The United Conservative Party’s knee-jerk vow to opt out of the national pharmacare program agreed to by the Liberal and NDP caucuses in Parliament last week is encountering stiff headwinds from an unexpected point of the political compass. Calgary Chamber of Commerce President Deborah Yedlin (Photo: Calgary Chamber of Commerce).
Continue readingTag: Pierre Trudeau
Alberta Politics: Occupation of Canada’s national capital by a lawless mob must end forthwith
Am I the only Canadian outside Ottawa who thinks this bullshit in our national capital has gone on long enough? Am I the only Canadian who recognizes that the mob now occupying the area around Parliament Hill does not have the interests of Canadians or Canadian democracy at heart? “Just
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Derrick O’Keefe writes about the possibilities raised by the B.C. NDP’s majority election win – as well as a need for far more ambition to achieve them. – Elise von Scheel reports on new polling results showing that no matter how desperately
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
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Canada Day! Or, as the UCP would have it in some corners of rural Alberta, Grumpy Dominion Day
Happy Canada Day! Alberta is the only place in Canada, I’d wager, where someone who was barely out of diapers when our country’s national holiday was renamed Canada Day would make the point they really think it oughtta still be Dominion Day. But these are strange times and Wild Rose
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The state of the art of Conservative victimhood in Alberta: Cue the violins! Here comes the Buffalo Declaration!
Cue the violins! No one does victimhood like an Alberta Conservative contemplating the prospect of another term in Opposition overlooking the Ottawa River. Michelle Rempel Garner, the Blocker Queen of Twitter and Conservative MP for the monochromatic suburban wasteland of Calgary Nose Hill, apparently wants us to think she is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Are secret mandatory government bargaining orders the new face of public-sector labour relations in Alberta?
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his government moved yesterday to impose big changes on public sector bargaining in Alberta, not to mention a host of other areas. They’re sure to unleash a flood of litigation. There’s enough stuff embedded in the Harper-Government-style omnibus budget legislation introduced to the Alberta Legislature
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On legacies
For all the campaign talk about how this year’s election campaign could have proven a parallel of the 1972 result, we’ve instead ended up seeing Justin Trudeau repudiate his father’s response to another contentious result. When he won a majority government in 1980 which lacked representation from the western provinces,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Government opts to use sophomoric sarcastic tweets to counter visit by teenaged environmental activist
Apparently uncertain how to respond to news Greta Thunberg will soon visit Alberta, the Kenney Government seems to have opted for adolescent sarcasm as an appropriate counter to the 16-year-Old Swedish environmental activist’s message. “We trust that Ms. Thunberg will recognize Alberta’s leading human rights and environmental standards,” said Premier
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Andrew Scheer’s big National Energy Corridor idea sure sounds a lot like NEP 2.0
Now that we are in the midst of a closely fought federal election campaign, it’s interesting to see the Conservative Party of Canada is open at least to some of the ideas of prime minister Trudeau. I speak, of course, of prime minister Pierre Trudeau and the National Energy Program
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Regardless of Jason Kenney’s tweets, the Corporate Mapping Project is uncovering data of value to citizens
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has a well-known propensity to blame Justin Trudeau for things that were done by Stephen Harper, as the debate over who is responsible for the time it’s taken to complete the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project nicely illustrates. So condemning Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau for the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Canada Day! In a troubled world, Canada stands out as a genuine triumph of bureaucracy
Happy Canada Day! One way or another, our Canada always seems to end up on every list of the world’s Top Ten economies. Granted, we are almost inevitably No. 10 of 10, which may leave the intensely competitive dissatisfied. But, realistically, this also means we’re No. 10 of 193, if
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Another week in the Annals of Diplomacy: in stormy times, half a loaf is better than none
From the sublime to the ridiculous, it would appear, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government will do anything to keep Donald Trump sweet. Consider the dissimilar cases of Meng Wanzhou and Stephanie Clifford. The first we won’t allow to leave Canada, the second we won’t allow to visit. Both, obviously, because
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Toronto Pride and the Inspiring Courage of Justin Trudeau
In the Ukrainian capital of Kiev yesterday about 8,000 people took part in a Pride march, that country's biggest one ever.It was a proud moment for that country's oppressed LGBT community.But police had to protect the marchers from neo-Nazis and other fascist scum who were threatening to attack them.And if
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Uh-oh! Look for unhappy campers: Premier Kenney has vowed to end ‘the War on Fun’
Hey, who can be against ending Canada’s War on Fun? Not me, and not Jason Kenney either by the sound of it. You have to admit, though, the Alberta premier’s announcement yesterday that he plans to end what he calls “the War on Fun” by allowing the booze to flow
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Be careful what you wish for, Conservatives: Canadians may like a tougher Trudeau
Memo to Conservatives, New Democrats and others who are crowing about how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to have been revealed as a harsher and less cuddly politician than he has been thought to be till now: Be careful what you wish for. If Mr. Trudeau is revealed as a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Blown off by Jason Kenney’s UCP last fall, former Wildrose MLA Rick Strankman heads for the Independent benches
When this blog’s entirely fictional Vegas oddsmaker Jimmy “The Geek” Porcospino celebrated the first birthday of the United Conservative Party last summer by setting the next year’s resignation odds for each of the party’s remaining caucus members, he gave Drumheller-Stettler MLA Rick Strankman only 20-1 odds of heading for the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Has Trudeau committed treason?’ The answer is no and the question is completely bonkers!
Donna Kennedy-Glans, by all accounts an intelligent and accomplished Alberta Conservative, recently posted and pinned a Tweet asking, “Has Trudeau committed treason?” If her intention was to grab the attention of Alberta’s chattering classes, she succeeded. If she was out for attention, though, I’m not sure she really wanted the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Think rail cars, guns and Liberals, this stuff will hit the fan!
Having bought Canada a pipeline it may or may not want at considerable expense, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to spend political capital on Alberta as well, now saying the federal government is prepared to help the province finance the purchase of additional railroad tanker cars to raise the volume
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Crawford Kilian reviews Christo Aivalis’ The Constant Liberal, and discusses how Justin Trudeau is continuing a family tradition of betraying progressive voters: [Pierre Trudeau] wanted to strengthen unions and workers in general — up to a point. It wasn’t to help the
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