Alberta Premier Jason Kenney provides an update on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in Alberta, February 19, 2021. Photo courtesy Alberta Newsroom/Flickr. Last month, a “deeply concerned” Alberta Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides instructed the province’s four comprehensive academic research universities to “pause” any new or renewed research partnerships with
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Alberta Politics: The appalling discovery in Kamloops is irrefutable evidence of a crime against humanity
The appalling discovery of the bodies of 215 Indigenous children hidden in unmarked graves at the site of the Residential School in Kamloops, B.C., is irrefutable evidence of a crime against humanity. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Band confirmed Thursday that ground-penetrating radar had detected the remains of the children on
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The left should leverage emerging cracks in BC’s right-wing coalitions
According to CD columnist Alex Cosh, it is up to extra-parliamentary movements to hold the BC government’s feet to the fire on behalf of working people. Photo courtesy the Province of British Columbia/Flickr. It’s been a tumultuous year or so for British Columbia’s fragile right-wing political coalitions. After winning its
Continue readingAlberta Politics: State of the Media: Postmedia, looking for a future, post media as it were, wants to deliver your parcels!
Let’s give ourselves some respite from the horror of living in Alberta under Jason Kenney and his United Conspiracy Party. Instead, here’s an inspiring, upbeat story about an old business we all thought was on its last legs that is thinking outside the box about how to grab the low-hanging
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If you like going to the bottle depot, you’ll love the Conservative carbon tax, says Calgary MP Ron Liepert
I hear that Calgary Signal Hill Conservative MP Ron Liepert – who the Canadian Press kindly described as an experienced Alberta politician – has been using the deposit you pay on a bottle of beer to explain party Leader Erin O’Toole’s carbon tax proposal. This is a flawed metaphor, but
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former city councillor and federal minister Amarjeet Sohi to announce bid to become Edmonton Mayor today
If a pipeline to tidewater is as important to Alberta as folks around here seem to think it is, Amarjeet Sohi has done far more to make one a reality than Premier Jason Kenney ever did. In 2018 and 2019, as natural resources minister in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney tells a whopper, Kaycee Madu recants and apologizes: situation normal in Alberta
The Internet let out a collective gasp yesterday afternoon when Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was caught telling an obvious whopper. Well, perhaps not the whole Internet, but that portion fascinated by political affairs in Canada’s westernmost Prairie province, tuning in to discover why Mr. Kenney had insisted once again on
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Can the NDP overcome Canada’s democratic deficit?
The NDP has tried time and time again to enact the popular will in their current role in parliament, only to be slapped down by a coalition of their Liberal and Conservative colleagues. Photo by Onfokus/Flickr. We all love democracy. The belief in the idea that government is responsive to
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The high cost of Canadian military propaganda
Canadian Armed Forces soldiers participate in Exercise COLLABORATIVE SPIRIT in Petawawa, Ontario, September 25, 2019. Photo by Melissa Gloude, Garrison Imaging Petawawa/Flickr. Ignored in the flap over the Halifax International Security Forum (HFX) awarding its dubiously titled John McCain Prize for Leadership in Public Service to Taiwan’s President, Tsai Ing-wen,
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Jason Kenney’s epic fail
The spectacular failures of Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party government in Alberta are almost too frequent to enumerate. Image by Canadian Dimension. Many on the social medias have given Alberta Premier Jason Kenney a nickname: ‘Bumbles.’ Reflecting on his government’s performance over the past year, I can hardly disagree. Scratch
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government hastily cobbles together ‘working parents’ advisory panel’ to seek ways to undermine federal child care proposal
On April 19, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the Trudeau Government plans to spend $30 billion on a national child care plan with a target of reducing parents’ costs to $10 a day per child in five years. On April 22, Alberta Children’s Services Minister Rebecca Schulz announced that the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Bill to hinder COVID-negligence suits against long-term-care firms will also protect Kenney Government from scrutiny
The Kenney Government would like you to think the bill it introduced yesterday to make it hard to sue long-term-care companies for negligence causing the death from COVID-19 of anyone in their care “strikes a balance between protecting those who have dutifully followed the rules with still permitting civil action
Continue readingAlberta Politics: $10-a-day child care in Alberta? Forget about it! Federal plan prompts Kenney to call up conservatism’s culture warriors
If cornered, will the Kenney Government flat out say no to federal funds for child care? It sure looks like it. Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). But first, as is ever the case when the United Conservative Party’s lizard brain confronts a potentially popular publicly funded
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There are better ways for Alberta’s only New Democrat to spend her time than calling for more Canadian troops on Russia’s doorstep
Last week, Heather McPherson, New Democrat Member of Parliament for Edmonton Strathcona, was sounding as belligerent as any Alberta Conservative on the topic of what she termed “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.” In a lead-up to a question in the House of Commons, a clip of which Ms. McPherson distributed on
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Nuclear ban treaty an opportunity for Ottawa to re-engage in peace and diplomacy
A majority of Canadians think the world should eliminate nuclear weapons and that Ottawa should join the treaty that bans them. US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Ronald Gutridge. A majority of Canadians think the world should eliminate nuclear weapons and that Ottawa should join the treaty
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why Conservatives love the monarchy, and how without a Canadian monarch real republicans could be democrats
It’s been more than a week since the death of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, but his pale blue eyes still stare resolutely from the home page of the Government of Alberta’s website. Given the challenges facing Alberta, a number of social media commentators have crossly suggested this is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Erin O’Toole’s startling course change on carbon taxes suggests Jason Kenney’s influence over Conservatives is waning
Federal Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole’s screeching smuggler’s turn on carbon taxes yesterday likely wouldn’t have been possible without the current disarray of Alberta’s Kenney Government. When word of Mr. O’Toole’s plan to put a price on carbon as part of the Conservative election platform leaked to the CBC on Wednesday
Continue readingAlberta Politics: More flimflam than usual in yesterday’s four-province news conference touting small nuclear reactors
By recycling some old news about their joint project to promote “small modular reactors” yesterday, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick have proved dubious ideas in Canada have a half-life worthy of a uranium isotope. Well, maybe not quite that persistent. Some of those suckers can hang around for four
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Another Alberta spring day: Premier lectures, Speaker apologizes, dissident pastor’s secret sermon revealed as anti-vaxxers chant ‘lock ’er up!’
Jason Kenney had barely decided what to do about his United Conservative Party’s dissident COVID-denial caucus when a mob of three or four hundred anti-vaxxers turned up on the steps of the Alberta Legislature yesterday and started yelling that Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw ought to be locked
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hundreds of maskless demonstrators, apparently none from GraceLife congregation, protest COVID-defiant church’s closing
Several hundred mostly maskless protesters packed the rural road in front of GraceLife Church southwest of Edmonton Sunday to protest against the closing last Wednesday of the Edmonton-area church by Alberta Health Services and the RCMP. Catcalling police, vandalizing the car of the chief of the nearby Enoch Cree Nation,
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