Nobody flies to Ottawa at this time of year expecting to get anything done with the government of Canada. This is axiomatic. Remember that if you’re wondering about that planeload of Alberta Conservative cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and assorted spear-carriers led by Jason Kenney jetting off to the nation’s capital,
Continue readingTag: conservative party of canada
Warren Kinsella: Tory war: keeping score
So, back in the good old days, when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth and Jesus was a little fella, you were given a couple chances to become Prime Minister or Premier. That’s how it was done. Nowadays, with a news cycle of 10 seconds, and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: There’s a statement on Daisy Group’s web site
It’s here and embedded in the screenshot below.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No way Conservatives will admit they look foolish for calls to legislate CN strikers back to work
Now that a tentative agreement in the national strike by 3,200 CN yard workers and train crew members has been reached in collective bargaining as God and the Canada Industrial Relations Board both intended, you’d think the Conservative politicians who were screeching for Ottawa to intervene and order the strikers
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Why I’m not so critical about Justin Trudeau lately
As regular customers know, I’m a Democrat. Large “D.” I work on Democratic Party campaigns as a volunteer. In 2016, I worked for Hillary in three states, including her Brooklyn headquarters. I’ve volunteered for Democrats for as long as I can remember. But I’m also a democrat, small “D.” I
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What media mostly misses about the national rail strike by CN train crews and yard workers
Here in Alberta, what news coverage there has been about the strike for safer working conditions by Canadian National Railway train crews and rail yard workers has focused on the increasingly agitated calls by Conservative politicians for punitive back-to-work legislation. There is very little reporting on the issues behind the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Excellent question: If a referendum’s good enough for the CPP, why not for the teachers’ pension fund?
“Jason Kenney says he will use a referendum to determine if Albertans want their Canada Pension Plan shifted to AIMCo,” Jonathan Teghtmeyer, Associate Communications Coordinator of the Alberta Teachers Association, observed before asking a perfectly reasonable question on social media yesterday. So, Mr. Teghtmeyer tweeted, “why won’t he allow teachers
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It turns out the UCP’s dream of grabbing the Canada Pension Plan won’t be as easy as it would like you to believe
How much of the United Conservative Party’s radical project to transform Alberta into a dystopic firewalled statelet, most of the details of which were revealed by Premier Jason Kenney for the first time at Preston Manning’s Red Deer clambake on Saturday, was predicated on a Conservative victory in last month’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Preston Manning, the bad penny of Canadian politics, turns up again on Alberta’s sovereignty-association commission
Preston Manning is the bad penny of Canadian politics. So no one should be surprised he’s turned up again! Much good rarely comes from Mr. Manning’s interventions in politics, which never seem to end, so don’t expect positive results from his appointment by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to what might
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: The Liberals had a caucus meeting, too
It happened yesterday. You didn’t hear much about it, because all the drama had happened the day before, with the seven-hour-long Conservative mass-suicide disguised as a caucus meeting. The Liberal caucus meeting was a happier affair. For one thing, the newbies – and Trudeau has a lot of them in
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: A seven-hour caucus meeting creates seven big problems
The Conservative caucus met on Parliament Hill yesterday. Watching them from afar, it recalled a big therapy session. But without a therapist in charge. It went for seven hours, reportedly. That’s a long caucus meeting. At the end of those seven hours, seven big problems remain. They did not dump
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The ‘most pro-life Legislature in decades’ gets ready to make its first move to restrict reproductive rights
Does anyone recall when Cameron Wilson, political action director of the “Wilberforce Project,” previously known as Pro-Life Alberta, bragged that “if the UCP wins the upcoming election, then we will have the most pro-life Legislature in decades, and maybe ever”? That was only in February this year, a century or
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Wexit’ isn’t likely, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous
“Wexit” is dangerous, but not because it’s ever likely to come to pass. The economic case for Prairie separatism is so obviously lame — because of what’s happened to the world market for fossil fuels and because people who actually live where there’s tidewater aren’t interested and never will be
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: God, gays and Scheer
I wrote this some time ago – you know, during that period when I was secretly running the CPC campaign. (More seriously, I was reminded of it by this. Kory is right.) The bar isn’t much to look at. It’s on the tougher side of downtown, in a place where
Continue readingAlberta Politics: This just in from washed-up Wildroser: Alberta separation if necessary, but not necessarily separation!
It looks as if Rob Anderson has found a new gig — Alberta separation if necessary, but not necessarily Alberta separation. For those of you scratching your heads and asking the most obvious question — Rob Who? — Mr. Anderson is one of the few Alberta politicians to have crossed
Continue readingAlberta 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
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Plan to roll back public employees’ pay is no surprise, but the way it’s being rolled out seems surprisingly inept
When Alberta’s finance minister announced the Kenney Government’s plan to roll back unionized public employees’ pay by 2 to 5 per cent yesterday, he blamed Alberta’s debt and deficit, not the huge hole he’d just blown in the province’s budget with $4.5-billion in tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations.
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: The ten reasons Andrew Scheer lost the election
1. He’s a Western social conservative and most Canadian voters are neither Westerners nor social conservatives. 2. He allowed himself to be defined (see above) before he defined himself. 3. He was running against a celebrity, not a politician – and he forgot that people are a lot more forgiving
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