal government’s
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wmtc: thank you, nanaimo! the ndp government survives
Thank you, Nanaimo! With all the personal blathering I’ve been doing, I forgot to write about something very important! There was a by-election here in BC: a seat in Nanaimo would determine if the coalition government — the balance of power a mere one seat! — would survive. Translation for USians.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP governments’ approaches to health care funding characterized by fiscal prudence, new study says
Who knew? The facts don’t support the myth that New Democratic Party governments always try to break the bank with health care spending! Just as NDP governments have a better fiscal record than all other Canadian political parties that have formed governments, a new study by the Edmonton-based Parkland Institute
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Supreme Court ruling tomorrow could leave Albertans on the hook for corporate toxic mess cleanup
The Supreme Court of Canada will announce its ruling tomorrow morning in a case that could leave taxpayers on the hook for a toxic mess left by a bankrupt oil company – and by extension a whole raft of corporate polluters, not just in the oil industry. If the Supreme
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Doug Ford backs down on attacking Greenbelt protections.
It appears that there was a lot of blowback to this plan over the Christmas holidays to Conservative MPP’s. Good – it was a terrible idea: The Ford government is scrapping a controversial plan that would have allowed municipalities to opt out of some provincial planning rules to attract new
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney then and Now: UCP critics face abuse now, unlike a certain critic of PC housing allowances back in 1992
Public anger at politicians who bill taxpayers for their living expenses when in reality they live close to their work is nothing new in Alberta. Abusive attacks on their critics, up to and including death threats, are new. Back in April 1992, Progressive Conservative municipal affairs minster Dick Fowler, who
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The best solution to gun violence actually possible in Canada in 2019 is an outright ban on handguns
Scream as they might about the idea of a ban on handgun ownership by Canadians, it is interesting to note that the tactics used by advocates of wide-open ownership of firearms against the so-called long-gun registry combined with the legislative strategy pursued by their allies in the Conservative federal government
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney’s domestic arrangements: A wonkish look at how MPs identify their primary and secondary residences
Members of the Canadian Parliament like Jason Kenney in the days he was MP for Calgary Midnapore are permitted to charge expenses for a secondary residence, either in the National Capital Region or within 100 kilometres of the riding they represent. To avail themselves of this benefit, MPs like Mr.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Duffy 2.0? Ottawa lawyer’s allegations about then-MP Jason Kenney’s expenses sets off Internet tempest
Allegations about United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney’s Calgary domestic and travel arrangements during the years he was the Conservative MP for Calgary Midnapore circulating on social media over the weekend had turned into a full-blown Internet tempest by last night. Parliamentary expenditure reports and flight records as well as
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will Canadian Taxpayers Federation credibility suffer from fine for failing to register as third-party election advertiser?
The $6,000 administrative penalty levied against the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for failing to register as a third-party advertiser under Alberta’s election financing law is a long-overdue official recognition of the true role the self-described “tax watchdog” plays in Canadian politics. The CTF has been disproportionately influential in Canadian political discourse
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Derek Fildebrandt and that rule of law thing: it’s for pipeline protesters, not law-abiding gun owners …
It shouldn’t surprise us, I suppose, that Derek Fildebrandt has publicly gone all Charlton Heston on us. I speak, of course, of the recently rebranded Freedom Conservative Party leader’s Hestonesque Twitter outburst yesterday in response to talk the federal Liberal government might actually make an election issue out of banning
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Never mind the facts of Canadian history: Brian Jean says … Make Confederation Great Again!
If former Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean established anything on Monday with his Epistle to the Albertans, wherein he set out his “agenda to move Alberta forward,” it’s that he remains a man desperate to be taken seriously. Much mocked in circles that no longer take Mr. Jean very seriously
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No truck convoy to Ottawa? No trucks, no glory, perhaps, but no Conservative PR disaster either
If you were one of those cynics who wondered how far that heavily publicized Ottawa-bound truck convoy demanding new pipelines and demanding them now would get, you have your answer: Nowhere. The promised slow-moving, horn-honking, eastern-bastard-annoying convoy from Alberta was supposed to depart Red Deer on Feb. 15. But Monday
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Everything you always wanted to know about Rand Paul and the Shouldice Hernia Hospital * but were afraid to ask
I’m sorry to report, Canada, that Rand Paul, the nutty libertarian son of the crazy uncle of the American Right, isn’t the only politician to stumble into a controversy for getting repairs at the Shouldice Hernia Hospital. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first there’s a backstory. According
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Donner Canadian Foundation, prominent funder of right-wing groups, helps bankroll new ‘think tank’ closely connected to CTF
A new “think tank” with close connections to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation received $50,000 last year from the Donner Canadian Foundation, a prominent funder of right-wing ideological organizations in Canada. SecondStreet.org describes itself on its website as “a new think tank that will be launching in early 2019.” The organization’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brian Topp, NDP strategist who led Rachel Notley’s 2015 war room, describes what Jagmeet Singh must do this year to win
With a federal election looming this fall, mainstream pundits have already written off the federal New Democratic Party and its leader, Jagmeet Singh, relegating Mr. Singh to history’s discard bin and declaring the party to have already returned to perpetual third-party status. Maybe they shouldn’t, suggests long-time NDP political strategist
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Not a lot of light between UCP and Alberta Party ‘Ministry of Truth’ schemes, or for that matter the NDP approach
Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel got a couple of things right about Jason Kenney’s plan to establish a “war room” in the Ministry of Energy to pump out belligerent propaganda attacking environmentalists, other governments and private citizens who fail to support of Alberta’s wishes for endless oilsands expansion with sufficient
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s Top Ten Political News Stories of 2018: It’s not all about that pipeline …
Trying to come up with a list of the most important Alberta political news stories of 2018 is more challenging than one might imagine since the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion brouhaha sucked all the oxygen out of this place for most of the year. A court challenge was inevitable. So
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Has Trudeau committed treason?’ The answer is no and the question is completely bonkers!
Donna Kennedy-Glans, by all accounts an intelligent and accomplished Alberta Conservative, recently posted and pinned a Tweet asking, “Has Trudeau committed treason?” If her intention was to grab the attention of Alberta’s chattering classes, she succeeded. If she was out for attention, though, I’m not sure she really wanted the
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Merry Christmas 2018!
Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope you have a great holiday!
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