If you’re shocked that Jason Kenney’s Government has effectively just fired the guy who’s been investigating the sleazy Kamikaze Campaign that preceded the premier’s choice as leader of the United Conservative Party in 2017, you really haven’t been paying attention. Alberta’s best-known political commentator is so shocked… How shocked is
Continue readingTag: Don Braid
Alberta Politics: Will the UCP’s scheme to restrict reproductive rights play in Ponoka? Maybe not …
Bill 207, which if it was honestly titled would have been called an Act to Restrict Reproductive and Other Rights in Alberta, does not seem to be playing particularly well, even in Ponoka. Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party stirred up a hornet’s nest with this sneaky bill — disingenuously entitled
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Appointment of Stephen Mandel to AHS board proves failure’s no barrier to success in Jason Kenney’s Alberta
Who says Premier Jason Kenney can’t unite Albertans? Sometime today, Mr. Kenney will appoint Stephen Mandel to the governing board of Alberta Health Services. Well, the announcement will be made by Health Minister Tyler Shandro. Late yesterday, as the word of the appointment leaked out, moans of despair could be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Blue-Ribbon Panel’ report sets stage for full-blown austerity, private health care, soaring tuition and much more
The recommendations of the Kenney Government’s “blue-ribbon panel” on Alberta’s finances yesterday went further over the top than you’d even have expected from a report ginned up by a couple of Fraser Institute ringers, a former bank president, and a few additional followers of the government’s low-tax, market-fundamentalist ideology. As
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Postmedia pours it to bring home the bacon for Calgary’s hockey billionaires
You’ve got to know that when the likes of Licia Corbella, Danielle Smith, Chris Nelson, Rick Bell, and sundry other right-wing Postmedia bloviators all want you to think that now is the perfect time for the Calgary Saddledome to be demolished and replaced by the (Ken) King Dome, it probably
Continue readingAlberta Politics: TMX gets the nod from Justin Trudeau’s cabinet – masterstroke or master blunder?
With his cabinet’s second approval of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project yesterday afternoon, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has either proved the Liberal Party of Canada’s old mojo is still intact or blown it all to smithereens. It’s too soon to tell. Alberta Conservatives and their legion of media cheerleaders
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 38: Students get a pay cut and big corporations get a tax cut
The cut to minimum wage for Alberta students under the age of 18 and cuts to corporate income taxes are the big topics discussed by Dave Cournoyer and guest co-host Brad Lafortune on this episode of the Daveberta Podcast. We also discuss Attorney General Doug Schweitzer’s decision to appoint a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A Tale of Two Columns: What drives the conservative urge to wreck public health care?
One of the unusual features of the past four years in Alberta has been the remarkable calm that has prevailed in our normally tumultuous, shambolic, sometimes chaotic health care system. Under the NDP Government, for the first time in the past 30 years at least, health care hasn’t been a
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 28: An Unconstitutional Dog Ate My Homework
The Friday night bombshell that hit Stephen Mandel and the Alberta Party, the likelihood of Premier Rachel Notley tabling a budget before calling the 2019 election and how much influence the anti-abortion group the Wilberforce Project actually has over United Conservative Party nominations. These are just a few of the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Peak Separatism has passed in Alberta, no thanks to Postmedia’s sly campaign to undermine the Trudeau Government
Happy Holidays! It may take a few days for its perpetrators to admit this, but Alberta has all but certainly already passed Peak Separatism. The current 2018 spasm of Alberta separatist sentiment peaked late last week, probably some time Thursday afternoon. By the time we’re all saying Happy New Year
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta separation: Are Russian bots messing with our province, or just homegrown right-wing agitators?
Are Russian bots behind the recent busy social media campaign to persuade Albertans they want to separate from Canada, a la Brexit? Or is this just the work of right-wing Canadian agitators using well-tested digital agitprop techniques to undermine the Liberal Government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau? You can’t rule
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Trish Garner comments on the need to acknowledge the humanity of people living in poverty – which leads to the inescapable need to use readily-available resources to ensure a reasonable standard of living. And Arindrajit Dube studies the effect of an increased minimum
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Lake of Fire Update: Stuff is still hitting the fan, and it may not be lava!
Well a certain kind of stuff has certainly hit the fan since it was reported here and elsewhere that John Carpay, the well-known social conservative warrior, had dipped his toe into Alberta’s always-dangerous Lake of Fire. Since the story broke over the long weekend, Mr. Carpay and his old comrade
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former NDP leader Brian Mason says farewell with words of wisdom and warning
Former Alberta New Democratic Party leader Brian Mason has been a gale force presence in Alberta politics for so long it’s hard to imagine the place without him. Yet there he was yesterday at lunchtime, on stage in the ballroom of Edmonton’s Westin Hotel, saying farewell to politics, the NDP
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Eric Levitz discusses the glaring gap between Americans’ policy preferences, and the outcomes from a political system which falls far short of representing most people in the face of the influence of the ultra-rich. And Matthew Yglesias comments on the hack gap
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The furious denunciations of Tzeporah Berman in Alberta are unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous
Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness. — George Orwell, 1984 + + + The stream of vituperation directed at B.C. environmentalist Tzeporah Berman for her consistent opposition to Alberta’s pipeline demands is unprecedented, hypocritical and dangerous. I am not just talking about the death threats
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Derek Fildebrandt joins separatist Freedom Conservative Party, remains a Giant Thorn in Jason Kenney’s side.
Photo: In happier times. Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt joined Jason Kenney on the eve of his victory in the PC Party leadership race. (Photo credit: @pcyouthalberta on Twitter) Derek Fildebrandt has found a new way to become a giant thorn in the side of United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Eli Wolfe discusses new research confirming how unions have saved thousands of workers’ lives – and how workers stand to pay the price for political attempts to undermine collective action: The new study focuses in particular on the extent to which state “right
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Nothing new under the Prairie sun as Alberta Conservatives ratchet up their faux outrage about equalization and Quebec
Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s Opposition United Conservative Party, calls the Trudeau Government’s renewal of Canada’s current equalization formula for an additional five years “a slap in the face to Alberta.” “It means we will continue to be forced, even when times are bad in Alberta, forced to subsidize public
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Read the nearly 800 policy proposals from United Conservative Party members
You might have read about them in Don Braid’s Postmedia column today, but if you want to take a deeper look, here are the full list of draft policy proposals submitted by United Conservative Party members for debate at the party’s founding convention on May 4, 5 and 6, 2018
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