Erin O’Toole’s Conservatives showed a new face during the recent campaign. A surprisingly progressive one. The leader said the party has let Canadians down, citing climate policies and engaging with working Canadian and union leaders. Not only the electorate was surprised. Many Conservatives were as well. When did we start
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Alberta Politics: Jason Kenney proves that Alberta provincial leaders can still influence federal election campaigns!
Who says Albertans don’t have influence in Confederation? Jason Kenney proved once again Wednesday that an Alberta political leader, just by calling a news conference and speaking a few words, can single-handedly influence the course of a federal election! Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: Justin Trudeau/Flickr). One imagines, though, Alberta’s
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 77: Back from the Best Summer Ever
We are back from the summer with the first episode of Season 4 of the Daveberta Podcast and we dive right into Alberta’s response to the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, speculation about how long Jason Kenney might last in the Premier’s Office, the federal election, municipal political parties
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s ‘Energy War Room’ appears to be operating in defiance of the Canada Elections Act
Alberta’s “Energy War Room” appears to be continuing to operate in defiance of Canada’s election laws, campaigning against positions clearly identified with a Canadian political party without registering as an election third party. Greenpeace Canada Senior Energy Strategist Keith Stewart argued recently in a tweet thread that the War Room,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ne media welcome: Jason Kenney reappears, virtually, answering curated questions via Facebook Live
Having been spotted out for shawarma in Calgary Tuesday night, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney cautiously emerged back into the artificial light of political life yesterday. Rather than making an actual public appearance and risking having to answer rude questions by the province’s media, uncharacteristically uncooperative after Mr. Kenney’s two-week vacation
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Erin O’Toole’s promise he’d put workers on corporate boards is meaningless at best, harmful at worst, unlikely to be implemented
Federal Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole has launched a charm offensive to win over unionized workers normally treated as lepers or enemies by modern North American “conservative” parties. A key policy in the Conservative Party of Canada’s platform, Mr. O’Toole insisted yesterday, will be to require about 100 corporations under federal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Pandemic election an outrage: Alberta Conservatives. Pandemic over, we’re open for good: Also Alberta Conservatives
It’s an outrage, practically a crime against humanity, for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to call a federal election in the midst of a global pandemic, Alberta’s Conservatives say. The pandemic is over and thanks to the wise leadership of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, we are open for good, enjoying the
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Canada’s progressive tilt—mitigating first-past-the-post
From 2006 to 2015 we endured a decade of Conservative rule even though the Conservatives never won the support of even 40 percent of Canadian voters. Such are the idiosyncrasies of the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) electoral system. Since 2015 we have been governed by the Liberals, but not with much more
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu waves a red flag in front of her irascible Alberta counterpart, Tyler Shandro
Obviously, federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu didn’t expect to get a serious answer from Tyler Shandro, her Alberta counterpart, when she wrote the irascible minister to warn him the Kenney Government’s “unnecessary and risky gamble” to drop COVID-19 testing, contact tracing and mandatory isolation will put children at risk. In
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unifor uses Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney to target ‘the new 2021 O’Toole’
With election fever running high throughout the land, Unifor’s new third-party political advertisement started showing up on social media yesterday and it was too good not to share in the final hours of this August long weekend. It’s an attack ad that mimics the cliches of automotive advertising, and Erin
Continue readingAlberta Politics: MLA Pat Rehn, cast into utter darkness by Jason Kenney last January, welcomed back to jittery UCP Caucus
On the morning of Jan. 14, a day after an Edmonton researcher revealed Lesser Slave Lake MLA Pat Rehn had spent almost all of April, May, June and July in Edmonton while constituents complained he was never seen in the riding, Premier Jason Kenney kicked the missing MLA out of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: PM Justin Trudeau, boyish, beardless and in campaign mode, shows up to bestow $1.5B on Calgary Green Line LRT
Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, boyish and freshly beardless as if a summer election is blowin’ in the wind, showed up in Alberta yesterday to bestow $1.5 billion in federal cash on Calgary’s Green Line LRT, a mega-project unpopular with many of the well-heeled donors who support Premier Jason Kenney’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Something is dragging the federal Conservatives down in Alberta – is it Jason Kenney?
It sure looks as if Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s abysmal performance is not merely threatening the survival of his United Conservative Party Government, but is dragging down the federal Conservatives in Alberta as well. Alberta’s Conservatives are too strong and too entrenched even for Premier Kenney to destroy them completely.
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: 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 readingViews from the Beltline: Conservatives stumble over the big issue
Hanging over our heads is one overwhelming issue. It’s not the pandemic, and it’s not the economic disruption caused by the pandemic. It’s our rape of the planet, the most immediate aspect being climate change. If a political party can’t get a grip on this issue, they aren’t of much
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Awkward! What can Erin O’Toole do now that Conservative Party delegates have ignored his plea to acknowledge climate change?
Question: What is Erin O’Toole supposed to do now that we all know 54 per cent of the delegates to his online Conservative Party of Canada policy convention have formally refused to acknowledge climate change is an actual thing? Answer: Pretend it never happened, of course. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s lack of vaccine capacity really is a scandal, but there’s no way Conservatives are actually serious about fixing it
The fact Canada lacks capacity to manufacture its own coronavirus vaccine should be a scandal. But there’s a certain irony in Conservative leaders like Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta’s Jason Kenney jumping on this bandwagon now that its potential to be used against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Conservative Party of Canada’s malaise with its loony right runs deeper than Derek Sloan
If Erin O’Toole were serious about making the Conservative Party of Canada a less congenial place for the far right, he would have kicked out Derek Sloan weeks ago for his odious xenophobia, homophobia and racist online commentary. Mr. O’Toole was picked to replace the desperately awful Andrew Scheer last
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s Hawaiigate Scandal grows, uncovering new non-essential Conservative trips to Mexico, Arizona, California, Las Vegas
Alberta’s Hawaiigate travel scandal continued to grow yesterday with four more United Conservative Party MLAs and one Conservative Party of Canada MP from Calgary confirmed to have been out of the country in defiance of COVID-19 restrictions on non-essential travel. In addition, rumours about several more Conservative politicians are circulating.
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