PHOTOS: Alberta Education Minister David Eggen, whose Bill 24, An Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances, was passed by the Alberta Legislature yesterday. Below: UCP Leader Jason Kenney, former Alberta Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman, and social conservative activist John Carpay. Bill 24, An Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances, passed third and
Continue readingTag: conservative party of canada
Alberta Politics: Too much overtime owed may have saved former PC staffers’ jobs as UCP purged their Wildrose counterparts
PHOTOS: Nick Koolsbergen, new chief of staff to United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney. (Photo: Lorian Belanger/Radio-Canada.) Below: UCP Deputy Chief of Staff Matt Wolf (Photo: Linkedin), UCP communications staffer Blaise Boehmer (Photo: Twitter), and Jamie Mozeson, former candidate to succeed Rona Ambrose as MP for Sturgeon River-Parkland (Photo: Jamie
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calgary MLA Dave Rodney to make way for new Conservative Leader; ex New Democrat Karen McPherson to join Alberta Party
PHOTOS: Calgary-Lougheed MLA Dave Rodney, centre right, gets close to the new Conservative leader … in 2011. Below: Newly elected United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney; another look at Mr. Rodney, the renowned Everest summiteer; and Alberta Party recruit Karen McPherson (Photo: Connor Mah, Wikipedia Commons). Members of the Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Trailing UCP candidates knuckle under after brief rebellion over evasion of voting limits on home computers
PHOTOS: Shhhh! UCP voting in progress! (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.) Below: UCP leadership frontrunner Jason Kenney, and, like deer caught in the headlights, challengers Doug Schweitzer and Brian Jean. Former Wildrose leader Brian Jean must rue the day he ever agreed to take part in a leadership “contest” with Jason Kenney,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Desperation anyone? The clock runs out on Brian Jean’s campaign to lead the UCP
PHOTOS: UCP leadership candidate Brian Jean, with loyal MLAs Leela Aheer, Glenn van Dijken and Todd Loewen, in front of Premier Rachel Notley’s constituency office yesterday. (Screenshot of Jean Campaign video.) The wind was blowing. Below: Former Calgary MP Jason Kenney, whose coronation as leader of the UCP is expected
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Western Canada’s artificial alienation: Catalonia here we come! Then again, maybe not …
Right on schedule, us Western Canadians are feeling alienated. Really! Don’t just take my word for it! The digital editions of the gutter press are full of the complaints nowadays of such alienated Albertans as United Conservative Party leadership contenders Brian Jean and Jason Kenney. Likewise, we’re hearing lots of
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Sturgeon River-Parkland: The Forgotten By-Election
Photo: Liberal candidate Brian Gold and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at a campaign event in Spruce Grove on October 20, 2017. (Source: Twitter) Overshadowed by this past Monday’s municipal elections, the federal by-election in Sturgeon River-Parkland scheduled for October 23, 2017 could be described as the forgotten by-election. I drove
Continue readingAlberta Politics: TransCanada pulls the plug on Energy East: the fallout in Alberta will be measurable
PHOTOS: Protesters opposed to the Energy East Pipeline project in Montreal last summer (Photo: Radio Canada). Below: United Conservative Party leadership contender Brian Jean, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Canadian prime ministers Trudeau, Pierre and Justin, and sometime UCP leadership candidate Jeff Callaway. It’s been quite obvious
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don’t expect an NDP cold war between Jagmeet Singh’s federal New Democrats and Rachel Notley’s Alberta caucus
PHOTOS: Jagmeet Singh, whose campaign to lead the national New Democratic Party came to a successful conclusion yesterday. (Photo: NDP.ca.) Below: Alberta NDP Leader and Premier Rachel Notley, former Alberta Progressive Conservative premier Alison Redford, and former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith. So, it’s Jagmeet Singh, and decisively. But don’t
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Between the lines, Calgary MLA Rick Fraser’s UCP resignation letter is an indictment of Wildrose-ified party
PHOTOS: Rick Fraser in a screenshot from the Legislature of Alberta. Below: Legislative loners Greg Clark, David Swann and Richard Starke, Calgary MP Kent Hehr, and environmentalist and former Green Party candidate Chris Turner. Let’s cut to the chase about what Calgary MLA Rick Fraser’s decision to quit the United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Paul Hinman wants to contest UCP leadership! He has till tonight to raise $57,500! I’m not making this up!
