It's hard to believe that John Baird could even be considered as a candidate for the Con leadership, after his disgraceful behaviour during the dark years of the Harper regime.But the Cons are desperate. With less than a month to go before nominations close, hardly anyone has applied for the job. As one of
Continue readingTag: Jason Kenney
Alberta Politics: Inside Jason Kenney’s troll factory: the UCP propaganda ecosystem goes after Alberta’s registered nurses
The president of the Alberta Federation of Labour called out the Canadian Taxpayers Federation yesterday for the partisan role it plays supporting of the Kenney Government’s contract demands in negotiations with the union that represents the province’s front-line registered nurses. Calling the CTF “a secretive anti-union lobby group,” Gil McGowan
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Trans Mountain Pipeline court ruling looks like a win for Alberta — as the world drives away in an electric car
You win some, you lose some. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney won one yesterday with the decision of the Federal Court of Appeal to strike down a challenge by a group of four British Columbia First Nations and allow the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project to take another lurching step toward
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: The greed that consumes Alberta.
It was at the end of December that Babel-on-the-Bay discussed the hopes of Alberta premier Jason Kenney for the Teck Frontier mine in North-East Alberta. The proposed open-pit tar sands mine, north of Fort McMurray, would be Canada’s largest and is planned to produce 260,000 barrels of bitumen per day
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ernst & Young review of Alberta Health Services gives UCP cover to do lots, flexibility to do little
We’re not closing any rural hospitals, have you got that? Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro strove to make that point perfectly clear at his news conference in Edmonton yesterday on how Ernst & Young, the multinational management consulting firm based in London, England, thinks Alberta Health Services could save nearly
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What Brexit and Ottawa’s decision on the Teck oilsands mine have in common: Jason Kenney’s stubborn intransigence
Question: What do Brexit, which finally happened on Friday but the full implications of which are yet to unfold, and Ottawa’s impending decision on the Teck Resources Ltd. Frontier oilsands mine in northern Alberta have in common? Answer: Both are examples of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s stubborn tendency to cling
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Why Is It Always Someone Else’s Fault?
When Jason Kenney convinced Albertans that our economy is solely dependent on fossil fuels (diversification is a luxury, remember) and government policy, not the global marketplace, drives our economy; he needed a scapegoat when our economy failed to grow. Cue Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau, although with the passage of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Arbitrator’s decision awarding 1% pay increase to some AUPE members undermines UCP austerity arguments
An independent labour arbitrator yesterday awarded unionized Alberta government employees and health care support workers a modest 1-per-cent pay increase for 2019. Having gone into wage-reopener negotiations in the final year of their current collective agreements seeking much higher pay increases ranging from 6.5 to 7.85 per cent, the Alberta
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – George Monbiot recognizes that our climate policy needs to be based on maximizing our shift to a sustainable society, not on trying to barely reach insufficient emission reduction targets: It’s not just the target that’s wrong, but the very notion of setting targets
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Kate Andrias notes that governments can ensure better jobs for everybody by fostering collective bargaining strength. – John Favini writes that cooperation is deeply embedded in our biology – contrary to the spin that we naturally seek and require competition. – Marc
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Freedom of information filing reveals supposedly independent ‘Blue Ribbon’ Panel had help from staff in Alberta premier’s office
It turns out Janice MacKinnon’s six-member “expert panel” was using a script cooked up in Premier Jason Kenney’s office at least part of the time it was supposedly taking its “deep dive” into Alberta’s books last year. Alert readers will recall that when freshly elected United Conservative Party Premier Jason
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Without Rachel Notley’s reviled but effective social license strategy, support outside the Prairies drops for pipeline’s expansion
According to a well-known pollster, support for the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project has dropped in Canada outside the Prairies since this time last year. In the same time frame, opposition to the multi-billion-dollar pipeline expansion project is growing at an even faster rate. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Gabriel Winant reviews Matt Stoller’s Goliath, and discusses in the process the importance of challenging the assumptions capitalism as a system rather than presuming that it can be rendered just merely by taking steps to break up immediate monopolies. And Alexandra Posadzki’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Peter MacKay may be One Candidate to Rule Them All — but can he save the party of Preston, Stockwell & Steve?
There are those who say we should be bracing ourselves for the return of President Steve. Say it ain’t so! Stephen Harper (Photo: Remy Steinegger, Creative Commons). We can expect know today if Stephen Harper is going to re-emerge to make a re-run to re-lead the Conservative Party of Canada
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 47: If you ain’t oil, you ain’t much
Oil well liability became a big issue in Alberta politics this month when rural municipal politicians raised giant red flags about the estimated $173 million in unpaid municipal taxes as a result of some oil and gas companies nearing insolvency and many more companies just believing paying taxes is voluntary.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Justin Nobel exposes the toxic – and even radioactive – side effects of the oil and gas industry. Reuters reports on the widespread presence of permanently-dangerous chemicals in drinking water in cities across the U.S. The Canadian Press reports on charges against an
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Worried about coronavirus? Ideology trumps expertise when Conservatives meddle with health care
If the world is on the cusp of another deadly coronavirus outbreak, this might seem like a peculiar time to be signing up for a high-risk experiment in health care management based on ideology instead of facts. But as far as Canada’s increasingly extremist conservative movement is concerned, of course
Continue readingAlberta Politics: RCMP investigation of ‘Kamikaze Campaign’ moves into new phase; what it means remains to be seen
“Soon, we will find out if breaking the law is illegal.” The line is Stephen Colbert’s and, no, he wasn’t talking about Alberta. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). The well-known American comedian and TV personality, of course, was referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shut down your ‘anti-Alberta campaigns’ inquiry or the courts will shut it for you, tiny group warns Alberta government
OTTAWA – Well, one thing’s already clear, there’s no way the mighty Kenney Government will shut down its so-called inquiry into “anti-Alberta energy campaigns” on the say so of Progress Alberta, a small Edmonton-based research and activist organization. That said, the day may come when the government’s leaders wish they
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: In the Eye of the Storm
Here we are in the eye of the storm, a place of relative calm surrounded by a ring of thunderstorms (known as the eye wall). We passed through one eye wall to get here and we’ll have to pass through another eye wall to get out. This won’t be easy
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