Soon-to-be-former MP Rob Anders with would-be MP Melissa Mathieson. Did this photo help, or hurt, his unsuccessful candidacy? Below: Ron Liepert, the Conservative who beat Mr. Anders in the Calgary Signal Hill riding nomination battle. How big a role did the guns ’n’ ammo crowd play in the defeat Calgary
Continue readingTag: conservative party of canada
Politics, Re-Spun: Let’s Play Cowboys and Indians
Why not? It seems to be working in Washington, DC. And you know what? They’ve got our backs. When ranchers are farmers and tribal communities realize that the tarsands and their toxic pipelines threaten us all, it’s pretty easy to figure out how working together gets things done. They’re even
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Why underage drinking at 24 Sussex Drive is no joke for the Harper Government
Awwwww, everybody drinks to much, just like the National Post says! Fuggedaboudit. Look at these young guys, partying it up at 24 Sussex Drive! Below: Ben Harper in 2010. VICTORIA, B.C. The National Post wants Canadians to smarten up and pay attention: Everybody drinks too much, OK? Even our reporters!
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Help Conservative Senators Stop Harper’s Banana Republic
Emperor Stephen Harper and his double double. Interesting times indeed. 8 Conservative senators have decided that Emperor Stephen Harper has no clothes. The Emperor has whipped and intimidated his backbench, cabinet and senators for a long time. Senator Hugh Segal stood up to him on bad legislation. Though he left
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Advice to progressives: Don’t airbrush Jim Flaherty’s record out of sympathy for his family
The late Jim Flaherty tries on the traditional new shoes just before delivering his 2012 federal budget. Below, some of Mr. Flaherty’s friends and colleagues: former Ontario premier Mike Harris, in whose government he also served; Prime Minister Stephen Harper; Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Decent people naturally feel sympathy with
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Rob Anders loses by a nose in Signal Hill as Cowtown Cons make the best of a bad choice
Lost by a nose … but what a nose! A 22-year-old Rob Anders in 1994, heckling an Oklahoma politician. Below: Calgary Signal Hill nomination victor Ron Liepert; Mr. Anders as he looks today. There was blood in the water of the Bow River as it flowed through Cowtown last night.
Continue readingAlberta Diary: What happens now that we know there really is a cancer cluster in Fort Chip? Nothing?
Greenpeace Canada info-graphic showing connections among the far-right Conservative Party of Canada activists behind the so-called Ethical Oil Institute. Below: Dr. James Talbot; Dr. John O’Connor; Ezra Levant. Alberta’s chief medical officer has now confirmed that statistics released a couple of weeks ago indicate there really is a cancer cluster
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Death of Jim Flaherty
“We are, of course, not in the world alone and our lives here are finite.” “Our individual and family responsibilities are primary. Yet the desire to accumulate private goods in the end does not lead to satisfaction simply because, as we all learn, enough is never enough.” – Jim Flaherty,
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupying Homelessness?
Homelessness isn’t a policy thing regarding random people. It’s a thing for actual people. It’s not abstract, it’s in our face, yet we live in denial. Clearly, I’m no brain surgeon. But if there are homeless people, a civilized culture would find a way to use a progressive tax system
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Occupy Canada For May Day, With Bananas
A few days ago, I wrote about picking May Day as a good time for Occupy Vancouver to reboot itself and catch up with the Occupy Movement’s worldwide #WaveOfAction. But I think that idea can be bigger, it can be a day for all of Occupy Canada to reboot. Here’s
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Welcome to Stephen Harper’s Banana Republic
#PMSH goes #BananaRepublic: the (un) #FairElectionsAct lets incumbents SUPERVISE their own election! pic.twitter.com/SG3IT8GMAz #cdnpoli — Politics, Re-Spun (@PoliticsReSpun) April 6, 2014 Just how stupid does Stephen Harper think we are? He thinks that we’re fine with the idea that incumbent parties should be able to pick the poll supervisors in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Occupy Vancouver Could Be Up To
While the worldwide reboot of the Occupy Movement is afoot, Occupy Vancouver version 2.0 is still notional. However, if you want to see a little bit of what it could be doing today if it had coalesced yesterday, you’d show up this afternoon at one of the 1%’s tree forts.
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Conservatives race to the bottom in Calgary-Signal Hill
TweetWith the race for the Conservative Party nomination in Calgary-Signal Hill in less than 10 days, the Rob Anders campaign has broadcast a new robocall praising the incumbent MP for decreasing the federal Goods and Services Tax. The message also includes an attack on his opponent Ron Liepert for musing
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Canada’s Seeks the OECD Record for Income Inequality
America: Where the rich get richer faster than in so many other places! Yesterday I wrote about the rebooting of the Occupy Movement in 10 days. I’m very excited. And to help you understand why this is such a big deal, especially in Canada, it’s important to see how Canada is
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Stephen Harper Fired Jim Flaherty Because of Income Splitting Disloyalty
The smile: it’s fake. He was fired. Seriously, is it me or did Stephen Harper fire Jim Flaherty over his disloyalty over the income splitting policy disaster? Certainly, I haven’t read EVERYthing written this week about dude going back to spend more time with his family private sector, but the
Continue readingBryan Crockett: Who will replace Deficit, err, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty?
Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has announced that he’s resigning from Cabinet, and leaving politics to work in the private sector. Considering Flaherty has been in politics for nearly two decades, it would be fairly reasonable that he’d want to leave. However, it is peculiar, considering how strongly he lobbied
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How the Conservative Government Dishonours the Military
So Canada is leaving its occupation of Afghanistan. I never liked the mission. I never liked the context. I never liked the propaganda. I never liked the transformation of some kind of Canada into this occupying Canada. 162 killed and 2,179 wounded? But here’s the very very hard question. Who
Continue readingAlberta Diary: PKP to run for PQ: Why PKP, with SNN and CPC PMO spell SOS for Canada, which could be FUBAR
Impressionable English Canadian youngsters tune in to SNN for sinister ideological conditioning by RWN (right-wing nuts) on the staff of the PMO-favoured network. Below: PKP and his now-ex wife (NXW), grabbed from the Internet; SNN broadcaster Ezra Levant. Oh, H-E-double-hockey-sticks, PKP wants another D-I-V-O-R-C-E! This time, having just given his
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Mr. Harper: Pathetic Media Flop
The contempt that our employee, Mr. Harper, holds for his 36 million employers is palpable. Sometimes it’s just goofy. He’s taken to skirting the “real” media, whom he despises, to becoming his own media, like bloggers or vloggers. Watch, and let’s examine how pathetic an employee he is: There are
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Back to the future with Guy Boutilier: a run to be Fort Mac’s MP looks to be in the cards
Guy Boutilier in his Wildrose caucus office in Edmonton back in 2009. Notice Ralph Klein peering over his shoulder. Below: Other Fort Mac politicians Brian Jean, the Conservative Crossword King, and Mike Allen, a saxophonist, in his St. Paul Police mugshot. Guy Boots, Member of Parliament? Why not? When you
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