PHOTOS: Would-be UCP leadership candidate Paul Hinman, back when he was Wildrose Alliance MLA for Calgary-Glenmore. Below: Preston Manning, Ted Hinman, and Ernest Manning. Paul Hinman? Seriously? Has somebody stumbled over a mysterious time capsule buried by the Wildrose Alliance Party way out on the lone prairie? Probably somewhere down
Continue readingAlberta Politics: United Conservative Party stance on climate change amounts to not much more than hot air
PHOTOS: Hurricane Harvey batters Corpus Christie, Texas. (Photo: ABC News.) Below: Guest post author Barret Weber, Conservative leadership contenders Jason Kenney and Brian Jean, and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives researchers Shannon Daub and Seth Klein. Guest Post by Barret Weber One truly surprising aspect of the United Conservative Party
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Breakup on the right? Naw, Canadian conservative politicians’ long romance with the Rebel isn’t over
PHOTOS: Wildrose-UCP MLA Drew Barnes, who still stands with and by Rebel Media, at a protest on the steps of the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton in December 2015. Below: Federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer (Photo: Marcos Oliveira, Wikimedia Commons), UCP leadership candidates Jason Kenney and Brian Jean, and Alberta NDP
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Never mind apologies, it’s time for Canada’s Tories just to admit Jack Layton was right about talking to the Taliban
PHOTOS: Jack Layton in Edmonton in 2011. Below: Forgettable Harper Government foreign minister Lawrence Cannon (Photo: Abigail Veronneau, Wikimedia Commons) and Peter MacKay, who took some of the cheap shots at Mr. Layton in 2006 (Photo: Department of National Defence, via the Wikimedia Commons). Never mind the apologies. That ship
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Parsing Conservative Lies
Recently, newly-selected Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer wrote a column condemning the compensation awarded to Omar Khadr for the violation of his rights as a Canadian citizen. Not only did his piece send a message to his base that the animus so regularly cultivated by the party’s former overlord, Stephen
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Well-Said!
Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I find myself thinking about the sad state of the world today, a state infinitely exacerbated by the current politics of the failed American Empire. Indeed, I had planned this morning to discuss at some length some of its
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s position on Khadr case exposes the group’s partisan inclinations
PHOTOS: Omar Khadr, left, with his Edmonton lawyer, Dennis Edney, at right. Mr. Edney’s wife, Patricia Edney, is in the middle. (Photo: CBC) Below: Mr. Khadr at age 14, not long before his capture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in July 2002, and Aaron Wudrick, Federal Director of the Canadian
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Conservative politicians’ reaction to PM’s missing-Alberta gaffe suggests they suffer from world-class insecurity
PHOTOS: Are the hillbillies above what our conservative politicians want the rest of Canada to think of when they hear the word Alberta? They should just stop! Below: Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Robert Thivierge), Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean, and Alberta’s grownup premier, Rachel Notley.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Explaining Derek Fildebrandt’s ambitions: Jason Kenney vows to stifle ‘bozo eruptions’ in the UCP
PHOTOS: Alberta Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney. He vows to find ways to ensure there are no bozo eruptions in the ranks of the United Conservative Party. This will not be easy. Below: Frequent eruptor Derek Fildebrandt, who says he’s considering running for the leadership of the UCP himself; former
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Corporate media have reached consensus about Andrew Scheer: He’s Stephen Harper with a human face!
PHOTOS: Andrew Scheer, demonstrating his vaunted smile. (Photo: Rabble.ca.) This fills corporate media with hope. It shouldn’t. In Canada, with or without a smile, social conservatism is ballot-box poison. Below: former prime minister Stephen Harper, who really doesn’t have a very nice smile at all. Below him, former PM Joe
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