Social media is abuzz with reports of United Conservative Party staffers and at least one UCP MLA enjoying vacations abroad notwithstanding the federal government’s pleas for Canadians to cancel all travel during the coronavirus pandemic. Most mainstream media in Alberta, however, seem to be engaging in an anguished internal debate
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Alberta Politics: Ignoring worried doctors, Jason Kenney sticks with largely voluntary ‘pause’ to keep lid on COVID-19
The pandemic is bad and quickly getting worse in Alberta with 860 new daily cases reported yesterday, but Premier Jason Kenney remains deeply committed to the please-knock-it-off-guys approach to controlling the spread of COVID-19. Only, this time, he really means it. Really! Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Carbon taxes are the Obamacare of Canada: invented, then cynically abandoned, by the right
“Putting a price on carbon” was always going to be unpopular with people who use fossil fuels out of necessity and for fun – viz., a large portion of the population in a well-off northern country that, climate change notwithstanding, still gets pretty cold in the winter. In other words,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There’s a meeting in Calgary tonight, and the people there are going to be very, very angry
Two well-heeled older men who never wanted for anything during their upbringings and now live comfortable, privileged lives will be getting together in Calgary this evening to talk about just how very, very angry they are. The idea of a $15-per-hour minimum wage makes them very, very angry. The idea
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Doug Ford achieves the impossible: he’s gotten Canadians interested in constitutional reform!
Office-holding Conservative politicians and operatives of their well-funded Astro-Turf and think tank support network across Canada have now virtually to a man and woman jumped aboard Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford’s runaway constitutional train, defending his use of Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ override clause to gerrymander electoral districts in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The era of Notwithstanding Clause restraint is over … get used to it!
The era of Notwithstanding Clause restraint is over. Get used to it. To borrow someone else’s felicitous metaphor, Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was always an unexploded bomb lurking in the rubble of our country’s constitutional history like a decaying munition under the modern-day pavements
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Notwithstanding common sense, no one should be surprised by Doug Ford’s use of Section 33 to shore up his lousy law
No one should be astonished Ontario Premier Doug Ford plans to use the Canadian Constitution’s Notwithstanding Clause to wiggle out of a judge’s scathing ruling declaring his hurried and sloppy legislation to cut Toronto City Council from 47 to 25 members to be unconstitutional. Mr. Ford and a lot of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Surely it’s time for us in the reality based community to act on our convictions as decisively as conservatives do
Surely it’s time for the reality based community – that’s us, my progressive friends – to start making some new democratic realities! In 2015, as you will recall, many of us overcame our reservations and voted for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals on the basis of his firm, clear, unequivocal promise to
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: See Doug. See Doug Run.
Bullies, con artists and cowards all have something in common: they live in fear that they will be exposed for what they are – weak, manipulative people who try to mask their massive inadequacies through bluster, empty rhetoric and false bravado. That Doug Ford, leader of the Ontario PCs, seems
Continue readingMaple-Flavoured Politics: The Hudak Campaign: The Liberal and NDP Secret Weapon
I can think of only five possible reasons for the way Tim Hudak and the PC team conducted the early part of their Ontario election campaign: Highly trained operatives from the Liberal and/or NDP camps infiltrated the PC team and are now running its campaign. The PCs came to realize
Continue readingMaple-Flavoured Politics: Tim Hudak: The million-job man. As if.
One of the first promises that Tim Hudak, leader of the Ontario PC party, made in his race to become Premier of Ontario was that he was going to create one-million jobs. Actually, he was pitching that before the election was called. How? Well, there aren’t a lot of details
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Double Dare Ya
Apparently, instead of taking his position as leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party seriously by articulating responsible policy, young Tim prefers to engage in children’s games: Tory leader Tim Hudak dares Liberals to call election ‘Nuff said? Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: So Many Stories, So Little Time
Most days that I post a blog entry, I choose my topic based on my reaction to news stories. Today, two disparate pieces seem particularly noteworthy, one that confirms what all but the profoundly naive know about government, the other about yet again another police incident that, thanks to the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: On Tim Hudak’s Evangelical Political Fervour
Crazed clerics are not the only ones possessed of an evangelical fervour. Young Tim Hudak, leader (at least for now) of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, is well-known for wanting to bring back some of that old-time religion in the form of union-bashing and dismantlement, something he likes to describe
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: If Your Name Is Tim Hudak, This Can’t Be Good
When you are leading a major provincial political party, it is never a good sign when the country’s largest-circulating newpaper makes editorial sport of you: Memo to Tim Hudak: Please stay as Ontario PC leader: Editorial You lost an Ontario election in 2011 that you were to supposed to win;
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Political Contempt For The Electorate Continues
Reiterating one of his favorite themes of late, Tim Hudak, the never-ready-for-prime-time-politcal leader of the Ontario Tories, blamed the ‘union-bosses’ for denying him victory in last night’s Kitchener-Waterloo by-election. Blaming a “tsunami” of public sector union bosses who bought votes in a riding held by his party for two decades,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Young Tim’s Latest Attempt At Policy-Making
Because, I guess, young Master Hudak believes in work-place democracy. Can the workhouses be far behind? Recommend this Post
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