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 readingTag: Jason Kenney
Alberta 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
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Omicron is surging in Alberta – is Jason Kenney flirting with Great Barringtonism again?
The Omicron surge is hitting everywhere in Canada, with Alberta reporting 872 new cases of the aggressive new variant of the COVID-19 virus over the weekend, bringing the total number of reported cases yesterday to 1,045. If patterns observed elsewhere in the world are repeated here, though, this province could
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Chaotic implementation of free rapid COVID test distribution shows a government that can’t plan, or doesn’t
If the announcement last week of plans to distribute a half million free rapid COVID-19 tests to Albertans starting on Friday was supposed to give the Kenney Government a boost, the chaotic implementation may have had the opposite effect. If anything has become clear about Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David Bush discusses how the latest wave of COVID-19 would have been entirely avoidable if we hadn’t allowed corporate interests to suppress vaccine availability and turn workplaces into super-spreaders, while Andreas Laupacis confirms that we had (and have) more than enough knowledge to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: N.W.T. drops Alberta school curriculum, adopts B.C.’s – a powerful symbol of what’s gone awry under Jason Kenney
The news release from the Northwest Territories Government doesn’t even mention Alberta, but just the same it’s a powerful symbol of what’s gone awry in the province to the south under the United Conservative Party Government of Premier Jason Kenney. The release published yesterday in Yellowknife said that the N.W.T.’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unvaccinated Albertans are now welcome at family gatherings, so brace yourselves for the Best Christmas Ever!
Never mind the Omicron variant, Alberta, it looks like we’re going to have the Best Christmas Ever. So brace yourselves. With unvaccinated Albertans now welcome at family gatherings, this could turn out to be a repeat of the Best Summer Ever. Health Minister Jason Copping (Photo: Alberta Newsroom Flickr). Premier
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ominous Omicron variant, prime minister Justin Trudeau, and rival Brian Jean all throw sand in Jason Kenney’s gears
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney hardly seemed to know what to do yesterday. As a result, he did nothing. Mr. Kenney was scheduled to make a big announcement about health care – widely assumed based on hints dropped by the premier himself to be a relaxation of holiday restrictions just in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government backs off plan to immediately implement widely condemned K-6 curriculum draft
Alberta Education Minister Adriana LaGrange yesterday executed a reluctant partial climbdown from Alberta’s controversial draft kindergarten-to-Grade-6 curriculum, announcing the Kenney Government will delay implementation of changes to how four subjects are taught in elementary schools. Educators mostly cautiously praised the announcement as a step in the right direction. Alberta Teachers
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Bill 81: The ‘what the hell was that’ Bill
“Bill 81 has always been about strengthening the democratic process in our province.” – Kaycee Madu, Justice Minister. “[Bill 81 is] one of the most overt antidemocratic moves we’ve seen from the current government in this place.” – Sarah Hoffman, NDP MLA This is your lucky day! An unknown
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney rival Brian Jean wins UCP nomination in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche; hastily announces vote result himself
With Brian Jean as the United Conservative Party’s candidate in the still unscheduled by-election in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, there will be no one running who supports Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. In addition to Mr. Jean, who makes no bones about the fact he intends to try to replace Mr.
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 82: Best of Alberta Politics with Adrienne King and Matt Solberg
Adrienne King and Matt Solberg join the Daveberta Podcast for our year-end episode of 2021. We delve into Premier Jason Kenney‘s leadership challenges, the fireworks at the end of Alberta’s longest legislative session on record, and the upcoming Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election. Adrienne King works for the Now Group,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why the UCP won’t use Bill 81’s nomination-stacking provisions to mess with the NDP
There’s been some online chatter since the passage of Bill 81 about the possibility the United Conservative Party might use the Election Statutes Amendment Act, 2021, to seed the NDP with lunatic candidates who could destroy the Opposition party or secret neoliberals who would switch their allegiance once elected. Since
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Despite a few dissenting voices, unsettling new nomination-stacking law shows Jason Kenney firmly in control of party and caucus
Presumably the risk remains small that deep-pocketed United Conservative Party activists will ever buy party memberships in the names of hundreds of random Albertans, funnel the funds to the party, and use the new “members’” stolen identities to vote for nomination candidates who meet the approval of the party’s leader.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Pay attention to MLA Dan Williams’ attacks on Alberta Health Services – he’s likely saying exactly what Jason Kenney thinks
Peace River MLA Dan Williams’ member’s statement in the Legislature last Thursday attacking Alberta Health Services leadership for trying to require employees to be vaccinated against the disease that has caused the deadliest pandemic in a century will sound to many like a bizarre rant. Mr. Williams got up on
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Who’s On First: Jason Kenney’s Response to the 4th Wave
Abbott and Costello’s comedy routine “Who’s on First” was performed in the late 1940s. It’s based on a skit Abbott heard in an episode of a radio comedy show called “It Pays to be Ignorant.” Premier Kenney performed his own version of this routine in the Legislature last Thursday, only
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta premier’s lawyers to eight environmental groups: You’ll have our answer soon to your demand for an apology
If Jason Kenney’s lawyers give him sensible advice, they’ll tell him to seek a compromise with the coalition of eight environmental groups that threatened last month to sue him if he doesn’t retract and apologize for statements they say defame them. That could save Alberta’s premier a lot of grief
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