Alberta Politics: Judge upholds Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s $6,000 fine but the organization’s dubious credibility will likely survive

Back in January 2019, observers of the Alberta political scene wondered if 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 would result in a long-overdue recognition of the partisan role the self-described “tax watchdog” clearly

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Alberta Politics: The curious case of Canada’s ‘tax watchdog,’ which hasn’t barked at the scandalous RStar program

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is missing in action! Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, a former registered lobbyist for the controversial RStar scheme, now in the process of implementing it (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). The CTF calls itself a “citizen’s group dedicated to lower taxes, less waste and accountable government.” Yet with potentially

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Alberta Politics: Research paper argues Canadian Taxpayers Federation pushed ‘anti-Indigenous political rhetoric and policy’ over 21 years

Locating the Canadian Taxpayers Federation clearly in the ecosystem of neoliberal advocacy, a recent paper in the Canadian Review of Sociology analyzes more than 400 documents published by the CTF over 21 years to argue the organization has pushed “anti-Indigenous political rhetoric and policy.” Lead author Kyle Willmott, a professor

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Alberta Politics: Fossil fuels may be fading, but Alberta stands ready to supply bad economic ideas to Canada and the world

VICTORIA — We Albertans can be enormously proud, I guess, of our continuing influence on the Dominion. We surely must be the leading exporter of ridiculous, potentially destructive ideas in Canada. B.C. Premier John Horgan (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Consider Andrew Wilkinson, hapless leader of British Columbia’s Liberals (who are

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Alberta Politics: As predicted, ‘Fair Deal’ Panel reheats the Firewall Manifesto to manufacture consent for policies Albertans don’t want

Consider the report of Alberta’s “Fair Deal” Panel, released yesterday by Premier Jason Kenney with considerable fanfare. It strongly suggests the Harper-Kenney wing of the Canadian Conservative movement is made up of people who purport to be Canadian patriots when they’re in power in Ottawa but are Prairie separatists when

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Alberta Politics: Inside Jason Kenney’s troll factory: the UCP propaganda ecosystem goes after Alberta’s registered nurses

The president of the Alberta Federation of Labour called out the Canadian Taxpayers Federation yesterday for the partisan role it plays supporting of the Kenney Government’s contract demands in negotiations with the union that represents the province’s front-line registered nurses. Calling the CTF “a secretive anti-union lobby group,” Gil McGowan

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Alberta Politics: Shut down your ‘anti-Alberta campaigns’ inquiry or the courts will shut it for you, tiny group warns Alberta government

OTTAWA – Well, one thing’s already clear, there’s no way the mighty Kenney Government will shut down its so-called inquiry into “anti-Alberta energy campaigns” on the say so of Progress Alberta, a small Edmonton-based research and activist organization. That said, the day may come when the government’s leaders wish they

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Alberta Politics: Stephen Harper and Preston Manning, joined at the hip by history and not particularly liking it, make changes

On Wednesday, former prime minister Stephen Harper abruptly quit the Conservative Party of Canada’s fund-raising board, supposedly to give himself time to prevent Jean Charest from becoming leader of Canada’s Conservatives or prime minister of Canada. Yesterday, we learned that Preston Manning would quit his eponymous market-fundamentalist call centre in

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Alberta Politics: Canadian Taxpayers Federation commentary on nurse salaries isn’t research so much as an echo chamber

Has anyone noticed how the propaganda produced by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation seems to be growing more inept of late? Misleading arguments and anti-union bias have long characterized many of the claims made by the Regina-based CTF, which claims to be a non-partisan “citizens’ group,” although its only legal members

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