Welcome to Alberta's 2023 election cycle. Campaigning has effectively been going on for some time now, but the writ was issued yesterday and now it's official. We're in an election cycle. This is basically a two horse race. Alberta either elects the UCP, now led by Danielle Smith, or it
Continue readingTag: Danielle Smith
Susan on the Soapbox: The Flames Arena Deal (What’s my vote worth?)
Last week the City of Calgary. the Province of Alberta and the billionaire owners of the Calgary Flames signed a nonbinding MOU for a new arena and related improvements. The tab is $1.2B with $800M for the arena and $400M for related improvements in the entertainment district. It looks like
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Tara Kiran et al. examine the use of virtual care in Ontario, and find no evidence to support the anti-public-health claim that interactions being pushed back in person served any purpose in avoiding emergency room visits. And CBC News reports on a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Criticized for the company she keeps, premier insists she doesn’t know who her friends are
Criticized for the company she keeps, Danielle Smith countered by insisting she doesn’t know who her friends are. Alberta’s premier hobnobs last Wednesday in Calgary with convoy leader James Bauder, his wife Sandra Collins Bauder, and convoyer Harold Jonker (Photo: Facebook/James Bauder). When Alberta’s premier caught flack for posing at
Continue readingAlberta Politics: $#!+ Danielle Smith says, and does: Alberta Premier touts far-right ‘bastions of freedom’ in U.S.; poses with convoy insurrectionists
It’s been more than 25 days since April Fool’s Day and we’re still learning almost daily about $#!+ Danielle Smith says … and does. This is Alberta, where it often feels as if every day is April 1, and by some kind of strange cosmic convergence, it’s Ground Hog Day
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Gondek, Notley and Smith: An important conversation
Last week Calgary Economic Development presented its Report to the Community. The highlight of the event was Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s conversations with Rachel Notley and Danielle Smith. Gondek asked each leader 4 pre-set questions and 2 questions from the audience. She talked with Notley first and Smith second. It was
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith flips another flop – takes credit for federal child-care program she recently reviled
CALGARY – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took to social media on Tuesday to take credit for the federal Liberal Government’s $10-a-day daycare plan, which Alberta only reluctantly signed onto and to which the province contributes nothing. Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has pledged not to fund $10-a-day child care
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tales from the Crypt: UCP unearths Stephen Harper whose bloodless video ‘endorsement’ falls somewhere short of inspiring
How do you make a political endorsement without making a political endorsement? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who was not mentioned in Mr. Harper’s “endorsement” of her political party, which he also didn’t name (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Canada’s former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper has offered us a lesson! Yesterday, Alberta’s
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Hiding From the Fourth Estate
Last week Danielle Smith announced her new “one question, no follow up” rule for journalists asking questions at her press conferences. She said the “one question” rule would apply to everything, not just the ethics commissioner’s investigation into whether Smith interfered with the administration of justice in her 11
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Message to Alberta’s media: Danielle Smith has neither the authority nor the power to restrict you to one question – ignore her decree!
It’s in Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s nature never to admit she’s wrong, so it was no surprise after her announcement Friday that she wouldn’t allow reporters at a government news conference to ask more than one question prompted a storm of criticism, she doubled down yesterday. Some politicians, like Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The victim of her own repeated blunders, Danielle Smith decrees a limit on reporters’ questions
It looks like Alberta’s going to need a Sam Donaldson in this election campaign. Former ABC White House Correspondent Sam Donaldson in 1995 (Photo: John Matthew Smith via Wikipedia). You know, someone with a voice big enough to be heard over the noise of Alberta’s premier and her United Conservative
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Alex Fulton discusses the lessons we should be learning from the response to COVID-19 in preparing for the next pandemic. Richard Payerchin highlights how physicians recognize the need to diagnose and treat long COVID as it afflicts an increasing proportion of the population,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith versus Danielle Smith on public health care: Methinks the premier doth protest too much!
Danielle Smith renounced and denounced Danielle Smith’s health care policy objectives at a United Conservative Party at a press conference yesterday in the Edmonton suburb of Sherwood Park. Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney at a similar stunt in 2019 (Photo: Twitter). The Danielle Smith doing the renouncing is the one
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ethics Commissioner says she’ll investigate Smith’s conversation with rebel pastor; Premier’s Office clams up
In a terse statement this morning, the office of Danielle Smith said Alberta’s premier “was recently contacted by the Ethics Commissioner, who is undertaking an investigation into whether or not the Premier has interfered with the administration of justice in relation to a COVID prosecution. NDP Justice Critic Irfan Sabir
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier changes Pastorgate story again, claiming she thought preacher facing charges just wanted to talk politics
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has changed her story again about her controversially congenial telephone conservation with street preacher Artur Pawlowski about the criminal charges against him. Controversial street preacher Artur Pawlowski (Photo: Independence Party of Alberta). This time, using the Saturday morning Your Province, Your Premier call-in radio program provided
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Easter! Danielle Smith doesn’t apologize, but she certainly does explain!
Happy Easter! Canadian Press reporter Dean Bennett in a typical pose in 2018 (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Astonishingly, a full week after the CBC broke the story, the brouhaha continues unabated over Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s inappropriate chitchat in January with unsavoury anti-vaxx preacher Artur Pawlowski and the criminal charges
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Lisa Schnirring reports on new research showing how infection with COVID-19 tends to lead to extended sick leave, while Helen Twohig et al. survey the prevalance and effects of long COVID among children. And Alec Salloum reports that workers and experts alike
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Embarrassed by premier’s telephone tête-à-tête with extremist facing criminal charges, UCP retreats to its safe space: Law ’n’ Order rhetoric
Sounding a mite panicked by the negative public response to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s willingness to bend rules to help political allies in trouble with the law, the United Conservative Party has retreated to its ideological safe space: Law ’n’ Order, with a side of dog-whistles and urban crime stereotypes.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – IOS Press discusses new research showing that COVID-19 accelerates the cognitive decline in people already living with dementia. F. Perry Wilson examines how COVID has both directly exacerbated the U.S.’ fatality rate, and further exposed existing deficiencies in public health. And John Klein
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On Monday Danielle Smith quoted government lawyers; now Alberta’s premier says the UCP is paying for her to sue the CBC
Can you imagine the almighty hoo-ha that would break out across this country if the Alberta NDP ponied up the dough for its leader to sue Postmedia or the Western Standard for defamation? Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Don’t worry. It’s not going to happen. And
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