You just never know what Danielle Smith is going to say next. Opposition NDP Justice Critic Irfan Sabir (Photo : David J. Climenhaga). The trouble is, neither does she. Consider yesterday’s jaw-dropper, the latest in what is getting to be a fairly long list of statements requiring clarifications – clarifications that
Continue readingTag: Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
Alberta Politics: Social-conservative activist John Carpay reported by legal advocacy group he heads to have been charged with obstruction of justice
Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms President John Carpay has been charged with obstruction of justice by Winnipeg Police and was arrested after turning himself in to Calgary Police Friday, the social conservative legal advocacy organization said in a statement yesterday. A scene snapped by an anonymous shutterbug of Jason Kenney’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The silence of Premier Jason Kenney, out of sight since Aug. 9, keeps Alberta’s rumour mill churning
Now and again, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un or some other foreign dictator disappears for a spell and international media spins up a whirlwind of wild speculation. Academic experts think the leader’s dead, or maybe just in “a vegetative state.” Experts theorize he’s hiding out from a coup attempt, or
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of Justice: Manitoba Justice Minister asks the province’s Law Society to investigate all 10 ‘Justice Centre’ lawyers
Responding to the revelation last week that the founder and president of the so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms hired a private eye to follow the chief justice of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench, supposedly to see if he broke any COVID-19 restrictions, the province’s Justice Minister has called
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What possessed a prominent social conservative lawyer to hire a private investigator to follow a judge around?
What were John Carpay and the so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms he heads trying to achieve when they hired a private detective to snoop on the chief justice of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench? The JCCF founder and president admitted yesterday it was his organization that hired the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: New Zealand eyes reopening borders a crack while Calgary crowd protests ‘draconian’ COVID-19 restrictions
After being declared COVID-19 free last June, New Zealand is ever-so-cautiously moving toward reopening its watery borders to some international travel. With Australia, that is. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (Photo: NewZild, Creative Commons). Australia hasn’t done quite as well countering the coronavirus as New Zealand has, but it’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP slaps Alberta Teachers Association … probably not for the last time
Almost completely missed in media coverage of Friday’s purge of NDP appointees to agencies, boards and commissions by Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government was the revelation that the same day the government abruptly cancelled a three-year-old memorandum of agreement with the Alberta Teachers Association to co-operate on curriculum development. While
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What was John Carpay’s goal when he in effect withdrew his apology for comparing Pride flags to swastikas?
John Carpay is a clever man. The high-profile Alberta social conservative leader puts careful thought into what he says and how he says it. A lawyer by profession, he constructs his sentences precisely and deliberately. He knows exactly what he is saying when he says something. So one has to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP leader’s tweet fumbles response to Islamophobic group’s harassment of worshipers at Edmonton mosque
Perhaps United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney needs to engage someone new to compose his tweets for him. Mr. Kenney is a bright guy, so I’m assuming for reasons that will soon become apparent he doesn’t come up with his own contributions to Twitter, the antisocial medium. Last fall, when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Religious schools defy David Eggen; John Carpay hangs in; and Jason Kenney isn’t the Decider after all!
NDP Education Minister David Eggen’s warning yesterday he could defund 28 religious private schools if they won’t obey the law and implement diversity policies and UCP Leader Jason Kenney’s refusal to expel a high-profile social conservative party member who compared pride flags with Nazi swastikas seem like separate stories. They
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Considering Carpay’s Folly: Why can’t Alberta Conservatives stay away from the Lake of Fire?
Why can’t Alberta conservatives learn to stay away from the Lake of Fire? This is a question for the ages. Latest to bathe in the scalding waves of the fiery lake is social conservative litigator and Jason Kenney confidante John Carpay. Mr. Carpay was a principal player in the unsuccessful
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Effort by religious schools to halt enforcement of Alberta’s GSA protection law tossed out by Medicine Hat judge
An effort by the so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms to get a court injunction to halt enforcement of the Alberta law that prevents schools from informing parents when students join gay-straight alliances fell short in a written ruling of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in Medicine Hat yesterday.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: U.S.-based Atlas Network, which has ‘reshaped political power in country after country,’ a funder of Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a self-described non-partisan tax watchdog and taxpayer advocacy group once headed by Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney, has always been tight-lipped about the sources of its own funding. This may be mildly ironic, given its vocal demands for transparency in government policy, but as a private organization
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Money from wealthy right-wing ideologues helps fuel group challenging Alberta’s protections for GSA members
The so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms achieved its first goal yesterday, generating plenty of publicity for itself and its social conservative supporters at the first day of its court bid to overturn the Alberta NDP Government’s legislative effort to protect students who join gay-straight alliances. By the sound of
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The Attack on Gay-Straight Alliances Continues
Last week the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) brought a court application challenging the constitutionality of changes to the School Act which are intended to support the establishment of gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in Alberta schools. Just to get our bearings, the JCCF is a non-profit legal organization run by
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Bill 24 passes, making it hard for Alberta schools to obstruct gay-straight alliances and illegal to out members to their parents
PHOTOS: Alberta Education Minister David Eggen, whose Bill 24, An Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances, was passed by the Alberta Legislature yesterday. Below: UCP Leader Jason Kenney, former Alberta Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman, and social conservative activist John Carpay. Bill 24, An Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances, passed third and
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Unsuccessful at the polls, Alberta market fundamentalists want the courts to impose two-tier health care
What heath care for the rest of us will look like if the market fundamentalist right’s battle for insurance companies’ “rights” ever succeeds. Below: Private health-care advocate John Carpay; Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne; Alberta Liberal Health Critic David Swann. Not satisfied with their failure in the Alberta provincial election,
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