The Alberta Government and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees both announced yesterday they’ve signed a tentative agreement on a new collective agreement covering the union’s approximately 23,000 members who work directly for the provincial government. This is the group of public employees the union accurately calls “front-line government service
Continue readingTag: Peter Lougheed
Alberta 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 readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Kinder Morgan drops a Sunday afternoon bombshell in the never-ending Trans Mountain Pipeline dispute
“Alberta is prepared to do whatever it takes to get this pipeline built” – Rachel Notley It was a busy Sunday afternoon in Alberta politics. We appear to have reached another stage in what feels like a never-ending political dispute over the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline from
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney find common ground, sort of … on dubious pipeline posturing
PHOTOS: Kinder Morgan Inc.’s Trans Mountain Pipeline. (Photo: Handout from Kinder Morgan Canada.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney, U of A economist Andrew Leach, and British Columbia Premier John Horgan. I guess we can understand why Jason Kenney acts like Alberta has all the powers of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s NDP borrowed more than export-cut threats from Peter Lougheed for yesterday’s Throne Speech
PHOTOS: Premier Rachel Notley speaks with well wishers in the Alberta Legislature Rotunda yesterday after her government’s Speech from the Throne was read by Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell. Below: Finance Minister Joe Ceci, Ms. Mitchell and Premier Peter Lougheed, back in the day. (Mitchell and Lougheed photos: Government of Alberta.)
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Is just talking about restricting diluted bitumen in pipelines an unconstitutional impediment to trade?
PHOTOS: Some of the Fathers of Confederation looking, well, fatherly. Below: Steely eyed Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, B.C. Premier John Horgan, and would-be premier Jason Kenney. In case you missed it, a new constitutional doctrine seems to be developing in Alberta. To wit: the idea that creating business uncertainty violates
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Mandel, Janson Kenney and the Messiah Strategy Alberta conservatives are confident will save their bacon
PHOTOS: Alberta’s latest would-be conservative leader, as seen by party insiders and supporters. (Actually, it’s Bonaparte. Alberta conservative leaders may not appear exactly imagined by Jacques-Louis David.) Below: Would-be Tory messiahs Stephen Mandel and the late Jim Prentice, and Jason Kenney. Below them: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Stephen Mandel, former
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The UCP may be a different party, but ts policy document shows it’s peddling the same old … stuff
PHOTOS: Among other things, the aspirational UCP policy document would have you believe the party could balance environmental protection and the wants of recreational vehicle users if it were the government. What do you think that means? (Photo, for illustrative purposes only, grabbed from SHERP ATV.) Below: Alberta premiers Rachel
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Week 1 Update from the Calgary-Lougheed by-election
Photo: Former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed. The Calgary-Lougheed electoral district is named after Lougheed. It has been one week since the Calgary-Lougheed by-election was called. The by-election is being held on Dec. 14, 2017, but voters in this district also have the option of voting in advance polls on Dec. 6,
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Get ready for a by-election in Calgary-Lougheed
Photo: A map of the Calgary-Lougheed constituency. With Calgary-Lougheed MLA Dave Rodney expected to resign tomorrow in order to provide new United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney an opportunity to enter the Legislative Assembly, a by-election will need to be called by May 1, 2018. The exact timing of the
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Jason Kenney Was Just Kidding about Peter Lougheed…really?
In 1999 a young Jason Kenney told the National Post that “Klein realized Alberta could no longer afford the neo-Stalinist make-work projects of the Lougheed and Getty years, and he set about to distance himself from them.” This is an inflammatory comment of Twilight Zone proportions, particularly given the lengths
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Right-wing propaganda instantly pivots to explain away progressive successes Monday in Alberta municipal elections
PHOTOS: Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who overcame a full-blown attack by all the usual suspects on the right in Monday’s Alberta-wide municipal elections, addressing the biennial convention of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions in Calgary in June. Below: Bill Smith, Mr. Nenshi’s main conservative challenger, who didn’t do as
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In a pragmatic move, Premier Rachel Notley appoints former Tory minister from Calgary to infrastructure portfolio
PHOTOS: Newly appointed NDP Infrastructure Minister Sandra Jansen speaks during yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony at Government House in Edmonton. With her are new Parliamentary Secretaries Jessica Littlewood and Annie McKitrick, left and right, and Premier Rachel Notley (Photo: Government of Alberta). Below: Pierre Trudeau and Peter Lougheed, looking pretty friendly for
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: New book tells the story of the rise and fall of (Pierre) Trudeaumania in Alberta
There is perhaps no greater myth in Alberta politics than that the National Energy Program, which all Albertans are told to believe brought untold devastation to the oil sector and salted the earth for the federal Liberals in this province for decades to come. Looking beyond the myth, most Albertans
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Between the lines, Calgary MLA Rick Fraser’s UCP resignation letter is an indictment of Wildrose-ified party
PHOTOS: Rick Fraser in a screenshot from the Legislature of Alberta. Below: Legislative loners Greg Clark, David Swann and Richard Starke, Calgary MP Kent Hehr, and environmentalist and former Green Party candidate Chris Turner. Let’s cut to the chase about what Calgary MLA Rick Fraser’s decision to quit the United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thank you, Ralph! While Alberta awaits the Green Apocalypse, Norwegian version of Heritage Fund hits $1-trillion US
PHOTOS: A Norwegian oil rig in the North Sea. (Photo: Norsk Teknisk Museum, Wikimedia Commons.) Below: The late Alberta premier Peter Lougheed, who founded the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund; the late Alberta premier Ralph Klein, who gave every one of us Albertans enough money to buy an iPod and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former PC leadership candidate Richard Starke to UCP Mothership: A PC I was elected and a PC I’ll remain!
Photos: Vermilion-Lloydminster Progressive Conservative PC MLA and former Tory cabinet minister Richard Starke. (Photo from Dr. Starke’s Facebook page.) Below: Alberta conservative rivals and temporary co-leaders, Brian Jean and Jason Kenney (Photos: CBC); Wildrose House Leader and interim United Conservative Party Leader Nathan Cooper (Photo: Wikimedia Commons). Richard Starke, it
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With three right-wing political parties now possible instead of one, has Jason Kenney’s roll of the dice crapped out?
PHOTOS: Jason Kenney, as he may see himself, gets ready to roll the unite-the-right dice. Actual Alberta conservative politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. (Photo: Publicity shot for Sky Full of Moon, 1952.) Below: The real Mr. Kenney, plus the real Katherine O’Neill, Greg Clark and Stephen Mandel. Snake
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Mapping the ‘Kleintastrophe’ – veteran journalist and researcher tracks energy policies of past Alberta PC governments
PHOTOS: Alberta premier Ralph Klein at the start of the Kleintastrophe in 1992. (Screenshot of CBC broadcast.) Below: Calgary journalist and researcher Gillian Steward, former Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft, the best premier Alberta never had, and would-be United Conservative Party leadership candidate Doug Schweitzer. As the years Ralph Klein
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley’s tough talk on pipelines evokes the Peter Lougheed Era of energy policy confrontation
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley at yesterday’s news conference in Edmonton. (Photo: Chris Schwarz, Government of Alberta) Below: Earth scientist David Hughes (Post Carbon Institute photo), B.C. Premier Christy Clark (B.C. Government photo), and B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan. Using language that, intentionally or not, evoked the Peter Lougheed Era
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