Jason Kenney is Canada’s least popular premier. When you add in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, he’s also Canada’s least popular first minister. Chart showing Jason Kenney is Canada’s least popular premier (Image: Screenshot of Campaign Research Inc. slide show). I’m not going to belabour this point, but Jason Kenney is
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Alberta Politics: Maybe it’s time for Ottawa to use its power to close those meatpacking plants until their owners fix their COVID-19 mess
Now that he’s made a little progress sorting out Canada’s gun enthusiasts, maybe it’s time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do something about those coronavirus mega-spreaders in our midst — meatpacking plants. It’s no longer possible to deny that the way the meatpacking industry operates in North America makes
Continue readingAlberta 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 readingSusan on the Soapbox: Leadership in the Post-Pandemic World
It’s been two and a half months since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic; infections and deaths will continue until a vaccine is found. Economists and global thinkers may disagree on what the new world will look like, but they’re aligned on one thing: it’s not too soon
Continue readingAlberta Politics: CEO’s letter does nothing to restore confidence in AIMCo after its volatility strategy led to ‘a very unfortunate loss’
It’s only half as bad as you were told by the media, Alberta Investment Management Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kevin Uebelein says in a letter to stakeholders — the Crown-owned funds-management corporation only lost $2.1 billion gambling on market volatility. The first news reports on April 22 indicated the loss
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your Saturday reading. – Ed Yong writes about the many complexities surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, including how much we have left to figure out before being able to make any concrete plans. – Leonardo Trasande and Akhgar Ghassabian discuss how chemicals in our homes may be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hot take: your gut’s probably right, it’s too soon to declare COVID-19 vanquished
At least Alberta Premier Jason Kenney didn’t have a “Mission Accomplished” banner hanging behind him. But then, being landlocked and all that, Alberta doesn’t own an aircraft carrier even if it now owns a hunk of a U.S. pipeline. Plus, Mr. Kenney wouldn’t look all that good in a flight
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Maxwell Smith, Ross Upshur and James Downar warn us against mistaking a temporarily flattened curve for a final victory over the spread of COVID-19. – Leilani Farha questions how it’s possible for people to help fight the coronavirus by staying at home
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 53: COVID-19 provides cloud cover over Alberta’s economic crisis
Zain Velji, campaign strategist and Vice President Strategy at Northweather joins host Dave Cournoyer and producer Adam Rozenhart on this episode of the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the how COVID-19 is providing cloud cover to and accelerating Calgary’s economic problems and how the pandemic could provide an opportunity to reshape
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ted Morton, worst premier Alberta never had, has had another big idea, this time about a sales tax
From time to time it’s worth reminding ourselves that Ted Morton is the worst premier Alberta never had. That’s because now and then Dr. Morton, now 71, pops up like the proverbial bad penny with some scheme so ridiculous we need to give our heads a shake and recall this
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Jason Kenney’s Fight with Alberta’s Doctors
“The crisis we have in health care, rural included, is a void of leadership by the UCP government. They were voted in with a majority government, but do not seem to understand the difference between leadership and power.” — Dr Ed Aasman The Greeks defined hubris is a character flaw,
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Blame Alberta’s Jason Kenney.
You would think that one of these days, the people of Alberta are going to catch on to their premier Jason Kenney. Those of us who consider him something of a snake have known about it for years. We watched him in Ottawa. We watched him when he returned to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: New management is now required at AIMCo to restore trust after $4-billion loss
Having lost more than $4 billion on an incomprehensible gamble on market volatility, senior management of the Alberta Investment Management Corp. needs to apologize and resign. AIMCo is supposed to manage working Albertans’ retirement savings and what’s left of Peter Lougheed’s Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. In other words, working
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Already reeling from bad news, Alberta learns its Crown investment corporation just lost $4 billion on a bad bet
Albertans reeling from the shock of a week that’s included oil prices so low you have to pay people to haul the stuff away and a mishandled COVID-19 outbreak at a slaughterhouse south of Calgary that sent infection rates soaring were rattled again yesterday by news the province’s Crown-owned money-management
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Patricia Cohen discusses how the COVID-19 lockdown has exposed the precarious financial position of most Americans – but in the process highlighted that merely returning to the previous debt-laden stagnation is far from sufficient. – Andrew Nikiforuk writes that there’s no getting around
Continue readingAlberta 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: Hard to believe keeping meatpacking and oilsands plants running hasn’t contributed to COVID-19 spread
If you listened carefully to yesterday’s COVID-19 briefing in Edmonton, it was difficult to avoid the conclusion the Kenney Government’s reluctance to regulate certain industries has contributed to the spread of the disease, and not just inside this province. Particularly interesting was Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw’s carefully
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Devin Dreeshen’s happy talk about workplace safety undermines the battle against COVID-19
By insisting Alberta’s meat-packing plants are safe to work in despite crowded conditions and ignoring workers’ pleas to temporarily close large slaughterhouses to halt the spread of COVID-19, Alberta Agriculture Minister Devin Dreeshen appears to be actively undermining the provincial fight against the coronavirus. It may have seemed faintly credible
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Gaslighting 101: Mr Kenney Responds to Mr Trudeau’s Aid Package
Gaslighting: abusive behavior where an abuser manipulates information to make his victim question their sanity by using denial, misdirection, contradiction and misinformation to destabilize the victim and delegitimize their beliefs. – Wikipedia Last week, Prime Minister Trudeau announced $2.4 billion aid package for laid-off energy workers. It includes $1.7 billion
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Strange bedfellows: UCP and Tzeporah Berman both praise Justin Trudeau’s oilpatch bailout!
Tzeporah Berman, the high-profile Vancouver environmentalist, on Friday lauded the oil-sector provisions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s COVID-19 bailout package as a sensible way to begin winding down the Canadian fossil fuel industry. “This bailout announcement is a major turning point for oil and gas politics in Canada,” Ms. Berman
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