PHOTOS: Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci answers reporters’ questions after delivering the NDP’s first Budget Speech in the Alberta Legislature yesterday. (CBC Photo) Below: Wildrose Opposition Leader Brian Jean and Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt also answer questions – but only from reporters who aren’t on the Wildrose Party’s Enemies List.
Continue readingTag: Jim Prentice
daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Sky does not fall as Alberta NDP presents its first budget
When Finance Minister Joe Ceci stood in the Legislature on Oct. 27 to deliver the Alberta NDP’s first budget, it marked the first time since 1972 that the budget was not tabled by a Progressive Conservative finance minister. The first budget of Premier Rachel Notley‘s… Continue Reading →
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP brings to an end Alberta PCs’ bizarre experiment with one-person heath-care rule
PHOTOS: Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman announces the restoration of normal board governance to Alberta Health Services at the provincial Legislature yesterday. Below: Newly appointed AHS Board members Linda Hughes, Glenda Yeates and Brenda Hemmelgarn. Below them: Premier Rachel Notley on the big screen at AUPE’s convention, as union President
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Notley creates Economic Development ministry, appoints rural Municipal Affairs minister
Alberta’s provincial cabinet grew from twelve to thirteen today with the appointment of Lesser Slave Lake MLA Danielle Larivee to the posts of Minister of Municipal Affairs and Service Alberta. Ms. Larivee takes over those roles from Deron Bilous. Mr. Bilous, one… Continue Reading →
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Tax Increases no longer Political Kryptonite in Canadian Elections
It’s been a rough year for Conservatives in Canada as two major elections in six months have resulted in major blows for Conservative parties in Alberta and Ottawa. In May 2015, former federal cabinet minister and bank vice-president Jim Prentice, a political moderate… Continue Reading →
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Welcome to the Orwellian world of Wildrose, where keeping your promises makes you a liar
PHOTOS: Possibly the Globe and Mail’s best headline of the decade. Below: NDP Premier Rachel Notley, Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt, the sailboat known as French Kiss, shown just to prove I didn’t make that part up, the full Globe headline, shown for the same reason. Is Alberta ready for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fireworks notably absent during final Edmonton royalty review public consultation
PHOTOS: Royalty review chair Dave Mowat, top left, addresses the small and polite crowd that showed up in Edmonton for the panel’s open house last night. Below: Mr. Mowat again and committee members Peter Tertzakian and Leona Hanson. The biggest challenge the Notley Government’s royalty review committee faces may turn
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Can Alberta’s Royalty Review get us off the “Royalty Roller Coaster?”
Alberta’s Royalty Review panel stopped in Edmonton on Oct. 6, 2015 for the fourth and final scheduled community consultation meeting. Compared to reports from a tense meeting the previous evening in Calgary, the crowd of about 120 Edmontonians was generally polite and quite… Continue Reading →
Continue readingAlberta Politics: One day after his graceless departure, former Alberta ‘envoy’ to Washington lands lobbying gig
PHOTOS: Sour grapes! Actual former Alberta trade representatives may not appear exactly as illustrated. (Photo from Barkpost.com.) Below: Alberta Conservative-connected lobbyists Rob Merrifield, Hal Danchilla, Brian Storseth and Rick Orman. Rob Merrifield’s parting shot at the Alberta government: tacky. Canadian Strategy Group’s decision to hire Mr. Merrifield as a lobbyist:
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley to Alberta’s trade ‘envoy’ to Washington: Nice seeing you ’round! Here’s your hat!
