Hypocrite, thy name is conservative. If you did not know where all that bullshit about equal rights at the new conservative leader’s first news conference came from, you have not been paying attention. Erin O’Toole had all the tricks lined up for him to make him conservative leader and leader
Continue readingTag: Jason Kenney
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Jeff Rubin writes that the hoarding of supplies over the course of the coronavirus pandemic has provided compelling evidence that globalization falls apart just when it’s needed most. And Amir Attaran warns that the Libs’ failure to recognize that reality may leave
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Kim Siever writes about the consistent choice of right-wing governments to use anti-tax rhetoric to goose corporate profits at the expense of the public. Jeff Rubin rightly questions why Canada’s tax system is set up to favour passive and inherited wealth over productive
Continue readingAlberta Politics: So long and see you soon — AlbertaPolitics.ca will shut down for a week
AlbertaPolitics.ca is shutting down for a week. I expect to be without a wifi connection for much of the next seven days, so if there are posts at all on this blog, they will be poorly illustrated and limited in number. There may have to be none at all. Alberta
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michal Rozworski writes that we need to respond to the coronavirus pandemic with investment in the society we want to build for tomorrow, not austerity to punish us today: Our economy is ripe for transformative reconstruction. The key now will be both how
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The empire strikes back: Understanding the UCP obsession with how history is taught
Anyone who wonders what inspires the United Conservative Party Government’s peculiar obsession with how history ought to be taught, and to what end, probably needs to look no further than Christian P. Champion. Dr. Champion, PhD, as is now well known to social media readers in Alberta, holds startling views
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The economics of small nuclear reactors, touted by Jason Kenney as a ‘game changer,’ just don’t add up
When Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says small nuclear reactors “could be a game changer in providing safe, zero-emitting, baseload power in many areas of the province,” as he did Sunday in a tweet, he’s pulling your leg. For a variety of economic and technical reasons, the scenario Mr. Kenney described
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thanks to a public-spirited leaker, a risky health-care privatization scheme is exposed
Panicky sounding United Conservative Party “issues managers” were frantically insisting yesterday everything is copacetic and above board with secret plans to build a $200-million private orthopedic surgical hospital in Edmonton. No way will this result in two-tier health care, they contended, often shrilly calling anyone who suggested otherwise a liar,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Good union jobs! Green jobs! UCP supporters need not panic, they’re not for anyone around here!
Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party, friends of the union man and woman, not to mention the environment! Who would have seen that coming? Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta). Yet there was Energy Minister Sonya Savage, her words in black and white in the text
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Ed Yong examines how the coronavirus has been allowed to run rampant in the U.S. And the Globe and Mail’s editorial board warns that we can’t have much confidence that Canada is prepared to deal with pandemics either. – Paul Krugman discusses how
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Education minister changes tune on masks when schools reopen, but credits ‘emerging evidence,’ not public pressure
According to Education Minister Adriana LaGrange, it turns out “emerging evidence has made it clear that masks can play an important role limiting the spread of COVID-19 in our schools.” Who knew? Those were pretty much the first words out of Ms. LaGrange’s mouth as yesterday morning’s news conference on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On ongoing failings
Andrew Leach has pointed out how Alberta’s economy has been the worst in the country since Jason Kenney took power. But it’s also worth noting which provinces have seen similar results: In other words, leaving aside the problems with Moe’s non-response to the COVID crisis, Saskatchewan’s GDP and employment situations
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shocking coffee mug has conservatives clutching their pearls, political Alberta all atwitter
Now that right-wing snowflakes have officially made “cancel culture” a thing, let’s talk about that controversial coffee mug they’d like to cancel that rudely mentions Jason Kenney, shall we? Tout le monde political Alberta was abuzz yesterday, with many conservatives bemoaning the sorry state of political discourse in Wild Rose
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: A “Marathon Session”
The Alberta Legislature is adjourned for a month. For this we are truly grateful because no matter how Jason Kenney tries to dress up his performance—he says he’s well on his way to delivering on almost 70% of his campaign promises—he has not delivered on the promise of “jobs, economy,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ottawa taps the brakes on huge coal mine expansion near Jasper National Park; Alberta’s UCP stays mum for now
Federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson tapped the brakes Thursday on the Vista coal mine expansion near Hinton with an announcement Ottawa will take a look at the environmental impact of the project after all. The same afternoon, the Alberta Government led by Premier Jason Kenney, which has never met a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – John Metta discusses how low-income workers have been barely treading water for decades even before the coronavirus collapse. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives points out how we can take the failure of EI during the pandemic as a signal that we need
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Never confuse Kenney with Trump.
One of my favourite writers wrote in a Toronto Star op-ed the other day that she thought Alberta premier Jason Kenney is the closest thing Canadians have to Donald Trump. As much as I hate to argue the case, Ontario’s premier Doug Ford holds those honours. Neither Ford nor Trump
Continue readingAlberta Politics: AHS to Pincher Creek docs: We made a mistake, we gave it to you, now we won’t take it back … and you can’t quit!
Physicians in Pincher Creek who gave three months’ notice they were withdrawing from hospital service in response to Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro’s War on Doctors were told they had to show up for August on-call duty anyway in letters Tuesday from a top official of Alberta Health Services’ South
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta political roundup: The paper-pile premier, furious doctors, rebel ’Roser rumours, Total disaster, and more …
Having rammed through two controversial bills Tuesday night, one opening the door to more health care privatization and the other eliminating workplace fairness and declaring war on unions, the Alberta Legislature wrapped up its business just after 8 o’clock yesterday morning. United Conservative Party social media spent the afternoon bragging
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Whatever happened to the UCP’s belligerent response to inconvenient European bankers and environmental litigators?
Once upon a time in Alberta if some foreign bank had dared to announce it wasn’t about to put money into any more Alberta oilsands projects there would have been a furious roar from Jason Kenney. There would have been threats to unleash a War Room on the bankers as
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