There must have been a moment of pure delight in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa when the story broke about Dr. Sally Talbot-Jones’s plan to get her patients to pay thousands of dollars a year to become “members” of her Calgary medical practice. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Alberta Newsroom/Flickr).
Continue readingTag: Danielle Smith
Alberta Politics: Statement by premier and health minister on clinic’s plan to charge membership fees implies there’s nothing to see
Albertans concerned about the preservation of public health care should not be overly reassured by the statement issued yesterday by Premier Danielle Smith and Health Minister Adriana LaGrange in response to a plan by a Calgary medical clinic to make patients pay up to $4,800 a year for timely access
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Smith to Alberta: ‘Of course I’m going to take advice from CEOs; who else would I take advice from?’
Irritated by a question from an impertinent reporter about the makeup of her “expert panel” on Alberta’s energy future led by former Wildrose Party president David Yager, Premier Danielle Smith snapped back last week. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at Thursday’s Edmonton Chamber of Commerce speech (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). “Look, he
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stuff Danielle Smith says: Apparently Alberta Health Services decentralization can make the law of supply and demand go away!
According to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, apparently all we need to do to find anesthesiologists willing to work in rural Alberta is hand the power to hire them over local hospital managers. Former Wildrose Party MLA Rob Anderson, now Danielle Smith’s office manager, long ago on a snowy day in
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Ask Me Anything about Alberta politics episode
You shared your Alberta politics questions and we answered them in our annual Ask Me Anything episode of the Daveberta Podcast. New and recent episodes of the Daveberta Podcast are available to paid subscribers of the Daveberta Substack. In case you missed them, you can catch up on recent Daveberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Health Services ordered back to the future: A catastrophe in the making, or just ideological window dressing?
The premier who centralized the management of Alberta Health Services under a single administrator who answers only to her now says she wants to decentralize the province-wide public health agency “to enhance local decision-making authority”? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). What’s wrong with this picture? According to Danielle
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Straight-Pride Guy’s Disappointment
As Kermit the Frog said, it’s not easy being green. H/t Dean Blundell Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier’s meeting with PM sparks petulantly hyperbolic ‘readout,’ Postmedia hysteria
Danielle Smith’s petulant afternoon “readout” from Friday’s Calgary Stampede meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggests Alberta’s premier didn’t get very far trying to bully the feds into abandoning their energy emissions targets. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, looking steely eyed (Photo: Liberal Party of Canada). In other words, my assessment
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Compare and contrast: Convoy occupations and border blockades versus B.C. port strike
It was almost two weeks after the trucks rolled into Ottawa and blockaded the Canada-U.S. border at Coutts, Alta., before the leaders of the Conservative Party of Canada began to admit there might be a wee problem with the convoyers’ illegal activities. Candice Bergen, then the interim leader of the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Yes, Danielle Smith can just apologize and shrug off her ethical failings – so it’s time for a new NDP strategy
Irfan Sabir, the NDP Opposition’s justice critic, wasn’t wrong when he complained on Saturday that Danielle Smith shouldn’t be able to rattle off a meaningless apology in the Legislature and then just sashay away from any consequences for breaking the law. Alberta NDP Justice Critic Irfan Sabir – his outrage
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Deena Hinshaw can’t be called a hero, but she is a victim of vindictive UCP retribution for things she did right
The enemy of mine enemy is my friend and all that, but it’s not clear that supporters of sound public health policy are on the right track if they decide to portray Alberta’s former chief medical officer of health as a public health hero. Dr. Hinshaw with then agriculture minister
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A “Reset” to Alberta-Ottawa Relations (Chortle)
When Danielle Smith and her team met with federal ministers Jonathan Wilkinson and Dominic LeBlanc to discuss energy and climate change measures, there was some talk that Smith may be open to a “reset” of the Alberta-Ottawa relationship. Unfortunately, some of her cabinet ministers missed the memo. Danielle Smith and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Smith to Legislature: Sorry/Not sorry!
Sounding about as sincere as the proverbial used-car salesman and not as convincing, Premier Danielle Smith whipped through an apology to the Alberta Legislature yesterday for breaking the Conflicts of Interest Act back in January when she talked to former justice minister Tyler Shandro about extremist street preacher Artur Pawlowski’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former MLA’s request for investigation of premier’s dishwashing post blown off by office of Ethics Commissioner
The office of the Alberta Legislature’s Ethics Commissioner has blown off a request by a former MLA for an investigation of what he sees as Premier Danielle Smith’s use of her office to further a private gain by tweeting about her shift washing dishes in her husband’s restaurant hours before
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Danielle Smith Stands her Ground (or something)
Last week the Feds unveiled the Sustainable Jobs Act, Danielle Smith responded in her typical word-salad fashion and the press lauded her for standing her ground. Against what? The Feds said… Natural Resources Minister, Johnathan Wilkinson, says the Act is about creating and protecting jobs as we shift to a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Turns out Facebook didn’t censor or ban Alberta’s premier, but Danielle Smith’s complaint raises a legitimate policy question
It should be well known to everyone now that the claim Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was censored or banned by Facebook is nothing more than a tall tale. Premier’s Office Executive Director Rob Anderson back in the day when he was a Wildrose MLA (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). On Wednesday,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The boss is going crazy! She’s practically giving her restaurant away! Plus, big tech is censoring her!
Premier Smith in a flattering photo published by Postmedia along with its flattering story about her restaurant in High River (Photo: Source not identified, via National Post). Yesterday morning, Internet sleuths noticed the notorious High River railcar restaurant owned by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her hubby has been put
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With half of UCP Caucus in cabinet, more MLA perks to come, we get a glimpse of Danielle Smith’s unity strategy
As of right now, fully half of Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Caucus is in cabinet. Health Minister Adriana LaGrange (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). A cabinet with 24 members (25 if you count the premier) for a Canadian provincial government is arguably excessive, wasteful and inefficient – at exactly 50
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The Politicization of the Beast
Welcome to “Life in a Conservative Province” also known as “they say the wackiest things.” “They” being conservative premiers who say idiotic things when asked: how do you reconcile your government’s policies with the impact of climate change on the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires? Before we get into
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith names her cabinet – not all the omens are good ones
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – Back home in Wild Rose Country, Premier Danielle Smith has named her cabinet, so the Internet and airwaves will naturally soon be rife with speculation about What It All Means. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). This is normally a fool’s errand, since less than 24
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