This and that for your Thursday reading. – Umair Irfan discusses the possibility that carbon pollution may have reached its peak in 2023 – while recognizing that even if that proves true, there’s still a long way to go in reducing the additional climate carnage being inflicted by continued emissions.
Continue readingTag: Danielle Smith
Alberta Politics: Busted! Globe outs Danielle Smith’s unpublicized pandemic data ‘task force’ headed by physician who attacked COVID restrictions
When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith mused in the midst debate over her government’s new funding turf war with Ottawa that “we could also establish our own research programs” to ensure ideological balance in academic research, many Albertans suspected they understood precisely what she had in mind. Dr. Gary Davidson, the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Once upon a time Danielle Smith told Marco Van Huigenbos, ‘Coutts must win!’ Now she can’t even find the poor guy’s phone number
Now that the chickens are coming home to roost for some of the would-be Canadian colour revolutionaries of 2022, a certain amount if schadenfreude in social media was inevitable given the rhetoric of the Coutts blockaders and Ottawa occupiers. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, in whom Mr. Van Huigenbos once put
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How did Danielle Smith know about an anonymous letter alleging dirty deeds at the city of Edmonton before it arrived?
Albertans are being asked to believe the provincial government doesn’t keep copies of every piece of correspondence it receives, including some it formally acts upon. Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). To say this strains credulity understates the matter considerably. Yet this is precisely what Alberta Premier
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Jenna Wenkoff discusses how “ethical oil” is purely a (risible) marketing concept rather than any meaningful description of actual fossil fuel operations, while Chris Russell discusses how the tar sands’ environmental disinformation is even worse than people assume. Ian Urquhart writes that the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith sets out to ensure the ideological purity of federally funded university research in Alberta
It must seem unfair to the United Conservative Party base that flat-earth researchers consistently get the short end of the stick when it comes to federal research funds while the spherical-earth crowd so obviously favoured by Ottawa gets all the dough! CBC Power & Politics host David Cochrane (Photo: BroadcastDialogue.com).
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The ‘stay-out-of-my-backyard’ (‘no-funds-for-you!’) bill
Ric McIver, the Minister for Municipal Affairs, is the point man on Bill 18, the Provincial Priorities Act or as Danielle Smith like to call it, the ‘stay-out-of-my-backyard’ bill (images of cranky old men shaking their fists at kids cutting across their lawns spring to mind). Bill 18 will force
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Graham Lawton writes that continued (or worse yet growing) inequality represents an intractable obstacle to ameliorating the climate crisis. Laurence Tubiana discusses the importance of taxing polluters, while Arielle Samuelson and Emily Atkin expose how big oil is trying to bribe its way
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Joan Westenberg discusses how to fight back in the war against knowledge, while Julia Doubleday calls out the lengths to which the New York Times and other outlets are going in avoiding any acknowledgment of the continuing effects of COVID-19. And in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith squirms at thought of Jason Kenney’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act used against her allies
You might be tempted to think Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was on the right track with her obvious discomfort at the thought of her predecessor’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act being used to prosecute the so-called anti-carbon-tax protesters impeding traffic alomg the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary. A few of the
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: NDP Leadership Candidates’ Slogans: A brief discussion
According to those who know about these things, political slogans, those short pithy statements plastered across websites, banners, and lawn signs, are an important part of a candidate’s brand. The experts say that in addition to being short, slogans should be vague and inspiring. Because it’s not so much
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Why Naheed Nenshi is running for the Alberta NDP leadership
Nenshi shares his thoughts on Rakhi Pancholi’s endorsement and what it means to be NDP in 2024 He’s a household name in Calgary, Alberta, and across Canada, and now he’s running to become the next leader of the Alberta NDP. Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi joins the Daveberta Podcast to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Brian Klaas writes about the death of substantive policy discussion as both media and political actors focus primarily on horse-race messaging rather than identifying and solving problems. And Kohei Saito highlights the limiting effects of an underlying assumption that our society and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tegan and Sara call out Smith Government for UCP’s anti-trans policies at Junos
Thank you to the musical Quin twins, universally known as the indie pop duo Tegan and Sara, for speaking up at the Juno Awards in Halifax last night about the Danielle Smith Government’s grotesque War on Trans Kids. Alberta Premier Marlaina Danielle Smith – sorry, but who could resist? –
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Motel Medicine is a logical and predictable result of health care policies Alberta’s UCP continues to push
The Alberta motel medicine scandal that was still unfolding yesterday with the premier’s revelation 39 more discharged hospital patients were being housed in Leduc hotels by the same company as the stroke patient at the heart of the original news report is a logical and predictable result of the privatization
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It turns out Danielle Smith, the smartest person in any room, solved the health care crisis in 2022! Who knew?
Danielle Smith is always the smartest person in any room she’s in, so back in August 2022 when she was running to lead the United Conservative Party, she didn’t need to hesitate even for a moment when she was asked about what to do if hospitals filled up again with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Andrew Phillips offers a reminder that Canada will pay the price for a climate breakdown whether or not it partially prices emissions in the moment – though it’s worth noting that even the existing combination of taxes and regulations falls far short of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Kate Irwin reports on new research showing that dozens of the U.S.’ largest corporations are doling out more money to their five top executives than they paid in total federal income tax. And Robert Renger makes the case that windfall gains in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Julia Doubleday highlights how the continued unmitigated spread of COVID-19 is collapsing hospital systems around the globe. Priyanjana Primanik examines how the coronavirus leads to long-lasting cognitive deficits, while Isabella Cueto discusses new research confirming a connection between COVID and autoimmune disease (which
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Budget 2024: Gotcha!
In case you didn’t catch Danielle Smith’s bizzarro Address to the Province last week, the one where she signalled what we could expect in the 2024 Budget, here’s a brief synopsis. (Smith’s comments are edited for tone and appear in bold). Premier Smith’s pre-budget address to the province We need
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