PHOTOS: Alberta in the spring of 2014. Actual Alberta drilling operations may not have appeared exactly as illustrated. Below: Conservative premiers Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein. If God gives us another oil boom like the one us Albertans are all pray…
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Alberta Politics: It’s not just the #kudatah – it’s the feeling Alberta’s conservatives are all boarding the Crazy Train
PHOTOS: George Clark, Alberta’s answer to Joan of Arc. (Screen grab from Youtube.com.) Below: Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean, who with his MLAs is tacitly supporting Mr. Clark’s efforts; the origin of the #kudatah meme; Preston Manning, a conserv…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Juxtapose: Tories had loads of cash for junketing flunkies, none at all for dying addicts
PHOTOS: Alberta Progressive Conservatives enjoy an “international travel mission” during the Golden Age of Tory Travel. Actual PC staffers may not have appeared exactly as illustrated. Below: New Democrats Trevor Horne, the MLA for Spruce Grove-St….
Continue readingAlberta Politics: As widely predicted, Calgary-Bow MLA Deborah Drever invited to rejoin New Democratic Party Government’s caucus
PHOTOS: Surrounded and supported by NDP House Leader Brian Mason, Calgary-Varsity MLA Stephanie McLean and Finance Minister Joe Ceci, Calgary-Bow MLA Deborah Drever addresses the media in Calgary yesterday after being welcomed back into the Government …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shredding the public interest! Albertans will never know what Tory secrets were purged by the PCs last May
PHOTOS: Privacy Commissioner Jill Clayton and Public Interest Commissioner Peter Hourihan (CBC photo). Below: Results of some of the shredding that took place in the basement of the Alberta Legislature on May 6; Service Alberta Minister Danielle Larive…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Progress Alberta, new progressive advocacy group, will make waves … not just with opponents but maybe on own side too
PHOTOS: The Alberta Legislature, suitably decorated for the province’s progressive and proudly diverse population. Below: Progress Alberta Executive Director Duncan Kinney. Progress Alberta, a new group that describes itself as “a multi-issue, inde…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Newsletter publisher apologizes and takes full responsibility for wrong MLA message – but Team Angry’s still angry at NDP
PHOTOS: Spokespeople for the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties stand by to comment in the media on the latest manufactured Alberta political crisis. Actual opposition politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Independent MLA…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calgary Sun, angry conservatives try to spin a glorified typographical error into the first political brouhaha of 2016
PHOTOS: Independent Calgary-Bow MLA Deborah Drever in a recent shot grabbed from her Facebook page. Below: Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrand (grabbed from Facebook) and PC interim Leader Ric McIver (from Wikipedia). The Calgary Sun called it “…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy New Year! In 2016, let’s improve workplace safety, forgive student loans and pull the plug on daylight savings
PHOTOS: Happy New Year! Wouldn’t 2016 be a great time to start allowing the sale of beer, wine and liquor in safe, clean and unionized Alberta grocery stores? Below: Saskatchewan CCF Premier Tommy Douglas and Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, w…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Year in review: from plunging oil to rising hope, the Top Ten news stories of 2015
PHOTOS: Cameras try to follow a nearly invisible Rachel Notley through the crowd at an Edmonton hotel on May 5, 2015, moments after she had been declared the winner of the Alberta election. No one could quite believe that the NDP had just won a majorit…
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 readingAlberta Politics: Dec. 17, 2014 – Defection Day – an Alberta anniversary to remember … and to forget!
PHOTOS: Defecting Opposition leader Danielle Smith, looking uncomfortable, gets an awkward and apparently unwanted hug from then-premier Jim Prentice at Government House in Edmonton as they announced their plans to merge the two parties’ caucuses. Be…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Are moderate Alberta conservatives likely to find themselves waking up to a Wildrose nightmare?
ILLUSTRATIONS: It’s a nightmare alright – but whose? Actual Alberta voters may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and NDP Premier Rachel Notley. (Both shown in CBC photos.) The prevailing narrative in the Alberta m…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Violent, lurid and misogynistic threats against NDP politicians are both enabled and exposed by social media
PHOTOS: Opposition Leader Brian Jean addresses foes of Bill 6 on the steps of the Alberta Legislature. (Photo grabbed from his Facebook page.) Below: Alberta premiers Ralph Klein, Alison Redford, Ed Stelmach and Rachel Notley. It seemed pretty rich for…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: New board in; CEO Vickie Kaminski out … just another day at Alberta Health Services!
PHOTOS: Outgoing AHS CEO Vickie Kaminski at an Edmonton news conference last year. Below: Redford-era health minister Fred Horne, PC premier pro tem Dave Hancock, NDP Health Minister Sarah Hoffman and Premier Rachel Notley’s just-appointed deputy chi…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s PCs may not survive the damage done by Alison Redford; NDP faces risk of collateral damage from CBC revelations
PHOTOS: Alison Redford in 2011, as she was running for the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives. Below: Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley and CBC investigative reporter Charles Rusnell. The Alberta Progressive Conservative Party m…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Sudden death of young PC star Manmeet Bhullar in road accident stuns Alberta Legislature
PHOTO: Progressive Conservative MLA Manmeet Bhullar, who was killed yesterday in a traffic accident on his way to Edmonton from Calgary (PC Party photo). The sudden death of Calgary-Greenway MLA Manmeet Bhullar in a traffic accident yesterday on the hi…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s climate-change strategy: Rachel Notley builds a coalition of big business, environmentalists and civil society
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley with leaders of the remarkable coalition on climate change her NDP government has built (Government of Alberta Photo). Below: Brian Jean, Alberta’s complaint-of-the-day Opposition leader; Gary Doer, three-term ND…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Bill 6, Alberta’s new farm safety legislation, will be a test both for the NDP Government and the Wildrose Opposition
PHOTOS: Down on the Alberta farm, successive Conservative governments have made sure farm animals had more rights than farm workers. Below: Alberta Labour Minister Lori Sigurdson and Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier, who may be about to fix this. It’s an embarrassing blot on the record of successive Progressive Conservative governments
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Will the social conservative elephant in the Wildrose room crowd out the Tories being wooed by party Leader Brian Jean?
PHOTOS: With AGM delegates’ endorsement in hand, Wildrose Leader Brian Jean is calling for Alberta’s right to reunite under his party’s banner. Below: Former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith, in her current role as a radio talk show host (Global News photo) and Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA and former leadership candidate Drew
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