Albertans live in an alternate universe. How else can we explain last week’s press conference where Danielle Smith pilloried the draft electricity regulations which are designed to ensure Canada’s electrical grid is running on 100% clean energy by 2035* and unveiled a national advertising campaign of print, radio, TV, social
Continue readingTag: Danielle Smith
Susan on the Soapbox: The $334 Billion Assumption or Why Smith’s APP is a Non-Starter
Well that inspires confidence. When LifeWorks respectfully submitted its report to the Smith government outlining how Alberta could move from CPP to an Alberta Pension Plan, the executive summary was signed by someone who preferred to remain anonymous, hence their signature was “Redacted to protect privacy.” Perhaps Anonymous was
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Political Leadership in Crisis
“We’d like to know why we have not heard from you. Surely the suffering of our children merits more communication than a single tweet.” – Open letter to Danielle Smith from the parents and supporters of children infected in the E. Coli public health crisis The only thing worse
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Damian Carrington reports on a “scientific health check” showing that Earth’s life support systems are well outside what’s safe for humanity. But Jonathan Cook discusses how an obsession with growth over health and well-being is preventing us from taking any meaningful steps to
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Aug 3: The day Danielle Smith kneecapped wind and solar energy
The low point of my summer (and there were many with this UCP government) came on Aug 3 when Danielle Smith announced a 7 month moratorium on wind and solar renewable energy projects—a decision that paralyses more than 100 projects valued at $33 billion—ostensibly to address policy concerns that could
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Proposed federal clean-electricity rules are ‘unaffordable blackout regulations’? … UCP environment minister floods the zone
“Unaffordable blackout regulations”? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). It wasn’t exactly a surprise that Alberta’s United Conservative Party started September by issuing a wildly misleading statement calling the federal Government’s proposed 2035 net-zero electricity generation regulations “unaffordable blackout regulations.” This kind of nonsense is the UCP’s schtick, after
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s hard to take Danielle Smith’s hysterical outburst at federal environment minister very seriously
Apparently Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is determined to make the flagging Trudeau Liberals look like the grownups in the room! Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault (Photo: UN Biodiversity, Creative Commons). What other explanation is there for Ms. Smith’s childish official outburst yesterday assailing federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault for his
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier and feisty reporters spar over details of UCP plan to freeze new renewable electricity generation projects
What was supposed to be a scripted jeremiad by Danielle Smith attacking the federal government’s proposed clean-electricity regulations yesterday turned into a verbal sparring match with some feisty reporters over when the government actually decided to freeze the application process for new renewable electricity generation projects. Globe and Mail reporter
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How is it possible basic communications work for Alberta’s renewables freeze announcement wasn’t done?
Between them, the Alberta Ministry of Energy and Minerals and the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas employ at least a dozen qualified communications professionals easily earning more than a million dollars a year in combined salary and benefits. Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). In addition,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With freeze on renewables and vow to ignore federal net-zero rules, Alberta’s on its way to being a three-alarm international dumpster fire!
Whether or not Premier Danielle Smith and her enabler and office manager Rob Anderson carefully planned their freeze on renewable electricity generation last week or just came up with it on a whim, it’s now turning into a three-alarm international dumpster fire. Deputy Premier Nathan Neudorf (Photo: Linked-In). On Wednesday
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A Letter to Protest Moratorium on Renewable Energy Projects
Dear Readers: It’s August.We should be enjoying what’s left of summer but with the Smith government it’s one stupid thing after another. Premier Smith Smith’s decision to impose a 6 month moratorium on new renewable energy projects was the last straw. Yesterday I sent a letter of protest to Smith,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith in damage-control mode as freeze on new renewable electricity generation projects sparks hostility
The nearly universally hostile reaction to Alberta Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf’s announcement last Thursday that the province had imposed a seven-month freeze on new renewable electricity generation projects over one megawatt seems to have taken the United Conservative Party by surprise. Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf, who is also one of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why saying Alberta Health Services’ original mandate was only running acute care hospitals is dangerous and false
A dangerously misleading statement appeared in an op-ed story under Health Minister Adriana LaGrange’s byline Thursday in the Calgary Herald. To wit, “that Alberta Health Services has evolved beyond its original acute-care hospital system mandate.” Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange (Photo: Facebook/Adriana LaGrange). Everyone makes mistakes and most politicians spin
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta medical clinic’s ‘membership’ billing scheme won’t hurt a bid by PM to attack Pierre Poilievre through Danielle Smith
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 readingAlberta 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
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