It’s sound advice in private and public life to restrict yourself to one nutty conspiracy theory at a time, lest folks start to wonder if you’re the one who’s, well, nutty. Take Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party Government in the context of this sensible and widely held rule of thumb.
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Alberta Politics: Author Andrew Nikiforuk tells a bleak tale of squandered opportunities, wilful blindness on energy policy
By adopting an energy policy founded on low royalties and pipeline development, the NDP government of Premier Rachel Notley squandered an opportunity to implement a program that could have strengthened Alberta’s economy while preparing it to deal with the inevitable decline in fossil fuel demand, author Andrew Nikiforuk told the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calculating the winners and losers in yesterday’s Trans Mountain Pipeline debacle
No doubt they were chuckling discreetly at Kinder Morgan headquarters in Houston yesterday as they counted up their additional spare change. They had, after all, just managed to sell off the Trans Mountain Pipeline to the Liberal government led by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, backstopped by Premier Rachel Notley’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Nothing has changed since February except that Canada now really does own the Trans Mountain Pipeline – so keep it public!
If the Trans Mountain Pipeline is so essential to the economic wellbeing of Canada and the price of Alberta bitumen is going to rise dramatically as a result of our ability to get that stuff to “tidewater,” why the heck is the federal government, having paid a premium to buy
Continue readingAlberta Politics: CLAC’s big role in the Trans Mountain expansion: Another political pipeline problem in the making?
If Canadians are going to have to pay the $10 to $15-billion cost of expanding the Trans Mountain Pipeline, it’s important they aren’t bound by side deals that are not in the public interest made by the project’s former corporate owner. When Kinder Morgan Inc. was masterminding the controversial megaproject
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: We bought a pipeline! How the federal government’s purchase of the Trans Mountain Pipeline impacts the key players in this never-ending dispute
We own a pipeline! Well, not yet. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced yesterday that the federal government plans to purchase the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan Inc. by August 2018 if another investor cannot be found. The federal government has committed to help the Texas-based corporation find a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Trudeau Liberals call the opposition’s bluff and ‘nationalize’ (sort of, maybe) the Trans Mountain Pipeline
OK, so Ottawa’s going to buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline for $4.5 billion and run it as a Crown corporation. That’s a good start. (Caveats to follow.) Theoretically, it could ensure transparency and accountability, even responsibility, to a business in which the private sector adamantly refuses to deliver any such
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Pipeline politics in Canada circa 2018: Destroying the rule of law in order to save it
Obviously, we have to destroy the rule of law in order to save it! With Kinder Morgan Inc.’s do-or-drop-it deadline set to arrive on Thursday, that seems to be the idea behind the argument advanced by the increasingly furious Canadian pipeline lobby that the Trans Mountain Expansion project must be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shark Jumping in Alberta: NDP and UCP strive to outdo each other with ridiculous statements
As the Alberta Government’s fight with British Columbia over the Trans Mountain Pipeline takes on comic opera proportions, Premier Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party and Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party Opposition appear to be struggling to see which one can come up with the most ridiculous things to say about
Continue readingAlberta Politics: 11 days from the brink, and Rachel Notley’s dice roll brings back memories of Mulroney and Meech
Rachel Notley, Alberta’s tough NDP premier who has clearly concluded her government’s survival depends on there being shovels in the ground building a pipeline by the time she asks the lieutenant governor to call an election next year, rolls the dice a lot like Brian Mulroney. Well, not exactly like
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘NRA Strategy’ to block connection of climate change dots won’t work when the climate disaster’s in B.C.
As fear rises in British Columbia this week along with the province’s record floodwaters, the likelihood B.C. voters will connect the dots between man-made climate change and “natural” catastrophes is rising too. Politically speaking, this is not exactly good news for the determined advocates in Alberta and Ottawa of aggressive
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Dispatches from the front lines of Alberta politics: Jason Kenney reveals his nasty streak … again
My, my, Jason Kenney’s vow to become the new Mr. Congeniality of Confederation sure didn’t last very long, did it? Twitterists are having fun comparing the Alberta Opposition leader’s response to a gentle jab by Premier Rachel Notley in the Alberta Legislature Tuesday afternoon with what he had to say
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta is not Texas North, Canada is not Kazakhstan, and Kinder Morgan’s big brains in Houston must’ve known it
There are a few Albertans who happily imagine this place is Texas North. Alas for those who do, and notwithstanding the media stereotypists who encourage this nonsense, we are as Canadian around here as folks in any other Western province. Maybe more so, since so many people from other parts
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tory canoe and Trudeau too* – Liberals take advantage of Jason Kenney’s “Canada is broken” Tweet
Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kennedy’s now famous “Canada is broken” Tweet a week ago may turn out to have been the symbolic starting point of the 2019 federal election campaign. Canada is broken. https://t.co/7tVwbAKPmc — Jason Kenney (@jkenney) April 15, 2018 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his federal Liberals were
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A Bill to Squeeze British Columbia Till Its Pips Squeak introduced in Alberta Legislature – but can it pass constitutional muster?
Is it just me, or is almost everyone from Alberta quoted in the media sounding a little overwrought these days? Yesterday, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Energy Minister Margaret McQuaig-Boyd rolled out Bill 12, rather tendentiously dubbed the Preserving Canada’s Economic Prosperity Act, the sole purpose of which seems to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: All’s fair in politics and the oil business, but the claim Canada’s facing a constitutional crisis is just politics
The fact the federal and Alberta governments were unable yesterday to reach an agreement with British Columbia on proceeding with the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project does not mean Canada is facing a constitutional crisis. However, it doesn’t preclude one happening eventually. Nevertheless, it’s important to state this clearly because
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Despite NDP stamp of approval, pipeline rally looked and sounded like UCP event
The situation may have felt normal to the cadre of Opposition United Conservative Party MLAs there, but I imagine some of the NDP backbenchers huddled on the steps of the Legislature in Edmonton yesterday afternoon felt pretty uncomfortable. If not, they darn well should’ve. I’m not talking about the effects
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Despite NDP stamp of approval, pipeline rally on Legislature’s steps looked and sounded like a UCP event
PHOTOS: Part of the pro-pipeline crowd in front of the Alberta Legislature Thursday afternoon, with a couple of brave Indigenous counter-protesters visible in the foreground. Below: Federal Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi endured jeers, and Alberta Trade Minister Deron Bilous tried to fire up the crowd. The situation may have felt
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Kinder Morgan pipeline brouhaha shows why it’s time for Canada to pull the plug on NAFTA
PHOTOS: Kinder Morgan Inc. headquarters in Houston Tex. (Photo: H-town-visually.blogspot.ca). Below: Author and journalist Andrew Nikoforuk, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, and lighter-than-air Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. We’ve got the chance, thanks be unto Donald J. Trump. Obviously, it’s time to get the heck out of NAFTA! Why would I say
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why demanding Ottawa intervene to bend B.C. to Alberta’s will is probably a terrible idea … from Alberta’s point of view
PHOTOS: Perfidious Pierre, villain of the National Energy Program, as the late prime minister is understood by all good Albertans to have been (Photo: Wikimedia Commons). Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney, and British Columbia Premier John Horgan (Photo: B.C. NDP).
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