PHOTOS: Departing Alberta trade ‘envoy’ to Washington, D.C., Rob Merrifield, back in the day when he was a federal cabinet minister. Below: Former Alberta premier Jim Prentice, who hired Mr. Merrifield a year ago, and Premier Rachel Notley, who let him go at the end of last week. It was
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thomas Lukaszuk, once the Gorgeous George of Alberta politics, ponders an unlikely political resurrection
PHOTOS: Thomas Lukaszuk, at what was arguably the summit of his political career, launching his bid in May 2014 to lead the Progressive Conservative Party and become premier of Alberta. Below: Mr. Lukaszuk showing his flowing locks to advantage, 1950s wrestling star Gorgeous George, and Edmonton-Castle Down MLA Nicole Goehring.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrose Party wins Calgary-Foothills by-election, and fairly decisively, but leaves plenty of grist for the mill
PHOTOS: Wildrose Party candidate Prasad Panda celebrates his victory last night in the Calgary-Foothills by-election with Wildrose Leader Brian Jean. (Photo from Mr. Panda’s Twitter account.) Below: NDP candidate Bob Hawkesworth and PC candidate Blair Houston. Within moments of Wildrose Party candidate Prasad Panda emerging as the winner in the
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Wildrose steal Foothills from the PCs while NDP hold on to ‘orange wave’ support in second place
Wildrose Party candidate Prasad Panda became his party’s only MLA from Calgary by winning tonight’s by-election in Calgary-Foothills and stealing the constituency away from the Progressive Conservatives. PC candidate Blair Houston finished third in the constituency that elected former Premier Jim Prentice in another by-election ten months ago and in… Continue Reading →
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Calgary-Foothills: The first by-election in Alberta’s post-PC political world
Today’s by-election in Calgary-Foothills is the first litmus test for Alberta’s political parties in the post-Progressive Conservative political world. When Rachel Notley led NDP candidates to victory in fifteen constituencies in the city on May 5, 2015, the “Orange Wave” broke at the boundaries of this constituency as conservative… Continue Reading →
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will Wildrose Leader Brian Jean repudiate his Calgary-Foothills candidate’s ‘communist’ characterization of the NDP?
PHOTOS: Part of the Wildrose Chinese-language brochure that compared the NDP to communists. Below: Wildrose Calgary-Foothills candidate Prasad Panda, former Tory education minister Thomas Lukaszuk, NDP candidate Bob Hawkesworth, former Wildrose House leader Rob Anderson and former Wildrose leader Paul Hinman. What words should we use to describe the Chinese-language
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP strength in Calgary-Foothills riding suggests May 5 election was no fluke – and could rattle federal Tory narrative
PHOTOS: A Chinook arch moves across the sky of Calgary in 2007, bringing warmer temperatures and, for some people, headaches. The same kind of thing happens in politics. Below: NDP Calgary-Foothills candidate Bob Hawkesworth, Conservative Blair Houston and Wildroser Prasad Panda. So, what happens if the Alberta NDP wins the
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: NDP can’t afford to be slow to respond to Wildrose attacks
‘Risky,’ ‘ideological,’ ‘experimental,’ and ‘uncertain’ are all words that the conservative Wildrose Party opposition is using to describe Alberta’s New Democratic Party government.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Sonic privatization mystery: what were the Tories thinking?
PHOTOS: More medical lab techs examining specimens, still not illustrated exactly as they’re likely to appear nowadays. Below: Progressive Conservative health ministers Gary Mar, Iris Evans, Stephen Mandel and Fred Horne, every one a would-be privatizer and every one in a picture personally snapped by your blogger. Viewed with 20/20
Continue readingAlberta Politics: When propaganda becomes memory: Pierre Trudeau and the National Energy Program
PHOTOS: Pierre and Justin Trudeau back in the day, with possibly quite a few Liberal supporters in the background. Below: Prime Minister Steve and Defence Minister Jason Kenney. Everybody in Alberta knows Pierre Trudeau and his National Energy Program laid waste to Alberta in the 1980s, and that would include
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No losers except Canadians in last night’s ditchwater-dull debate
PHOTOS: Zzzzzzzzz … Why are these men smiling? Below: Prime Minister Stephen Harper, sneering; Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair, smiling unnervingly; Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, doing his best to look pugnacious; Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, happy to be there. Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair stayed calm, smiled and looked prime ministerial
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