It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, what with right-wing purists jumping all over him for canning Maxime Bernier from the Opposition party’s front bench. In addition to being the normally ineffectual Mr. Scheer’s chief rival for the hearts and minds of the country’s
Continue readingTag: Liberal Party of Canada
The Disaffected Lib: Did the Trudeau Liberals Use Hacked Data to Win in 2015?
What role did Victoria’s AggregateIQ and perhaps Cambridge Analytica play in the Trudeau Liberals’ come-from-behind triumph to majority in the 2015 federal election? An article in the National Observer suggests that the Liberals may have received hacked data unwittingly or otherwise.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Day We Burned Ole D.C. Down … I blame Stephen Harper for Canada’s latest trade troubles!
I blame Stephen Harper. Face it, Canada’s latest trade troubles wouldn’t have happened without him! If Mr. Harper hadn’t spent $30 million or so of our tax money “commemorating” the War of 1812, who would’ve known our side burned down the White House and sundry other buildings in Washington, D.C.,
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 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: 28 years and counting, Conservatives in Alberta and Ontario continue to misrepresent Bob Rae’s record
Now that he’s sworn to be nice to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Opposition Leader Jason Kenney is running against Bob Rae. Ralph Klein was a high school dropout & TV reporter before becoming Mayor. Bob Rae was a Rhodes scholar & accomplished MP before becoming Premier. Who do you think
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: Embarrassing honorary degree stories: ‘Did no one warn them?’
You have to ask why universities bother handing out honorary degrees like bonbons when you think about all the trouble it can cause them. Consider the embarrassing 2012 case of the Israeli university that came up with a scheme to give an honorary degree to an unsavoury right-wing foreign politician
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Column: Liberals and sexual harassment
Forgiveness. When is it owed, politically? By whom, and when? Who should dispense it, and who should receive it? Not abstract questions. Not, certainly, on the weekend that federal Liberals were gathering in Halifax for their annual convention. Not in the case of Liberal MP Francis Drouin – who stands
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: New Kinder Morgan exit strategy hint emerges as tangled Trans Mountain tale twists the national knickers
Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s Conservative Opposition party, must’ve struggled yesterday to keep a smirk off his face as he bloviated piously about Kinder Morgan Inc. President Steven Kean’s rumination the time may be nigh to pull the plug on the controversial Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project that has the
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: 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).
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Column: the Canadian connection
It’s the biggest political scandal in the world. And it involves a bunch of Canadians. For quite some time now, it’s been known that Vladimir Putin’s Russia – and assorted other outlaw states, like North Korea – have been engaged in acts of cyber-war against democracies around the globe. Long
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The two faces of Jason … how’s managing simultaneous provincial & federal political campaigns going for Janus Kenney?
PHOTOS: Alberta Opposition leader Jason Kenney at a recent get-together with his former boss, Stephen Harper (Photo: Grabbed from Mr. Kenney’s Facebook page). And guess who Mr. Kenney was attacking on his Facebook page last night? See below. Also below: Sir Charles Tupper and Calgary NDP MLA Graham Sucha. Jason
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A court has now ruled in favour of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, but the power of social license is yet to be tested
PHOTOS: Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May under arrest Friday at the site of the Kinder Morgan pipeline terminal in Burnaby, B.C. (Photo: Rafferty Baker, CBC). Below: Burnaby South MP Kennedy Stewart before his arrest at the anti-pipeline protest (Photo: Kennedy Stewart Website), Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and B.C. Environment
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Column: as with Trump, what if they won by cheating?
It almost seems kind of quaint, doesn’t it? Back when the Conservative Party was running things, the commentariat were apoplectic about something called CIMS: the Constituent Information Management System (CIMS). “Tory database draws ire of privacy experts,” went one CTV News headline. An “unethical invasion of Canadians’ privacy,” thundered Conservative-turned-Liberal
Continue reading