PHOTOS: Environmentalist Tzeporah Berman, whose appointment to the Alberta Government’s climate panel prompted a full-scale freak-out by the province’s right, which, apparently, sees her as, well, an Orc. Below the Orc: B.C. Premier Christy Clark a…
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Alberta Politics: Jason Kenney makes it official with fresh-faced extras and unattributed tribute to the Nixon Era
PHOTOS: A screen grab from yesterday’s video feed of Jason Kenney announcing his candidacy for the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party in Calgary. Immediately behind him is Caitlyn Madliner, who has prominently figured in anti-PC…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: July 6 is Jason Kenney Day in Alberta Politics
Conservative Member of Parliament Jason Kenney is expected to announce his candidacy for the leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta tomorrow, July 6, in Calgary, deliver a speech in Grande Prairie that evening and then trave…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: You take the high road and we’ll take the low road: The Kenney Cabal’s strategy to grab back power in Alberta for the right
PHOTOS: Jason Kenney with Preston Manning. Below: Likely Kenney opponents Sandra Jansen, another possible PC candidate, and Brian Jean, leader of the Wildrose Party in happier times. In many ways, as was said here two days ago, Jason Kenney is a miscas…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Preston Manning is now publicly, openly at the centre of Alberta’s latest ‘unite-the-right’ effort
PHOTOS: The Ambassadors reimagined. Actual unite-the-righters appearing with Preston Manning may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: The real Preston Manning, Wildrose Opposition Leader Brian Jean, “united alternative” Ambassador Rick Orman, …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tory victory in Calgary-Greenway riding turns ‘unite the right’ merger on Wildrose terms into political roadkill
PHOTOS: Progressive Conservative candidate Prabhdeep Gill, centre, celebrates after last night’s results were announced in the Calgary-Greenway by-election. (CBC photo.) Below: The night’s biggest loser, arguably, was Opposition Leader Brian Jean. …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Unite-the-right poll results ring alarm bells and raise interesting questions, none of which are asked by the media
PHOTOS: A pollster asks a typical Albertan if she’d prefer to vote for a united Wildrose-PC Party … or the NDP. Actual Alberta pollsters and their subjects may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Pollster Quito Maggi, Alberta Prosperity Fund …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadian market-fundamentalist right looks to ‘Super PACs’ like so-called Alberta Prosperity Fund to grab back power
PHOTOS: ‘Super PACs’ have access to corporate vaults, and very little control or oversight of what they do with the money they’re given. Below: Alberta Prosperity Fund Director Barry McNamar, APF Advisory Council members Dave Rutherford and Camer…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Tax Increases no longer Political Kryptonite in Canadian Elections
It’s been a rough year for Conservatives in Canada as two major elections in six months have resulted in major blows for Conservative parties in Alberta and Ottawa. In May 2015, former federal cabinet minister and bank vice-president Jim Prentice, a political moderate… Continue Reading →
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How weird is this? Calgary Chamber of Commerce spokesperson praises Rachel Notley’s NDP government
PHOTOS: Premier Designate Rachel Notley, in orange shoes, with her caucus. Below: Scott Crockatt, the Calgary Chamber’s communications and marketing director; Manning Centre polemicist Colin Craig. Well, these are strange times indeed when the official spokesperson for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce can extol the potential for Alberta’s just-elected New
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Collapse of rickety Wildrose coalition of market fanatics and religious fundamentalists could be bad-news/good-news story for Alberta’s NDP
A recent meeting of the Wildrose Party Legislative caucus. Actual members of the official Opposition party may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: NDP Leader Rachel Notley and Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. Monday’s bombshell that the rickety coalition of ideological market-perfection fanatics and social-conservative religious fundamentalists called the Wildrose Party
Continue readingAlberta Diary: There’s no better time than right now for non-union employees of the City of St. Albert to look for union protection
St. Albert’s 2013 civic election campaign was pretty dirty, as the illustration above, grabbed from an anonymous blog during the campaign, illustrates. Since those kind of tactics seemed to work, the next one, in October 2017, is likely to be dirtier still. Below: St. Albert Mayor Nolan Crouse, Spruce Grove-St.
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Rob Anders, Canada’s Worst MP, has been handed his great big hat a second time
Calgary West MP Rob Anders waves farewell from the back of a pickup truck, a type of vehicle that along with firearms was numbered among his most loved things. Below: Nomination victor Martin Shields; Mr. Anders in one of his favourite poses, with a great big pistol, and asleep in
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Waitin’ for the end of the world … Hear, O Ontario! Mr. Manning will be with you momentarily
Preston Manning readies himself before the mirror of his Seventh Floor office at the Prophetic Market Institute in Calgary, the Calgary skyline in the background obscured by a June rainstorm, one of those June rainstorms, as he ponders the frightening meaning of last Thursday’s Ontario election. Actual Alberta market fundamentalists
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: On "Toll Lanes" In Calgary
I see that the geniuses at the Manning Foundation have put on their thinking caps and burned some extra wood to come up with this idea. The Manning Foundation is recommending tolls on some Calgary roads, such as Glenmore Trail, Crowchild Trail and Deerfoot Trail. “Folks are spending more time in
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Municipal Voters: Partisan Intervention is Coming Your Way
Did you mistakenly think that the Manning Centre’s attempt to bend the 2013 Calgary municipal election to more “conservative” was an aberration? You would be quite wrong. The author of the Metro News article is considerably more charitable than I am about the matter – but then again, he was
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Election 2015: The Crossing of the Curves
Andre Turcotte – the Curves Tracker Sometimes a picture is really worth a thousand words, much to the consternation of the conservatives huddled in Ottawa for the annual Manning Centre rightwing navel-gazing gathering. Pollster Turcotte presented a series of graphs showing what a poll of a thousand Canadians today think
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: The Future Of The CPC
Andrew Coyne made an excellent point in his column about the Manning Networking Conference that the Manning Centre is hosting in Ottawa: So this is what a Conservative convention looks like. After that bizarre lockdown in Calgary last fall – reporters harassed and penned in at every turn, the prime minister’s
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Some Glum Faces At The Manning Centre
Clearly, it was not the kind of news they had gone to the Manning Centre to hear, and, it seems, they did not receive it with particular good grace. As reported in The Star, presenting the results of a poll he conducted in December, André Turcotte imparted the following to
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Former federal Tory Chuck Strahl’s lobbying activities break no laws, but highlight a problem
Lobbyists gather in the lobby of the House of Commons at Westminster. Below: Politician turned lobbyist Chuck Strahl, B.C. Lobbying Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. Notwithstanding his classification as a Designated Public Office Holder under the federal Lobbying Act, former Reform Party, Canadian Alliance and Conservative office holder Chuck Strahl is breaking
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