How Albertans should see Progressive Conservative and Wildrose policies and procedures. Below: The clever Wildrose Facebook attack on PC Premier Alison Redford’s faintly unsavoury taxpayer-funded mail out, which makes it look a little worse than it really is. Am I the only one who sees irony in the leader of
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Alberta Diary: Premier explains Alberta politics to children: ‘Opposition Leader, what big teeth you have!’
Alberta Premier Alison Redford, right, meets Opposition Leader Danielle Smith, left, while on her way to announcing a new school opening. Actual Alberta politicians may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: The real Premier Redford, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees President Guy Smith. Once upon a time, while Alberta’s premier
Continue readingAlberta Diary: All lawbreakers will be punished … unless they happen to be Alberta Conservatives
“’Ave you got a leesence for your minkey?” An investigator for Elections Alberta pauses momentarily in his probe of political donations made to the Progressive Conservative Party by seeing-eye monkeys. If you don’t get it, I can’t help you. Actual Elections Alberta investigators by now have likely been transferred back
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Mysterious 2011 review of Alberta Labour Code explained – corporate influence, of course!
Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan, right, speaks to yesterday’s AFL news conference at the Edmonton’s Shaw Conference Centre. Your faithful blogger can be glimpsed at the far right. Beside him, the CBC’s Charles Rusnell. Below: Rusnell, Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason. Back in the summer of 2011, as
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Is Chuck Strahl’s dual role on the Manning Centre and security committee appropriate?
Chuck Strahl listens to a participant in the Manning Centre conference in Ottawa in March. Below: Manning Centre founder and figurehead, Preston Manning. Should Chuck Strahl be able to serve simultaneously on the board of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, a partisan political organization tied to the ruling Conservative
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Redford Government just can’t seem to stop fumbling health care expenses frenzy
Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne, right, helps Premier Alison Redford get ready to face Opposition questions about Alberta Health Services expense accounts. Alberta politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Health executives Michele Lahey, Sheila Weatherill, Alison Tonge. The clueless ineptitude of the Redford Government dealing with Alberta’s continuing
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Blame Ralph Klein for Redford Government’s messy regional planning crisis
Representatives of Edmonton region municipalities discuss regional planning issues at a recent meeting. Actual municipal reps may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths; Ralph Klein with Steve West. The foundations of the regional planning crisis that prompted a frustrated Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Alberta still needs a “city party” – a role the New Democratic Party could fill
Typical Alberta Progressive Conservative Party members. Or, wait, are those Wildrose members? Alberta’s rural elite may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel. Where’s the NDP when we need them? Here it is 2013, the Earth is
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Alberta budget primer: when they say ‘tough decisions,’ they really mean … ‘decisions that will be tough on you’
Typical Albertans await tomorrow’s budget aboard the Good Ship Richest Place on Earth. Alberta may not actually be as damp as illustrated. Below: Premier Alison Redford. Why is this woman smirking? Oh, we’ll squeeze you till the pips squeak, Premier Alison Redford seemed to be promising Albertans yesterday, as we
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Are Alberta’s cannily incompetent Conservatives quietly awaiting a ‘Bitumen Gusher’?
Everybody should be as happy about Alberta’s “Bitumen Gusher” as these two guys, your blogger and former Finance Minister Ron Liepert. Below: AUPE’s chart of the price differential between Alberta bitumen and West Texas Intermediate crude. Below that: The Alberta government’s chart showing its natural resource revenue projections to 2022,
Continue readingAlberta Diary: ‘Freddy Lee’ Morton, the journalistic sequel: We’ve already seen this horror movie, thanks!
Freddy Lee Morton, in happier times, with your blogger. Below: Firewaller Tom Flanagan; the entire separatist 2001 Firewall team (grabbed from the National Post). Freddy Lee “Ted” Morton, the worst premier Alberta never had, was back in the pages of the Calgary Herald the other day, bloviating at length about
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Welcome to Wildrose Alberta! What do you mean they didn’t win?
OK, the National Post got a little overheated with this election-day photo of Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. But, really, what’s the difference? Below: Premier Ernest Manning and Premier Alison Redford, bookends in Alberta’s endless conservative governing dynasty. In April 2012, spooked by the dangers posed by a far-right Wildrose government,
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Despite a lot of distraction, illegal political donations still stink up Alberta
Political culture in Alberta? Maybe not exactly as illustrated, but it’s still a problem for the Redford Government if Albertans see it that way. Below: O. Brian Fjeldheim. OK, we’re all enjoying a nice quiet Family Day long weekend. This gives us an opportunity to look back at the interlocking
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Edmonton’s homeless shelters home to body lice, ‘refugee-camp-like conditions’
Alberta’s perpetually mismanaged boom-and-bust economy makes homelessness worse, as hopeful immigrants flock here in hopes of a better life, and find nowhere to live. At least this guy has warm boots. Below: Dr. Stan Houston and Dr. Mat Rose. Welcome to Alberta, the Richest Place on Earth, where body lice
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Four-day school scheme shows Tories view Fort McMurray as not much more than a work camp
Public School District students await dismissal for the week on a Thursday afternoon in Fort McMurray. Actual students may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Edmonton-Calder NDP MLA David Eggen; former Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo MLA Guy Boutilier. And where, the good people of Fort McMurray should be asking themselves today
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Summit call for ATB Financial privatization sets stage for rural Alberta banking battle
The Alberta Treasury Branch agency brings rural financial services to Czar, Alberta. You’ve got to know offices like this are doomed if ATB Financial is privatized. Below: William Aberhart in 1937, the year before he founded Alberta Treasury Branches; banker George Gosbee, in his role as Doogie Howser, CEO. Assuming
Continue readingAlberta Diary: The Progressive Conservatives and Alberta’s government: one entity, indivisible, under God?
Participants in today’s Alberta Economic Summit solemnly await Premier Alison Redford’s arrival at Calgary’s Mount Royal University. Many are called but few are chosen, and they may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Stefan Baranski, Charles Rusnell and Stephen Carter. As befits an almost exclusively political event, criticism of today’s
Continue readingAlberta Diary: The real reason upgrading bitumen in Alberta ‘doesn’t make sense’
A bitumen processing plant near Fort McMurray, back in the day. Below: An actual bitumen bubble. The government of Alberta is “desperate” to get the province’s bitumen resources to market, as its media echo chamber relentlessly informs us. And it says it’s equally desperate to pop the “Bitumen Bubble,” the
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Redford government floats risky scheme to impose contract on teachers
An Alberta Teachers Association member gets ready to give an important lesson to the Redford Government. Alberta teachers may not be smiling quite as broadly as illustrated if the government imposes a contract on them by legislation. Below: Education Minister Jeff Johnson. Trapped in a no-deficit, no-tax-increase cage of its
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Khan, Cusanelli canned: Alberta premier sacks two rookie ministers in wake of poll
Steve Khan, eyed suspiciously by a fox. Below: Richard Starke, Christine Cusanelli, Richard III and Thomas Lukaszuk. Right on the heels of a new poll suggesting a decline in support for the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta, Premier Alison Redford announced a mini-shuffle of her cabinet yesterday, sacking a couple
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