Former school trustee, former Wildrose Party leader, and former controversial legislative floor-crosser, Danielle Smith announced yesterday she will add right-wing talk-radio bloviator to her long list of former occupations. The woman thought in 2012 to be on track to become Alberta’s first Wildrose Party premier announced yesterday she is ending
Continue readingTag: Jim Prentice
Alberta Politics: AlbertaPolitics.ca marks its 13th anniversary today as 2020, annus horribilis, nears its end
Today marks the 13th anniversary of the first post published on this blog, known at the time as St. Albert Diary, and later, for a spell, as Alberta Diary. So, by the standards of the Internet, this makes AlbertaPolitics.ca an institution. Premier Jason Kenney, striking an avuncular pose himself (Photo:
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s making Ottawa’s environment minister suddenly give the Vista coal mine proposal the fish eye?
Yesterday we learned that Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal environment minister, is reconsidering a decision he made in December to leave it up to the industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator to decide if a huge coal mine expansion should be approved near Hinton, just east of the Jasper National Park gate. Even
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The federal Conservative leadership race takes a turn both sinister and juvenile
Probably the last thing the Conservative Party of Canada needs right now is a side battle over allegations of dirty tricks and data theft between the campaigns of the two leading candidates in an already uninspiring leadership race. I mean, it’s not as if frontrunners Peter MacKay or Erin O’Toole
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hinterland Who’s Who: Hear the haunting call of the wild Deep South Alberta UCP MLA …
With friends like Drew Barnes, does the United Conservative Party really need enemies in these troubles times? The right-wing Frankenparty may have won the 2019 provincial election convincingly soon after it was cobbled together from the fringy Wildrose Party and the old Progressive Conservatives by former Harper Government cabinet minister
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Are cracks appearing in the wall of the Kenney Kremlin over Health Minister Tyler Shandro’s fight with Alberta’s docs?
Have the first hairline cracks started to appear in the Kenney Government’s hitherto solid front in its war with the province’s physicians, which is inexplicably being carried on in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic? Is someone inside the Kenney Calgary Kremlin signalling it’s almost time for Health Minister
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 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: Former Speaker Bob Wanner’s portrait, unveiled yesterday, adds a 21st Century touch to a gloomy 19th Century collection
It’s not just Alberta’s premiers who get their portraits hung in the dingy halls of the provincial Legislature Building in Edmonton, but the Assembly’s Speakers too. Let it be said here first that the portrait of Bob Wanner, the most recent Speaker to depart that role, unveiled at the Legislature
Continue readingAlberta Politics: This just in from washed-up Wildroser: Alberta separation if necessary, but not necessarily separation!
It looks as if Rob Anderson has found a new gig — Alberta separation if necessary, but not necessarily Alberta separation. For those of you scratching your heads and asking the most obvious question — Rob Who? — Mr. Anderson is one of the few Alberta politicians to have crossed
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tom Olsen and the Wreckage: Jason Kenney’s ‘War Room’ is going to need more than just hurtin’ songs!
Former journalist Tom Olsen, for much of the past decade a self employed PR man who rarely strayed far from the gravitational field of Conservative power in Alberta, was named yesterday by Energy Minister Sonya Savage as the successful candidate to lead the United Conservative Party’s “War Room.” Perhaps Mr.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There was actually something new in the leader’s debate Monday — alas, it’s not a good thing
The United States’ two-party political setup may not be much of a template for actual democracy, but at least it has lots of potential for interesting leaders’ debates. A televised leaders’ debate in a vibrant multi-party democracy like Canada? Not so much. For one thing, you have to invite the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Appointment of Stephen Mandel to AHS board proves failure’s no barrier to success in Jason Kenney’s Alberta
Who says Premier Jason Kenney can’t unite Albertans? Sometime today, Mr. Kenney will appoint Stephen Mandel to the governing board of Alberta Health Services. Well, the announcement will be made by Health Minister Tyler Shandro. Late yesterday, as the word of the appointment leaked out, moans of despair could be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Court’s decision to turn off Alberta’s turn-off-the-taps law should surprise no one
Alberta’s so-called turn-off-the-taps law was pretty obviously unconstitutional when Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party passed it and it continued to be unconstitutional when Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party had it proclaimed into law. So yesterday’s ruling of the Federal Court of Canada granting British Columbia a temporary injunction blocking application
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s perpetual fiscal crisis will never be fixed without revenue reform — so you might as well get used to it
Even real conservatives, if such a species exists anymore, know something’s gone awry with Alberta’s fiscal setup and that part of the solution’s on the revenue side. The fact we’ve not faced up to this is why Alberta is so vulnerable to the unavoidable volatility of the fossil fuel market.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP Government, with no apparent short-term Plan B, seeks leave to appeal injunction suspending Bill 9
Unsurprisingly, the United Conservative Party Government has filed notice of appeal on the temporary injunction granted by the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench that halted application of Bill 9, playing havoc with Premier Jason Kenney’s strategy for putting off a crisis with the province’s public sector unions until after the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With Stephen Mandel’s resignation and zero Legislature seats, Alberta Party faces leadership vacuum and bleak future
So long, Stephen Mandel, at least we can’t say we hardly knew ye! Mr. Mandel announced in a news release yesterday he would step down on June 30 as leader of the Alberta Party – which he took over after an internal coup last year and turned from a vehicle
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jobs! Pipelines! Help is on the way! Or … maybe not: Election hot takes from Alberta
Tuesday night’s Alberta election results pretty well put paid to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “Grand Bargain” with Alberta on climate change, the terms of which were basically that the province could have a pipeline to tidewater if we play nice and put a price on carbon. Premier-elect Jason Kenney has
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Be careful what you wish for, Conservatives: Canadians may like a tougher Trudeau
Memo to Conservatives, New Democrats and others who are crowing about how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to have been revealed as a harsher and less cuddly politician than he has been thought to be till now: Be careful what you wish for. If Mr. Trudeau is revealed as a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Paperwork SNAFU! Elections Alberta says Stephen Mandel can’t run! Alberta Party lawyers say he can! Stand by for video!
This just in! Elections Alberta’s updated list of candidates ineligible to run as candidates or serve as chief elections officers includes at least one name most Albertans will recognize. To wit: Stephen Mandel. Yes, that Stephen Mandel. That is, the Stephen Mandel who leads the Alberta Party. The former Edmonton
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