Prepare to be assimilated – resistance is futile. Danielle Smith joins the Borg. It’s being spun as a “reconciliation”, but if reports are to be believed, it’s very much the Wildrose rebels crawling back to their former comrades and begging for their political lives. In exchange for blowing up their
Continue readingTag: Jim Prentice
Politics and its Discontents: A Merger In The Offing?
My son, who lives in Alberta, keeps me apprised of that province’s politics. Will Wildrose join Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives? Speculation is rampant. Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Friends close; enemies closer? Rumours abound Wildrose is about to return to PC mothership
Say it ain’t so, Danielle! Your blogger with … Progressive Conservative Deputy Premier? … Danielle Smith. Below: Shoeless Joe Jackson. Tout le monde political Alberta was abuzz last night with rumours the entire Wildrose caucus is on the verge of walking over and joining Premier Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservatives, perhaps
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Prentice Government takes Alberta from boom to bust in one weekend, breaking all records
Premier Jim Prentice points the way for public spending in Alberta now that our boom has gone bust again. Oil prices, ya know… But read the Reaper’s grim lips: “No new taxes!” Actual Alberta premiers may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Finance Minister Robin Campbell, Infrastructure Minister Manmeet Bhullar
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Is the Wildrose Caucus about to merge with the PC Caucus?
Tweet Are more Wildrose MLAs preparing to cross the floor to the Progressives Conservatives? Independent MLA Joe Anglin has told reporters that Danielle Smith‘s 15 MLA Wildrose Official Opposition Caucus will vote on Tuesday, December 16, 2014 on whether to join the governing PC Caucus. Mr. Anglin’s comments, claims published on an anonymously blog and tweets
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Barrie McKenna comments on how far too many governments have bought into the P3 myth with our public money: Governments in Canada have become seduced by the wonders of private-public partnerships – so-called P3s – and blind to their potentially costly flaws. In
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Oh Buffster where art thou? Jim Prentice names nothing but bosses to his ‘blue ribbon’ panel on worker morale
Dan MacLennan – known as Buff, or the Buffster, to his friends – with Premier Ralph Klein, back in the day when Alberta’s leaders didn’t just talk to the Big Kahunas from the executive suite. Below: Ex Syncrude CEO Jim Carter, former Edmonton Journal Publisher Linda Hughes, Maclab Enterprises Chair
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Government communications staff learn only this week of huge shakeup set for Monday at Public Affairs Bureau
Worried Public Affairs Bureau staffers wait for more information on the shakeup affecting their jobs, which takes place Monday. Actual government of Alberta communications specialists may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: PAB Deputy Chief Martin Kennedy and top agent of change Richard Dicerni. The Alberta government’s long-controversial Public Affairs
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Did you hear the one about the health minister’s Twitter followers? Neither did they!
Alberta Health Minister and bowtie enthusiast Stephen Mandel. A lot of his Twitter followers aren’t real people. Below: NDP Leader Rachel Notley. She doesn’t have as many Twitter followers, but a much higher percentage are real people. But then, what do you expect from New Democrats? Warning: People you meet
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Alberta is always in Tough Economic Times
Tweet“They don’t know what to do with tough economic times. It was easy enough to govern when the money was flowing in, when things were going well. They took all the credit for it at that time. It’s much harder to govern, and the mark of a good government is
Continue readingAlberta Diary: A political oddity hits the big time – but what do we really know about Michael Cooper?
Michael Cooper turned up door knocking on your blogger’s doorstep in St. Albert last summer. A photo was required! Below: Independent St. Albert Member of Parliament Brent Rathgeber, former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day and journalist Paul Wells. ST. ALBERT, Alberta Every few years, Michael Cooper seems to pop onto
Continue readingAlberta Diary: The Santa Clause: A holiday gift of biting humour from Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley
NDP Leader Rachel Notley, helping to improve the New Democrats’ game in Alberta. Below: Education Minister Gordon Dirks, restored Tory MLA Peter Sandhu and former PC cabinet minister Evan Berger; Alberta Premier Jim Prentice. No one can say Rachel Notley hasn’t upped the Alberta NDP’s game since she was elected
Continue readingAlberta Diary: The accountability ship has sailed, Bill 2 notwithstanding; Premiers Jim Prentice and Ralph Klein compared
A pensive Ralph Klein, maybe thinking about his worst political mistakes. Below: Jim Prentice and Alison Redford, also Alberta premiers. Premier, you’re no Ralph Klein! Accountability legislation? Oh, well … that changes everything! All sarcasm aside, people, I think that ship has sailed, actually … Bill 10, legislation designed to
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Alberta’s attack on gay-straight alliances rests on the same logical fallacy as Russia’s ‘gay propaganda’ law – coincidence, or what?
Russian police arrest citizens protesting against the country’s anti-gay laws, which rely on the same logical fallacy as the Prentice Government’s moves to suppress a bill that would have supported gay-straight alliances in schools. Below: Alberta Liberal MLA and GSA advocate Laurie Blakeman, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Alberta Premier
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Insufficient data, bad planning and so-con overreach help explain Prentice Government’s gay-straight-alliance gong show
Led by Premier Jim Prentice, members of the PC cabinet try to get away from the issue of gay-straight alliances in Alberta schools. Actual Alberta politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: The real Mr. Prentice, Edmonton-Centre MLA Laurie Blakeman and caucus rebel Thomas Lukaszuk. The spectacular incompetence exhibited
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: A timeline of Alberta’s Gay-Straight Alliance debate
TweetIt is sometimes amazing how quickly one political issue can transform and dominate the debate. This week’s raging debate about allowing Gay-Straight Alliances (GSA) in Alberta schools has twisted and turned so many times, it has become difficult to figure out who is in and out of the closet on this
Continue readingIn This Corner: Why are the PCs so afraid of gay teenagers?
Premier Jim Prentice has gotten off to a pretty impressive start as the latest star of the longest running series in Canadian political history, Alberta Dynasty. He did a lot of little things right, like cancelling the ill-conceived plan to change our license plates and grounding the provincial fleet of
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Putin congratulates Prentice on LGBTQ bill
Russian President Vladimir Putin hunting for grizzly bears. Will Alberta Premier Jim Prentice join him? Below: Mr. Prentice. Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Alberta Premier Jim Prentice today for his government’s effort yesterday to make it easy to deny the existence of LGBTQ Albertans by making it difficult for students
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Prentice’s Bill 10: A Legislative Trojan Horse
There is little doubt that the Prentice government is getting its ass handed to it on the editorial pages of newspapers across Canada with respect to its hastily written Bill 10 counter response to Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman’s Bill 202. After looking at Bill 10 for a little while, I
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Bill 10 gong show’s bungled effort to pander to PC Party’s worst elements proves Jim Prentice is no political superman
Alberta Premier Jim Prentice, as he appeared to almost everyone until yesterday, except there are no ships here in Alberta, which is why we need all those pipelines. Below: Education Minister Gordon Dirks; humiliated PC MLA Sandra Jansen, official sponsor of Bill 10; and Liberal MLA and Bill 202 sponsor
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