If you’re worried by the announcement Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is seeking ways of “respecting law-abiding Albertans’ long history of responsible firearms ownership,” there’s no need to lose much sleep just yet. The premier’s press conference and news release about how he’s setting up a panel of firearms enthusiasts to
Continue readingTag: Doug Schweitzer
Alberta Politics: Alberta’s statement on Ottawa’s gun ban illustrates how little the rule of law really matters to Conservatives
Jason Kenney marked May 1 with a message to the Conservative base complaining about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decisive move in the wake of the murderous shooting rampage in Portapique, Nova Scotia, to ban 1,500 makes of military-style rifles. While a significant majority of Canadians breathed a sigh of relief
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 50: Supervised Consumption Services in Alberta with Dr. Elaine Hyshka
Dr. Elaine Hyshka, associate professor at the University of Alberta School of Public Health, joins Dave Cournoyer to discuss supervised consumption clinics in Alberta and the flaws in the United Conservative Party government’s recent review of the facilities on the latest episode of the Daveberta Podcast. Elaine shares her insights
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Coronavirus discovered in Alberta just as politics trumps science in supervised drug clinic report
COVID-19 has arrived in Alberta. But first, we need to talk about how the United Conservative Party Government has found a nearly perfect formula for dealing with science when it reaches inconvenient conclusions running counter either to the ruling party’s ideology or its political calculations. Jason Luan, junior minister of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Harper and Preston Manning, joined at the hip by history and not particularly liking it, make changes
On Wednesday, former prime minister Stephen Harper abruptly quit the Conservative Party of Canada’s fund-raising board, supposedly to give himself time to prevent Jean Charest from becoming leader of Canada’s Conservatives or prime minister of Canada. Yesterday, we learned that Preston Manning would quit his eponymous market-fundamentalist call centre in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Energy War Room’s crack team isn’t exactly ‘cookin’ with gas’
Should we be worried about operatives employed by the Alberta Government’s public-private Energy War Room masquerading as journalists? Of course we should. But it’s also OK to be amused by the astonishing ineptitude with which they’re going about the task. As King Solomon is said to have observed, pride goeth
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That’s embarrassing! Alberta’s court filing in carbon tax fight says NDP carbon tax did no harm
The linked weekend revelations that the NDP’s carbon tax had no meaningful negative impact on Alberta’s economy and that 40 per cent of Albertans received carbon-tax rebates larger than the tax they paid were ill timed from the government’s perspective. After all, the CBC’s report on Saturday of what the
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 46: Best of Alberta Politics in 2019
With a provincial election, a change in government, a federal election, and much more in between, 2019 was a big year in Alberta politics. Tina Faiz and Natalie Pon join Dave Cournoyer on this episode of the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the year in Alberta politics and their hopes and wishes
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Bill 22: An Attack on Democracy
Someone once said, “The only thing worse than knowing where the bodies are buried, is watching your enemies dig them up.” In order to ensure the Elections Commissioner’s investigation into the UCP leadership race didn’t dig up any more bodies—heaven forbid, he’d find a trail of breadcrumbs leading directly to
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 44: Live from the Parkland Institute Conference: Truth, the First Casualty? War Rooms and Rumours of War Rooms
Daveberta Podcast host Dave Cournoyer teamed up with AlbertaPolitics.ca writer David Climenhaga at the annual Parkland Institute Conference at the University of Alberta last weekend to share what we know and what we speculate might happen with the Canadian Energy Centre Ltd. (a.k.a. the War Room) and the Public Inquiry
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Uh oh! Those perfidious Swedes have clearly joined the anti-Alberta energy ‘misinformation campaign of defamation’!
Why, those perfidious Swedes! First they sent their sneaky little agent Greta Thunberg in a sailboat to Alberta’s shores to stir up our young people — and that’s no mean feat when you consider that we don’t have any shores here in Alberta! Which, as we keep telling the rest
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 43: The UCP’s pick-a-fight budget
David Climenhaga from AlbertaPolitics.ca joins Dave and Adam on this episode of the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the cuts in Alberta’s provincial budget and the United Conservative Party’s growing list of public enemies, the federal election fallout in Alberta, and how the mainstream media is reporting on the Wexit group
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s UCP Government sets up Energy War Room as private corporation to dodge freedom of information requests
It turns out the so-called Canadian Energy Centre, as the Kenney Government’s $30-million subsidized lobbying campaign for the petroleum industry is now to be known, has been set up as a private corporation. Previously commonly referred to by both friends and foes as the Energy War Room, the new corporation
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 40: Alberta Politics and Federal Election Q&A
We are back from our summer break with a special Question and Answer edition of the Daveberta Podcast. Dave dives deep into our mailbag to answer some of the great Alberta politics and federal election questions our listeners have sent in over the past few weeks. Thanks to our producer, Adam
Continue readingAlberta Politics: More questions than answers in last week’s fallout from 2017 UCP leadership campaign
Eight Alberta United Conservative Party MLAs, five of them cabinet ministers, now admit they’ve been interviewed by the RCMP in the federal police force’s ongoing investigation into the curious goings on during the party’s 2017 leadership race, from which Premier Jason Kenney emerged victorious. Every time another UCP Caucus member
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Cowboys and Politicians
It’s the last day of the Calgary Stampede. It’s also the last day for politicians to dress up as cowboys for one last photo-op before getting back to business of politics. The issue we have with this photo isn’t that these men aren’t real cowboys but that they’re not
Continue readingAlberta Politics: We need an honest inquiry into foreign political funding – unfortunately, Jason Kenney’s ‘witch hunt’ inquiry isn’t it
In truth, Canada needs a thorough and honest inquiry into foreign political funding, online manipulation and influence. Unfortunately, the $2.5-million probe into “foreign funded defamation” of Alberta’s fossil-fuel industry announced by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s government yesterday at a news conference in Calgary isn’t it. How could it be? It’s
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: About Those Ear Plugs…
Sigh. I expected to spend the next four years writing letters to my MLA, Doug Schweitzer, but I didn’t think the first one would be about ear plugs. But we play the cards we’re dealt so here goes. Dear Hon. Doug Schweitzer, Justice Minister and Solicitor General, I’m a lawyer
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: GSAs in Alberta (Even Doug Ford Does It Better)
It started when the Kenney government introduced Bill 8, the Education Amendment Act which they said would provide “the strongest statutory protections” for gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in the country. It ended with a news release issued by Education Minister LaGrange late Friday afternoon on “the protections for students under the
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
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