This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Andrea Reimer examines the power dynamics at play in government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the limits of formal political power where it isn’t paired with knowledge and networks. And the Globe and Mail’s editorial board rightly questions the dubious math
Continue readingTag: Jason Kenney
The Daveberta Podcast: Episode 69: Municipal Politics from Lucy the Elephant to 911 dispatch
Dani Paradis and Chris Henderson join the Daveberta Podcast for a deep dive into municipal politics and a look ahead at the October 2021 elections in Edmonton. What issues will resonate with voters and what does a pandemic election campaign looks like? We cover a lot of ground, from Lucy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Matt Karp writes about the connection between heavily polarized politics, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of people whose interests are served by voters rooting for laundry rather than holding meaningful input into policy choices. – May Warren reports on the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Judge hopes to rule on Ecojustice effort to shut down energy campaigns inquiry before May 31 – why that shouldn’t be a problem
We’re all just going to have to wait to find out how the legal effort by Ecojustice Canada Society to shut down Alberta’s so-called “Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns” turns out. After hearing arguments for two days last week from lawyers for Ecojustice, the province, inquiry Commissioner Steve Allan,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – As we lay the groundwork for a COVID recovery and energy transition, Heather Scoffield comments on the importance of making sure resources go where they’re needed (rather than serving only to further distance the richest from the rest of us). And Yves Engler
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: An apology to Gillian Steward.
Fair is fair. For years I have thought that Gillian Steward, a freelance journalist in Calgary who frequently writes for the Toronto Star, was an apologist for the oil interests. Her scathing indictment of the Kenney government’s public enquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns the other day helped correct my opinion.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney chooses the cake department to unexpectedly announce one-time pandemic ‘bonus’ for front-line workers
Was Jason Kenney channelling Marie Antoinette when he appeared in front of an Edmonton grocery store’s cake counter yesterday to announce a one-time $1,200 pandemic payment to front-line workers? Many of the front-line workers risking COVID-19 to deliver us services from health care to retail confections may be badly paid,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Defying Jason Kenney’s pleas to take COVID-19 seriously, two UCP MLAs join ‘End the Lockdowns National Caucus’
Two MLAs from Premier Jason Kenney’s government caucus have joined a national coalition of elected and former politicians dedicated to the proposition restrictions on social and commercial activities intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 must end. Needless to say, centrifugal force is not a good look for a United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In dizzying turnaround, Alberta abandons plan to drop Lougheed-era coal policy … for now
In what appears to be a tire-screeching reversal, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage yesterday announced full restoration of the Coal Policy established by premier Peter Lougheed’s government back in 1976. “An important part of being a responsible government is to admit when you’ve made a mistake, and to fix it,
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 68: The 1976 Coal Policy and stopping open-pit mining in Alberta’s Rockies
Kevin Van Tighem joins the Daveberta Podcast to discuss one of the biggest issues in Alberta politics today – the expansion of open-pit coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Kevin explains how the 1976 Coal Policy protected larges swaths of the Rocky Mountains from open-pit coal
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Kenney’s “Dead Letter” Coal Policy
Dead letter: something that has lost its force or authority without being formally abolished – Merriam Webster On Feb 3, 2021 Jason Kenney said he rescinded Lougheed’s coal policy which blocked open-pit mining on the eastern slopes and the Rockies because it was “a dead letter.” He said the eastern
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Bill Blaikie discusses how our growing inequality and precarity is the direct result of harmful policy choices: By 1985 we were five years into the neo-liberal era brought on by the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Globe and Mail’s editorial board laments the choice of far too many provincial governments to sacrifice tens of thousands of lives rather than treating a pandemic with the seriousness and focus it deserves. Philip Pizzo, David Spiegel and Michelle Mello examine how
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Andrew Nikiforuk takes a look at two proposals to get to COVID Zero – including one from Canada and one from Germany. – Mickey Djuric reports on Saskatchewan’s deceptive COVID-19 reporting – which results in a public announcement that people have “recovered” no
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t believe it can’t happen here.
There seems to be some arguments these days about whether Canadians have to suffer through the same political mistakes made by Americans. We hardly seem to have to wait long to have our own version of Donald Trump. It is a toss-up whether Doug Ford of Ontario or Jason Kenney
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Conspiracy theories are for losers: What does this tell us about Jason Kenney’s UCP?
Are Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party nuts? I mean, are they actually nuts, going down the rabbit hole of bizarre and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories like some of their Republican brethren in the United States? Former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, now leader of the Opposition in the provincial Legislature
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Gabrielle Drolet discusses how essential workers have been left to bear the physical and emotional burdens of workplaces designed to prioritize the interests of bosses and customers first. And Bruce Western and Jake Rosenfeld study (PDF) the effect unions have in pushing
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Kenney’s Coal Facts and Myths
The Economist considered a number of cover illustrations for its Making Coal History edition before settling on a lump of coal on display under a bell jar like an artifact in a museum. While The Economist was chronicling the demise of coal the Kenney government was busy cancelling Lougheed’s Coal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jerusalem Demsas discusses the strong popular support for affordable social housing even as governments continually fail to provide it. Daphne Bramham rightly asks why we haven’t seen far more of a move toward the Housing First models (including both secure housing and the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With infectious new COVID-19 strains on the march, Alberta Premier caves to business and eases health restrictions
With more infectious new variants of the novel coronavirus now spreading in Western Canada, Premier Jason Kenney chose yesterday to advise Albertans that next Friday the province will ease the restrictions that appear to have been slowing the spread of COVID-19. Alberta’s new-infection numbers have been a little better lately
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