Alberta’s about to Make Child Labour Great Again! If you think this is a breakthrough, you’re probably a fast-food franchise owner. Cabinet’s “private sector union liaison,” MLA Searle Turton (Photo: Screenshot of Alberta Government video). Yesterday, Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party introduced a bill called the Restoring Balance in
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Alberta Politics: Alberta safety inspection of Cargill slaughterhouse done by FaceTime, with no actual inspector on site
Alberta Labour’s occupational health and safety inspector didn’t actually visit the Cargill Inc. meatpacking plant in High River when the ministry inspected its COVID-19 safety measures on April 15. Instead, the Labour Ministry inspector watched with FaceTime as three employees conducted “a virtual plant inspection.” United Food and Commercial Workers
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shut down your ‘anti-Alberta campaigns’ inquiry or the courts will shut it for you, tiny group warns Alberta government
OTTAWA – Well, one thing’s already clear, there’s no way the mighty Kenney Government will shut down its so-called inquiry into “anti-Alberta energy campaigns” on the say so of Progress Alberta, a small Edmonton-based research and activist organization. That said, the day may come when the government’s leaders wish they
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It takes all kinds to make a cabinet, not necessarily good news when Jason Kenney’s making the picks
Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party cabinet contains a guy who once went down south to campaign for Donald Trump, a woman who opposes school gay-straight alliances and wrote a university president attacking a professor’s critical commentary on Catholic education, a man who fired a single mom he employed after
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Rick Strankman ousted by Nate Horner in Drumheller-Stettler, UCP dumps Dale Johnson in Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland
Photo: Rick Strankman and Jason Kenney (source: Facebook) Rick Strankman is the first incumbent MLA to lose his party’s nomination in this election cycle as he went down to defeat at the hands of Pollockville rancher and political family scion Nate Horner in last weekend’s United Conservative Party nomination contest
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Odds-on favourites for disaster … ‘Jimmy the Geek’ sets Vegas odds for the UCP MLAs most likely to resign next
Now that Alberta’s Opposition United Conservative Party has been around for a year – it’s first anniversary was on Sunday – we note that the right-wing party has seen the resignation of no fewer than six of its MLAs for various reasons in its first year of operation. In fairness,
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Alberta Candidate Nomination Update: NDPer Stephanie McLean retiring, Mike Nickel runs for UCP nomination, UCP MLAs face challengers
The big nomination news since my last update was the announcement by Stephanie McLean that she was withdrawing from the New Democratic Party nomination contest in Calgary-Varsity. McLean is Minister of Status of Women and Minister of Service Alberta and is the second NDP MLA to announced plans not to seek re-election
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Alberta Candidate Nomination Updates: 2 NDP cabinet ministers announce re-election and 3 more UCP MLAs plan to retire.
Photo: Oneil Carlier, Shannon Phillips, Sonya Savage, and Tyler Shandro. Nominations are picking up speed. Three more United Conservative Party MLAs have announced their plans to retire when the next election is called. Grande Prairie-Wapiti MLA Wayne Drysdale, Livingstone-Macleod MLA Pat Stier and Little Bow MLA David Schneider will not seek re-election
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Climate change, climate denial and climate ironies in the wake of Alberta Legislature’s pipeline demand vote
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Below: Soon-to-retire Alberta Liberal MLA and former party leader David Swann, Shannon Daub of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and United Conservative Party MLAs Grant Hunter, Drew Barnes and Rick Strankman. Happy Ides of March. On Tuesday, the Alberta Legislature passed a motion declaring
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of Alberta Political Discourse: Wildrose/UCP MLA Grant Hunter compares NDP to 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
PHOTOS: Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA Grant Hunter, with a suitably dramatic backdrop created by Press Progress. Below: Mr. Hunter and UCP Leader Jason Kenney shake on it, soon after the former Wildroser endorsed Mr. Kenney’s ultimately successful party leadership bid (Photo: Screenshot of Global News broadcast), and Mr. Hunter’s economic exemplars, Ronald
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Oh, Grant Hunter. Where do I start?
While announcing his plans to run for re-election in the new Taber-Warner district, United Conservative Party MLA Grant Hunter is reported to have compared the New Democratic Party’s 2015 election win to the 2004 Tsunami that ravaged southeast Asia and is estimated to have killed upwards of 280,000 people. Hunter offered
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Alberta Election Candidate Nomination Update: 2018/02/02
Photo: Dave Schneider, Cameron Westhead, Morgan Nagel, and Todd Loewen With only about 13 months left until a potential provincial election call, the number of candidates stepping forward to run for party nominations is growing (this is the second time this week that I have written an update on candidate
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney assigns United Conservative Party caucus critic roles; Brian Jean is so far out he’s practically in orbit!
PHOTOS: Brian Jean, looking as if he’s contemplating his future. Truth be told, your blogger has no idea what Mr. Jean was thinking about in this photo grabbed from his still-functioning Facebook page. Below: United Conservative Party House Leader Jason Nixon, Deputy UCP Leader Leela Aheer, and former interim UCP
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Tracking MLA endorsements in the UCP leadership race
Members of the United Conservative Party will be selecting the party’s first permanent leader on October 28, 2017. After of this week’s fee payment deadline, four candidates will be listed on the ballot: Brian Jean, Jason Kenney, Doug Schweitzer and Jeff Callaway. Of the 28 UCP MLAs represented in Alberta’s
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Principles vs Politics
The Wildrose Opposition spent the last three weeks berating the NDP government for not spending millions and millions of dollars fast enough. Wait, what? The Wildrose says farmers are being “held to ransom” because they’ve had to delay the 2017 planting season waiting around for AgriInsurance adjusters to declare their
Continue readingAlberta Politics: One big problem for Alberta’s ‘unite-the-centre’ effort: the NDP already occupies that space
PHOTO: Stephen Mandel, would-be uniter of Alberta’s “centre,” when he was a Tory minister. The effort by a group of politicians previously associated with the Progressive Conservative, Liberal and Alberta parties to “unite the centre” suggests divisive social conservative doctrines that increasingly dominate the Wildrose and PC parties are starting
Continue readingAlberta Politics: One big problem for Alberta’s ‘unite-the-centre’ effort: the NDP already occupies that space
PHOTO: Stephen Mandel, would-be uniter of Alberta’s “centre,” when he was a Tory minister. April 19, 2017 – The effort by a group of politicians previously associated with the Progressive Conservative, Liberal and Alberta parties to “unite the centre” suggests divisive social conservative doctrines that increasingly dominate the Wildrose and
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Wildrose Shuffles Critics, Fildebrandt no longer Public Accounts Committee Chairman
Outspoken Wildrose Party MLA Derek Fildebrandt, who finds himself frequently at odds with leader Brian Jean, remains in his high-profile role as Official Opposition Finance & Treasury critic after a shuffle of critic portfolios in the Wildrose caucus this week. But according to… Continue Reading →
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: 40 days until the Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner by-election needs to be called
Conservative Glen Motz and Libertarian Sheldon Johnston appear to be the only two candidates to so far step up to run in the upcoming federal by-election in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner. The by-election has not been called yet but it will be… Continu…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrose blames NDP for a sensible labour relations practice implemented in 2013 by Alison Redford’s Tories
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Alison Redford was welcomed to the annual convention of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees by AUPE President Guy Smith in October 2012. And what does the Wildrose Party make of that? Below: Former Tory Premier Ralph Klein…
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