Soon after Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver two years ago at the behest of U.S. authorities, Chinese state security officers arrested two Canadian men, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. It was clear from the get-go the arrest on Dec.
Continue readingTag: conservative party of canada
Alberta Politics: Canada should quit stalling to let the U.S. save face and send Meng Wanzhou home now
Anyone who still imagines the Trump Administration’s partly successful effort to get Canada to seize and extradite Meng Wanzhou to the land of chaos and COVID had anything to do with “the rule of law” needs to consider the implications of yesterday’s report in the Wall Street Journal that the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Oppositional by nature, the UCP acts as if Rachel Notley’s NDP was still the government
Perhaps because he’s the only United Conservative Party MLA in Edmonton, Justice Minister Kaycee Madu seems to have become the Kenney Government’s main spokesperson responsible for yelling at the NDP. Whether Mr. Madu writes his own social media material or has an aide to perform that function for him, his
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s progressive politicians need to pay attention to Erin O’Toole’s pivot to unions
If Erin O’Toole was sincere when he surprised everyone last month by bemoaning the decline of unions, you’d think he’d publicly rebuke Premier Jason Kenney for his ongoing campaign to turn Alberta into a right-to-work state. So far, though, the new Conservative Party of Canada leader has had nothing to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: U.S. election exposes ‘Triple-E’ Senate myth once and for all as a democratic disaster
Does anyone recall the Reform Party of Canada’s campaign starting in the late 1980s to impose on our country a “Triple-E Senate” – that is to say elected, effective, and, above all, “equal”? Pushed by the likes of Calgary-area farmer Bert Brown and would-be philosopher king Preston Manning, this call
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Say what? Conservative Alberta MP’s riding association buys pro-life transit ads in Vancouver
Regardless of exactly how Garnett Genuis’s Vancouver bus advertisement asking how there can be too many children was paid for, the Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan MP well known for his vocal opposition to reproductive rights and the Conservative Party of Canada should both have some explaining to do. Mr. Genuis boasted
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 readingAlberta Politics: Alberta must learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, premier muses on the topic of energy and the environment
Jason Kenney may have missed it, but Lyndon Johnson’s famous comment about how certain people weren’t up to walking and chewing gum at the same time was an observation about their lack of intelligence, not their ability to get away with saying contradictory things at the same time. Alberta’s premier
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Sundre hospital renamed to honour MP Myron Thompson, long-time foe of equality for same-sex couples
“They’re trying to take away our culture, they’re trying to take away our history,” Donald Trump complained back in 2017 about activists who call for the removal statues of Confederate and colonialist heroes. Mr. Trump’s supporters have been loudly making their agreement known ever since, including here in Alberta where
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What did Finance Minister Travis Toews actually say about AISH in Grande Prairie last week?
So, what did Travis Toews actually say about Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped when he said whatever he said to a Grande Prairie local news website one week ago today? According to the first report on MyGrandePrairieNow.com, the finance minister, who is also MLA for Grande Prairie-Wapiti, said that
Continue reading52 Ideas: On Sir John A. MacDonald, Conservatives, Vergangenheitsbewältigung and Working Through Canadian History: the Approach Conservatives should take to Canada’s past
I believe that History matters. History matters because it teaches us how to be better. History provides us with the very best and worst lessons of what people are capable of. Just look at Nelson Mandela. He was one of many people who brought an end to Apartheid in South
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Death toll from fall of Montreal statue still stands at zero, but apoplectic Wexiters may be at risk
The death toll from the fall of John A. Macdonald’s statue in Montreal Saturday still stands at zero, the gods be praised. One would have thought it was much higher, however, given all the outraged virtue signalling from Conservative politicians and their “issues managers” here on the western edge of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kaycee Madu, no stellar cabinet performer, is promoted to where he can do less harm; other stars fall
Kaycee Madu, possibly Alberta’s least successful cabinet member in the estimation of his portfolio’s key stakeholders, as Alberta justice minister? Who saw that coming? Former Economic Development, Trade and Tourism Minister Tanya Fir (Photo: Facebook). Of the three major political events affecting Alberta that took place while your blogger was
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: “Take Canada Back” ?!?!?
“Take Canada Back” to when/what/where, etc., exactly?!? ICYMI Erin O’Toole is the newly-minted leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Erin O’Toole ran on a leadership campaign platform that courted nationalists and populists, AKA hate/fear-mongering, racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, etc. pieces of garbage. Erin O’Toole’s leadership campaign slogan? “Take Canada Back”.
Continue readingScott's Diatribes: An Assessment of Erin O’Toole’s selection as Conservative Leader
In a leadership convention that will be known as much for its counting machines shredding ballot votes and the long delay in announcing results, as it will for the picking of a new leader, the Conservative Party’s members finally picked someone to replace the inept Andrew Scheer. (Scheer didn’t go
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: An Assessment of Erin O’Toole’s selection as Conservative Leader
In a leadership convention that will be known as much for it counting machines shredding ballot votes and the long delay in announcing results as it will for the picking of a new leader, the Conservative Party’s members finally picked someone to replace the inept Andrew Scheer. (Scheer didn’t go
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta political roundup: The paper-pile premier, furious doctors, rebel ’Roser rumours, Total disaster, and more …
Having rammed through two controversial bills Tuesday night, one opening the door to more health care privatization and the other eliminating workplace fairness and declaring war on unions, the Alberta Legislature wrapped up its business just after 8 o’clock yesterday morning. United Conservative Party social media spent the afternoon bragging
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada, keep your eye on Alberta — it’s not going to be pretty, but it should be instructive
You can just tell it’s likely to be a crazy week in Alberta politics. To understand just how crazy, you have to think about what the Kenney Government is noisily focusing on, and what is actually happening. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). In the Legislature, Premier Jason
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s it tell us that a couple of bad-boy Lethbridge cops almost got away with illegal surveillance of an NDP minister?
It’s tempting to write off yesterday’s big story about that pair of none-too-bright county mounties from the Lethbridge Police Service caught stalking an NDP cabinet minister as just a dumb cop comedy without much significance. But Sgt. Jason Carrier and Const. Keon Woronuk were no Gunther Toody and Francis Muldoon,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: From us to WE: The Dickensian ‘Big Society’ seems to be back again, if it ever left
Who can forget the “Big Society”? Just about everyone, it turns out. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: Justin Trudeau/Flickr). “The Big Society,” cooked up by a senior aide to former British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, was the ridiculous idea neoliberal governments could shuffle off their key responsibility for assuring
Continue reading