Daveberta Podcast host Dave Cournoyer teamed up with AlbertaPolitics.ca writer David Climenhaga at the annual Parkland Institute Conference at the University of Alberta last weekend to share what we know and what we speculate might happen with the Canadian Energy Centre Ltd. (a.k.a. the War Room) and the Public Inquiry
Continue readingTag: Jason Kenney
Accidental Deliberations: On unreliable suppliers
There’s been plenty of bluster between Jason Kenney and Yves-Francois Blanchet over equalization and its relationship to the oil industry. But it’s worth pointing out that to the extent Quebec (or any other province or jurisdiction) currently relies on fossil fuels from Alberta, Kenney himself has gone out of his
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: In the job nobody wanted.
Watching the West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson trying to interview Yves-François Blanchet, leader of the Bloc Québécois, on Sunday caused mixed emotions. Here is the guy who took on the job for the Bloc that nobody else wanted and he is running rings around the Global Television interviewer. And he is
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The Fog of Politics
The fog of politics is like the fog of war. It’s hard to see what’s really going on. Albertans are choking in UCP fog. We wonder why Mr Kenney who came to power on the Thatcher/Reagan ideology—small government, low taxes and less red tape—is wasting valuable time and resources
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Chris Hedges writes about the damage oligarchs are doing to humanity and the planet. And Dominic Rushe points out how whiny the people who have rigged the economy toward their own concentration of obscene wealth become when they face the slightest hint
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Alberta should say no to own police.
We are hearing a lot of bad ideas from Alberta of late. When premier Kenney gets into a hissy-fit, he rails and rants a lot and he comes up with some really dumb suggestions. The dumbest of them is the one where Alberta would create its own pension plan and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Uh oh! Those perfidious Swedes have clearly joined the anti-Alberta energy ‘misinformation campaign of defamation’!
Why, those perfidious Swedes! First they sent their sneaky little agent Greta Thunberg in a sailboat to Alberta’s shores to stir up our young people — and that’s no mean feat when you consider that we don’t have any shores here in Alberta! Which, as we keep telling the rest
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how Scott Moe has been left alone and isolated by the supposed “resistance”. (Though I’ll admit I underestimated his willingness to declare his unthinking support for anything suggested by Jason Kenney.) For further reading…– Jacques Poitras reported that Blaine Higgs’ sensible response to the federal election has been
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: Don’t sweat the small stuff.
It seems that we are dealing totally in the small stuff these days. Imagine getting outraged by that blowhard on Coach’s Corner between the first and second period of Hockey Night in Canada. That is the viewer’s opportunity to get a fresh beer or to go to the washroom. I
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fifty-four forty or what? Is this Wexitopia’s last territorial demand in British Columbia?
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any nuttier out here in Wexitopia, former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith took to the Twittersphere to promote a territorial corridor from Alberta to the B.C. Coast. I know what you’re thinking, but as regular readers of this blog well understand, I never
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It turns out the UCP’s dream of grabbing the Canada Pension Plan won’t be as easy as it would like you to believe
How much of the United Conservative Party’s radical project to transform Alberta into a dystopic firewalled statelet, most of the details of which were revealed by Premier Jason Kenney for the first time at Preston Manning’s Red Deer clambake on Saturday, was predicated on a Conservative victory in last month’s
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Jason Kenney and the Wacky Wexit Weiners
I have always believed that Jason Kenney's religious fanaticism, his inner demons, and his burning ambition, would eventually threaten the survival of this country.And sure enough, first he stoked the fires of western alienation to unite the Cons and get himself elected premier. Now he's using the threat of separation to try
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will the UCP’s scheme to restrict reproductive rights play in Ponoka? Maybe not …
Bill 207, which if it was honestly titled would have been called an Act to Restrict Reproductive and Other Rights in Alberta, does not seem to be playing particularly well, even in Ponoka. Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party stirred up a hornet’s nest with this sneaky bill — disingenuously entitled
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Mr Kenney’s Fair Deal Panel
They just keep coming, fast and furious, like water gushing from a firehose. Yesterday Mr Kenney announced the formation of the Fair Deal Panel, the latest in a suite of things Mr Kenney says we need to protect ourselves from those who prey on us. So far, he’s created:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Arwa Mahdawi writes that the outsized influence wielded by billionaires makes them something beyond merely wealthy people. Tom Whyman challenges the worship of the excessively wealthy as a particularly destructive religion. Robert Reich points out that the means of accumulating a billion
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Preston Manning, the bad penny of Canadian politics, turns up again on Alberta’s sovereignty-association commission
Preston Manning is the bad penny of Canadian politics. So no one should be surprised he’s turned up again! Much good rarely comes from Mr. Manning’s interventions in politics, which never seem to end, so don’t expect positive results from his appointment by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to what might
Continue readingBabel-on-the-Bay: ‘Goddamn the CPR.’
Can you imagine two more Canadian icons than journalist Allan Fotheringham and the Canadian Pacific Railway? It came as a pleasant surprise recently to see a television interview with ‘Doc Foth.’ He was as sardonic as ever. I have always admired Fotheringham for his writing skills and his humour. In
Continue readingAlberta Politics: First reading of Bill 207 reveals zero UCP votes for women’s reproductive rights
Here are two important statistics about the United Conservative Party’s Bill 207, the Conscience Rights (Health Care Providers) Protection Act, which was introduced in the Alberta Legislature yesterday … Just a minute, you say, Bill 207 is a private member’s bill, brought forward by Peace River UCP MLA Dan Williams,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Spence discusses how a wealth tax can work, while noting that the worst possible response to growing inequality is to refuse to do anything. And the Centre for Labour and Social Studies summarizes the current class disparity in the UK, as well
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Wexit’ isn’t likely, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous
“Wexit” is dangerous, but not because it’s ever likely to come to pass. The economic case for Prairie separatism is so obviously lame — because of what’s happened to the world market for fossil fuels and because people who actually live where there’s tidewater aren’t interested and never will be
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