PHOTOS: Former Alberta Health Services CEO and president Vickie Kaminski, who was back in the news yesterday. Below: Former Progressive Conservative health minister Stephen Mandel; NDP health Minister Sarah Hoffman. Vickie Kaminski’s self-justifying …
Continue readingTag: progressive conservative party
Alberta Politics: Acclaimed to party official’s job, social conservative activist Craig Chandler is sure to embarrass Ric McIver and his sad sack PCs
PHOTOS: Craig Chandler – about the closest thing there is to ballot box poison in Alberta. (Photo from Mr. Chandler via the CBC.) Below: Progressive Conservative interim Leader Ric McIver. Craig Chandler – just about the closest thing to ballot box…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former justice Frank Iacobucci’s recommendation proves one thing: Alison Redford haunts us still
PHOTOS: Alison Redford, back in the day. … She haunts us still. Below: Former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci, former Alberta ethics commissioner Neil Wilkinson, Alberta Ethics Commissioner Marguerite Trussler and Parkland Institute E…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Time to share the pain and stop wasting taxpayers’ dollars on elite private and cherry-picking charter schools
PHOTOS: A typical Alberta charter school class, at least as imagined by supporters of the expensive idea. Actual charter and private school students in 2016 may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Progressive Conservative Party interim Leader Ric…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Whatever the outcome, today’s Calgary-Greenway by-election is sure to be a spinner’s dream
PHOTOS: Some of the candidates in today’s Calgary-Greenway by-election. (CBC photo) Below: Manmeet Bhullar, the PC MLA for the riding killed in a highway crash last November, NDP candidate Roop Rai and PC candidate Prabhdeep Gill. Today is the day of…
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Calgary-Greenway Update: Alberta Party sits it out, Larry Heather and Said Abdulbaki run as Independents.
The Alberta Party has decided to not run a candidate in the March 22, 2016 by-election in the Calgary-Greenway constituency. It was a strange choice by the small political party, which brands itself as a centrist alternative. Its leader, Greg Clark, …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of the Alberta Party: A mystery created, a mystery solved
PHOTOS: Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, the party’s sole MLA in the Alberta Legislature. Below: Then-Wildrose leader Danielle Smith during the campaign leading up to the October 2014 “mini-election” and Alberta Party President Pat Cochrane (phot…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Don Getty, premier who battled economic downturn much like today’s, among the last of Alberta’s Red Tory leaders
PHOTOS: Don Getty and Peter Lougheed, going places politically back in the day. Below: Mr. Getty again, and Mr. Lougheed , as professional football players with the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1950s, the former in an Eskimos photo, the latter in a shot sna…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Appointment of Michael Phair as chair U of A Board of Governors sends exactly the right message
PHOTOS: Newly appointed University of Alberta Board of Governors Chair Michael Phair, left, with Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt at yesterday’s announcement (photo grabbed from MLA David Shepherd’s Twitter feed). Below: Former U of A Boa…
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: George Clark’s parking lot putschists deliver an unintended compliment to Alberta’s NDP Government
PHOTOS: Alberta First Plebiscite Warriors leader George Clark, in a screen shot from a video interview shot not long before someone stepped on the hose from his media oxygen supply. Below: Donald Trump and Calgary’s own Ted Cruz, a couple of U.S. pol…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Doff hats to Don Getty, father of Family Day – too bad about that August holiday
PHOTOS: Don Getty, premier, celebrating the first Family Day in 1990. No! wait! That’s Don Getty, quarterback, celebrating the Edmonton Eskimos’ Grey Cup victory in 1956. Same guy, though. Who says actual Alberta politicians may not appear exactly …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s going to take more than Valentine cards and chocolate to unite Alberta’s fractious right
ILLUSTRATIONS: Hey Wildrose Party … the Tories send their love to you! But will this idea “bomb”? Actual Progressive Conservative strategists may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Former PC cabinet Minister Rick Orman, photographed during…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Go figure! Jim Prentice, failed former politician, resurfaces with sweet gig at Washington think tank
PHOTOS: Those were the days! This time last year, Jim Prentice was everyone else’s favourite Albertan, or so it seemed. Now look at him, already the last Conservative premier of Alberta. Below: Woodrow Wilson, the only American president with a PhD a…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Uniting the Right: Is Wildrose Leader Brian Jean starting to wonder, ‘With friends like these, who needs enemies?’
PHOTOS: It’s getting crowded on the Wildrose Party’s “unite the right” bandwagon … and not necessarily with the “right” people from leader Brian Jean’s perspective. Actual Alberta political bandwagons may not appear exactly as illustrat…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will simply uniting Alberta’s right add up to victory over the NDP? A conservative strategist concludes it won’t
PHOTOS: Oh, what fools these Tories be? Please forgive this Puckish caption. Former Progressive Conservative campaign manager Susan Elliott, below left, suggests that her party’s members think carefully before they let themselves get hitched to the p…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Poll puts NDP in third place among Albertans – a plausible result despite a pollster’s debatable analysis
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Below: Pollster Quito Maggi of Mainstreet Research, grabbed from his Twitter account, and former PC premier Ed Stelmach, whose personal popularity held through the economic downturn of 2007 and 2008. Late last wee…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Grits in Ottawa and Dippers in Edmonton: far from the worst combination for keeping Alberta’s economy in motion
PHOTOS: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley take questions from the media in this screen shot of the government’s video. Bloggers were not invited, but I’m blaming the feds and promising not to go all Rebel Medi…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan assails Notley Government’s royalty ‘mistake’
PHOTOS: Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan. Below: Mr. McGowan with federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair; Calgary Sun columnist Rick Bell. Many progressive Albertans who were shocked and troubled by the Notley Government’s dramatic rever…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Below the radar: Athabasca University and St. Albert quietly discuss partnership to develop joint office space near Edmonton
PHOTOS: St. Albert City Hall on a nice warm summer night, as seen from the possible location of a joint office building that’s been discussed by the city and Athabasca University. Below: The sign welcoming visitors to Athabasca University in the Town…
Continue reading