Never let it be said Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government hates red tape. On the contrary, Premier Jason Kenney’s Government loves the stuff – at least if you define red tape as most dictionaries do, to wit, excessive bureaucratic rules that make it more difficult to get stuff done. Advanced
Continue readingTag: Jason Kenney
Alberta Politics: Brace yourselves, Alberta, Premier Kenney’s promising us another spring of renewal!
Good Lord, can Alberta survive another spring of renewal like the last one? Another springtime of renewal — that’s what Government House Leader Jason Nixon and the United Conservative Party’s meme machine were promising yesterday with the announcement the Alberta Legislature well get back to business on Feb. 25. Alberta
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – James Bradley writes about the range of responses to an increasingly threatening climate. And Emma Morris offers some suggestions as to how to become part of the solution to the climate crisis. – Adrienne Buller discusses why the popular and necessary prospect of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: S.O.S. for secession? Only about 150 make it to frigid Wexit rally at Alberta Legislature Building
Judging from the underwhelming turnout at its “S.O.S.” rally in Edmonton yesterday, Alberta’s minuscule Wexit faction might want to reconsider its demand for a separation referendum right now. Leastways, Wexit supporters should probably rethink the idea if the “S.O.S.” was supposed to stand for “Separation, the Only Solution,” as the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP assails Alberta Energy War Room for ‘gross incompetence’ — but is that such a bad thing?
Having swallowed much of the United Conservative Party’s unlikely conspiracy theory about what supposedly ails the Alberta oilpatch during its term in office makes it harder for the NDP to convincingly criticize the Kenney Government’s $30-million-a-year “Energy War Room.” To give the Opposition its due, though, yesterday they tried. Alberta
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Rick Smith offers some reasons for hope in 2020 even in the face of a grim start to a new year. And Cory Doctorow writes about the need to start dreaming up, and giving effect to, alternatives to a corporate-driven economy and society
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Get used to it, Alberta, the world is learning how to talk about climate change
Remember the anger in Alberta in 2016 when some observers connected the dots between the fire that spring in Fort McMurray and the phenomenon known as global warming? Such statements were denounced as outrageous. Also insensitive — and, without doubt, a few of the comments on social media were. But
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: 2020 The Year We Push Back
Kudos to the citizens who parse Jason Kenney’s policies and winnow the truth from the lies. This takes tremendous courage given the government’s thin-skinned and overly aggressive response to criticism. (Check its Twitter and Facebook posts, they’re replete with attacks on anyone and everyone from Calgary’s mayor to doctors, academics,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Scott Gilmore writes about the glaring need for Canada’s politicians to show more capacity for shame – through it’s worth noting both a global pattern to the same effect, and the dangers of trying to draw “both-sides” equivalency (as Gilmore does) in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Nathan Robinson writes that there’s every reason for younger people – in the U.S. and elsewhere – to support the principle of socialism based on a desire to achieve gains for everybody rather than only a privileged few: A better definition, at
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Foresight is 2020: It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without a Top Ten List of political predictions
This year, foresight is 2020! It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without AlbertaPolitics.ca’s Top Ten Political Predictions for 2020, so your blogger will gaze into his crystal ball one more time and tell you what’s up next. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). No one seems to have
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Kenney warns “Canada oil, gas sector has no future.”
The Canadian Press quoted Alberta premier Jason Kenney recently on his pessimism about federal approval of the proposed Frontier mine in Northern Alberta. The proposed open-pit mine, north of Fort McMurray, would be Canada’s largest and could produce 260,000 barrels of bitumen per day for processing into synthetic oil. It
Continue readingAlberta Politics: For the 12th anniversary of AlbertaPolitics.ca, here’s a Top Ten List of Alberta political stories in 2019
Today marks the 12th anniversary of the first post published on this blog, known at the time as St. Albert Diary. Later, for a long spell, it was Alberta Diary, and still retains that name on Rabble.ca, where it is also published. By the standards of the Internet, this makes
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Energy War Room’s crack team isn’t exactly ‘cookin’ with gas’
Should we be worried about operatives employed by the Alberta Government’s public-private Energy War Room masquerading as journalists? Of course we should. But it’s also OK to be amused by the astonishing ineptitude with which they’re going about the task. As King Solomon is said to have observed, pride goeth
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Holidays! Alberta’s economic prospects may underwhelm, but at least you can spin them as you like!
Happy Holidays! At this time last year, it looked as if Santa would bring something for everyone in Alberta, regardless of their political orientation. This year, though, maybe not so much. Lumps of carbon-dioxide-emitting coal, maybe. Leastways, you can spin recent economic outlooks for the province any way you like,
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Is This a Time for Hope?
It’s hard to find hope when so many Albertans are hurting. It’s even more difficult when you realize Alberta’s own government is the source of their pain. Nevertheless, there is cause for hope. I saw that eye-roll. Let me tell you why I’m hopeful. The Notley opposition
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Justin Trudeau’s Message To The Western Separatists
It couldn't be a more disgusting spectacle, Jason Kenney and Scott Moe laying siege to Ottawa, trying to blackmail the federal government into giving them more money.And threatening that if the government doesn't pay up, Alberta and Saskatchewan might separate.It's an ugly argument from two very ugly Cons.So I'm glad
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Brigid Delaney writes about the significance of the truth about climate breakdown. Graham Readfearn reports on the risk of outright firestorms as bush fires burn out of control. And Geoff Dembicki writes about a case from the Philippines seeing oil companies held responsible
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rebranded ‘War Room’ aims for ‘measured tone’ in riposte to acerbic Medicine Hat News column, doesn’t quite succeed
All the Alberta Government’s rebranded Energy War Room is trying to do, pleaded Managing Director Tom Olsen yesterday in his much anticipated riposte to an acerbic column last week in the Medicine Hat News, is to bring a little civility to the debate about whether or not foreign-funded enviro-propagandists are
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No more pipelines? Another day, another UCP talking point exposed as codswallop
Another day, another Alberta Government talking point exposed as codswallop. Yesterday, we compared and contrasted what the United Conservative Party Government used to say about the former NDP government’s carbon tax with reality. Viz., it was destroying the economy (UCP), versus, it effectively had no negative impact on the Alberta
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