While Kaycee Madu cools his jets in the political penalty box for phoning Edmonton’s police chief about a traffic ticket, it’s worth noting that acting justice minister Sonya Savage has not exactly covered herself in glory during her two and a half years as energy minister. Touted as a high-profile
Continue readingTag: Jason Kenney
Alberta Politics: What did Jason Kenney know about Kaycee Madu’s phone call and when did he know it?
What did Jason Kenney know and when did he know it? Those are the most important questions arising from now-suspended justice minister Kaycee Madu’s telephone call a little over 10 months ago to tell Edmonton Police Chief Dale McFee he’d been ticketed by an city traffic cop for distracted driving.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Paul Kuodi et al. find some hopeful evidence that vaccinations may help to prevent long COVID symptoms as well as more acute ones. Nili Kaplan-Myrth rightly questions why safety is being treated as a privilege to be withheld from vulnerable people. And
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney benches Justice Minister Kaycee Madu after revelation he phoned Edmonton police chief about traffic ticket
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney put his justice minister on the bench last night after a CBC story revealed one of the first things Kaycee Madu did after a traffic cop handed him a $300 distracted driving ticket for talking on his cellular phone as he motored through an Edmonton school
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A Kenney Style Fireside Chat
On radio, [Franklin D Roosevelt} was able to quell rumors, counter conservative-dominated newspapers and explain his policies directly to the American people. His tone and demeanor communicated self-assurance during times of despair and uncertainty.—Wikipedia Roosevelt used radio, a “nascent media platform” to explain complex issues such as the Great Depression,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If the UCP’s Leela Aheer still has political ambitions, she’ll likely need a new political party to pursue them
If Leela Aheer hopes to continue her career in Alberta provincial politics, she’ll probably need to find a new political party. Well, sure, the United Conservative Party MLA who lately has become a frequent and vocal critic of Premier Jason Kenney could theoretically still win the United Conservative Party nomination
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The Kids Go Back to School (it’s a matter of “balance”)
“We’re on the cusp of a generational catastrophe. We need to prioritise children. And yet, for some reason, children are never prioritised. They’re the afterthought of a pandemic.” – Dr Tracey Vaillancourt, Chair, COVID-19 Task Force, Royal Society of Canada On Jan 5, 2022, after a one-week delay, Education Minister,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There are several reasons for Jason Kenney’s enthusiasm for ‘small modular reactors’ – none of them are particularly good
Small nuclear reactors don’t make any more economic sense now than they did back in the summer of 2020 when Alberta Premier Jason Kenney took to the Internet to tout the supposed benefits of the largely undeveloped technology being promoted by Canada’s nuclear industry. Now that Mr. Kenney has taken
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don’t worry about mandatory vaccinations coming to Alberta – if they do, we’ll call them something different
“Alberta’s Legislature removed the power of mandatory vaccination from the Public Health Act last year and will not revisit that decision, period,” Premier Jason Kenney tweeted yesterday. Just in case any Albertans were in doubt about what he really meant, about an hour later Brock Harrison, Mr. Kenney’s communications director,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Premier Jason Kenney holds a news conference about nothing – the rest of us are just going to have to suck it up!
Jason Kenney held a news conference about nothing yesterday. Alberta’s premier said he’s “very determined” there will be no additional delays and schools will reopen as planned on Monday, the continued rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 notwithstanding. It doesn’t sound as if much has been done to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don’t imagine UCP’s Eastern Slopes coal mining plans have gone away – Jason Kenney still has his eyes on that prize
The plan to approve coal developments on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains is another thing that remains on the United Conservative Party’s agenda – if not for 2022, at least for some point in the future after the 2023 election is out of the way. This is another
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Spinning delay as a favour to teachers and a response to COVID, Kenney indicates he’ll press on with controversial curriculum
The way Jason Kenney told the story, Alberta parents and teachers would like his United Conservative Party government to “go a bit slower” rolling out the new primary school curriculum it introduced in late March to widespread opposition. To those who have been following the controversy created by the curriculum
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Kenney’s New Modus Operandi: Goodbye Peter Lougheed; Hello Donald Trump
There was a time when Jason Kenney pretended to be the modern-day manifestation of Peter Lougheed, notwithstanding his conviction that Lougheed’s programs were akin to “neo-Stalinist make-work projects.” He’s since dropped the charade. He no longer pretends to be anything other than what he is. A Trump admirer. Recently he’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy New Year! COVID, Conservatives and Kenney end 2021 on an ominous note
It would be an exaggeration to say 2021 is ending on an apocalyptic note in Alberta, or even a chaotic one, but it feels ominously as if the boat we’re in is drifting toward the falls with no one looking for the paddle. If our United Conservative Government had plans
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No plan? Expectation of mass Omicron infection, reduced access to PCR tests, dominate Alberta COVID-19 update
Reading between the lines of remarks by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw at yesterday’s COVID-19 briefing, it seems evident they have reached a point where they no longer have a plan for the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. The disturbing thing about that, of course,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Marking the 15th year of AlbertaPolitics.ca, which begins today, here’s a list the Top Ten UCP Scandals of 2021
With less than 48 hours to go until Christmas Day, I predicted on Dec. 23 that the UCP’s Edmonton pandemic party at the Parlour Restaurant two and a half hours after Premier Jason Kenney instructed Albertans to cut their social contacts in half to slow the spread of the Omicron
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government orders Alberta Health Services to drop its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for employees
Alberta Health Services has been ordered by the Kenney Government to drop its policy of requiring health care workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. “At the direction of Alberta’s government, Alberta Health Services will provide all unimmunized physicians and staff the option of temporary frequent COVID-19 testing to ensure the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Adhere to the letter and spirit of guidelines to slow Omicron COVID infections? Not Alberta’s UCP!
“I appeal to all Albertans to reduce their number of contacts by half over the coming weeks, follow the guidelines already in place, and get the vaccine booster as soon as they are eligible,” said Jason Kenney, premier of Alberta and leader of the governing United Conservative Party, way back
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ben Cohen points out some of the ways the Omicron variant deviates from what we’ve come to assume about COVID-19. And Colin Horgan writes that we should draw lessons from the pandemic in exposing some of the ways our social system is built
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No more dancing or snooker, but bars can remain open and unvaccinated Albertans are still welcome at house parties
Premier Jason Kenney was back on camera yesterday afternoon to plead with Albertans to hasten to get their third shot of COVID-19 vaccine to blunt the fifth wave of the disease now barrelling into Alberta. If we don’t, he grimly told a news conference theoretically called to announce that any
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