Alberta Premier Jason Kenney wants the United States government to pay off his gambling debts! I kid you not. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent yesterday and published this morning on social media, Mr. Kenney demanded the Canadian Government press the new U.S. Administration of President Joseph
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Northern Currents –: Why the Liberal Party is Losing the Youth Vote
Many of us voted for Trudeau, giving him a majority government for four years. But since his 2015 legalization promise, Justin Trudeau has done little to help the generation that got him elected. He is losing the youth vote. The post Why the Liberal Party is Losing the Youth Vote
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta premier piously pleads for restoration of order in Washington, smooth ascension of Joe Biden to U.S. presidency
“Alberta has always had close ties to the United States, so it’s painful to watch the bizarre scenes unfolding at the U.S. Capitol,” Jason Kenney lamented yesterday, presumably tweeting from a secure command post atop the office building that overlooks the Alberta Legislature. “Political violence is always wrong, especially when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: More than 1,000 Albertans have died from COVID-19, half of them in the past month
Albertans learned yesterday the grim toll from COVID-19 in the province has now passed 1,000 deaths. This is a terrible tragedy but it need surprise no one, given humanity’s extensive knowledge of the science of infectious disease and the way the Kenney Government nevertheless dragged its feet each step of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: 10 months in the life of Jason Kenney: from bitter foe of illegal protests to fierce defender of protesters’ rights, or something
What a difference a year makes! Not even a year: Ten months in the life of Jason Kenney. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Ten months ago, blockades in support of opposition by members of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation to pipeline construction on ancestral lands in north-central British
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Wells writes that the Libs’ latest climate announcement represents at least some break from their tendency to take the easy way out on tough policy choices, while Canadians for Tax Fairness offers a thumbs-up to the first national plan to meet any
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Carl Meyer writes about Denmark’s move to finally and fully shut down oil and gas production as part of a transition to clean energy. And Abacus finds strong public support for Canada to also be a world leader in that process – even
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why did China’s government pluck the Two Michaels from among 300,000 Canadians in China?
Soon after Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver two years ago at the behest of U.S. authorities, Chinese state security officers arrested two Canadian men, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. It was clear from the get-go the arrest on Dec.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will Jason Kenney risk cracks in his UCP coalition by enforcing new COVID-19 measures?
Better late than never, the Kenney Government sharply changed course yesterday and announced much tougher lockdown measures that have the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19. These will include closing bars, lounges, casinos, hair salons, libraries, and sports studios, restricting restaurants to take-out sales, mandating indoor masking and at-home
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada should quit stalling to let the U.S. save face and send Meng Wanzhou home now
Anyone who still imagines the Trump Administration’s partly successful effort to get Canada to seize and extradite Meng Wanzhou to the land of chaos and COVID had anything to do with “the rule of law” needs to consider the implications of yesterday’s report in the Wall Street Journal that the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Gary Mar on Keystone XL: Likely the only guy who can save Jason Kenney’s Keystone XL pipe-dream is Justin Trudeau
It may not quite be impossible for Jason Kenney to see his dream of completing the Keystone XL Pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast on his watch come true, but it will be almighty difficult with Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. What’s more, if the project is to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s the pandemic, stupid!
Another day, another COVID-19 infection record broken. This time, 1,155. There are 11 new deaths. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Health Minister Tyler Shandro, as they appeared at yesterday’s news conference. Is it just me, or is there a whiff of panic in the cold Alberta air? Not among the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s progressive politicians need to pay attention to Erin O’Toole’s pivot to unions
If Erin O’Toole was sincere when he surprised everyone last month by bemoaning the decline of unions, you’d think he’d publicly rebuke Premier Jason Kenney for his ongoing campaign to turn Alberta into a right-to-work state. So far, though, the new Conservative Party of Canada leader has had nothing to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It was good luck not good management that saved us from COVID-19 last spring; bad management is killing us now
Sunday was Alberta’s deadliest pandemic day to date. Twenty people died from COVID-19. There were 860 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total of active cases to 10,031. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). And one gets the feeling, given the Kenney Government’s determinedly lackadaisical response to the pandemic,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ignoring worried doctors, Jason Kenney sticks with largely voluntary ‘pause’ to keep lid on COVID-19
The pandemic is bad and quickly getting worse in Alberta with 860 new daily cases reported yesterday, but Premier Jason Kenney remains deeply committed to the please-knock-it-off-guys approach to controlling the spread of COVID-19. Only, this time, he really means it. Really! Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On jurisdictional barriers
Scott Gilmore rightly points out the need for a far more clear national response to COVID-19. But I’d think we can expand on the point with reference to a couple of other familiar jurisdictional disputes – even as those also highlight which provincial governments need to be called out as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Bruce Arthur writes that Doug Ford’s already-pitiful response to COVID-19 is getting worse as Ontario opens up businesses in the midst of a deadly wave. And Adam Hunter reports that Saskatchewan businesses are worried about Scott Moe’s refusal to require masks anywhere other
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Overwhelmed by new cases, Alberta outsources contact tracing to people testing positive for COVID-19
Overwhelmed by a rising tide of new daily COVID-19 cases – “about 800” were reported yesterday by Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw – Alberta Health Services has announced it will no longer notify most close contacts of Albertans who test positive for the disease. Starting today, if you
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s the UCP Government that’s been blocking Albertans’ access to Ottawa’s COVID Alert app, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says
We now know with reasonable certainty it’s the United Conservative Party Government that’s been responsible for blocking Albertans from having access to the federal COVID Alert smartphone app. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it clear in a radio interview in Edmonton yesterday morning that Ottawa views Alberta’s UCP Government as
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How propaganda became memory: Pierre Trudeau, Alberta and the National Energy Program
On this day 40 years ago, prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s finance minister and deputy PM, Allan MacEachen, rose in Parliament to introduce a new national budget. Warning that Canada could become increasingly dependent on foreign supplies of oil and subject to the vagaries of the world oil market, Mr. MacEachen
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