PHOTOS: UCP leadership candidate Doug Schweitzer, grabbed from his campaign website. Below: B.C. NDP Premier John Horgan (Wikimedia Commons), Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley, and former WCP president Jeff Callaway. Supporters of United Conservative Party leadership candidate Doug Schweitzer shouldn’t get their hopes up that threatening to kick British Columbia
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Susan on the Soapbox: What a Week
The week started out strange and got a whole lot stranger. Derek Fildebrandt’s Bev Oda moment This week we learned that Derek Fildebrandt Airbnb-ed his taxpayer subsidized apartment, pocketed the cash and claimed the full rental expense in his housing allowance. Most people would call it double dipping but Mr
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thank goodness for people like Derek Fildebrandt, without whom the dog days of summer would be dreary indeed!
PHOTOS: Derek Fildebrandt in full rhetorical flight before, obviously, a friendly audience. (Screen shot from … wherever.) There goes the author’s theory that just using an Apple computer makes you a better person! Below: Your blogger’s overused photos of UCP leadership candidates Jason Kenney and Brian Jean, a stock shot
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Would Jason Kenney kill the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion for short-term political gain in Alberta? Just askin’
PHOTOS: Jason Kenney, at left, in his fevered imagination, visits the Alberta Army on the B.C. front. (Photo of an actual event, heaven only knows what, grabbed from Mr. Kenney’s Twitter feed.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, B.C. Premier John Horgan, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, all of them keeping
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Jason Kenney: Servant Leader…what?
Now isn’t this a conundrum… The impetus to unite the Wildrose and the Progressive Conservative parties was the assumption that only a united conservative party could beat the NDP in the next election. The two parties united and now the polls are showing that any one of the UCP leadership
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Derek Fildebrandt, UCP ‘liberty’ advocate, calls for return to ugly 1940s labour relations, labour studies professor says
PHOTOS: The late Jim Prentice, during his successful 2014 campaign to lead the Progressive Conservative Party, with supporters in Edmonton. Below: Anti-union “liberty conservative” Derek Fildebrandt, NDP Premier Rachel Notley, and Athabasca University Labour Studies Professor Bob Barnetson. It was probably his “math is hard” moment in a televised debate
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Sturgeon River-Parkland by-election to replace Rona Ambrose to be called by end of 2017
A federal by-election will be held in Sturgeon River-Parkland in the coming months following the resignation of Conservative Member of Parliament Rona Ambrose. Ambrose served as MP for this riding from 2015 to 2017 and as MP for the now defunct Edmonton-Spruce Grove riding from 2004 to 2015. A by-election
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Groovy! It’s the Summer of Love for the UCP! Should the NDP despair? Not really
PHOTOS: Cool, man, it’s the Summer of Love! Alberta’s conservatives, grooving to the beat of the Jason Kenney Experience, say: Tune in, turn on, and (if you’re a progressive voter) drop out! (Photo found on the Internet; source not indicated.) Below: Pollster Quito Maggi, United Conservative Party leadership hopeful Jason
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Never mind the Ottawa bashing, Jason Kenney launches bid to lead UCP pitching coded woo to religious right
PHOTOS: Jason Kenney makes it official he’s running to lead Alberta’s United Conservative Party at Edmonton’s Italian Cultural Centre yesterday (Photo: Radio Canada). Below: NDP Premier Rachel Notley and Education Minister David Eggen. How soon before Jason Kenney makes permitting the teaching of “creation science” in Alberta schools a formal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: So long PAB! Alberta restructures government communications, eliminates notorious Public Affairs Bureau
PHOTOS: Public Affairs Bureau Managing Director Corey Hogan during his days as a political commentator for CBC Calgary, shown in a screenshot of a CBC broadcast. Below: Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley and Conservative premiers Alison Redford and Jim Prentice. A terse news release by the Alberta Government Wednesday announced
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brian Jean vows to lead Alberta back into the health care wilderness where we wandered with Ralph Klein
PHOTOS: Calgary General Hospital at the moment it was blown to smithereens in November 1992 by Ralph Klein’s conservative government (Photo: City of Calgary). Below: Outgoing Wildrose leader and United Conservative Party leadership candidate Brian Jean, former Alberta Health Services CEO Vickie Kaminski and current AHS CEO Verna Yiu. Outgoing
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former PC leadership candidate Richard Starke to UCP Mothership: A PC I was elected and a PC I’ll remain!
Photos: Vermilion-Lloydminster Progressive Conservative PC MLA and former Tory cabinet minister Richard Starke. (Photo from Dr. Starke’s Facebook page.) Below: Alberta conservative rivals and temporary co-leaders, Brian Jean and Jason Kenney (Photos: CBC); Wildrose House Leader and interim United Conservative Party Leader Nathan Cooper (Photo: Wikimedia Commons). Richard Starke, it
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: UCP Merger…a message from the this-could-get-ugly department
Jason Kenney is busy ticking off the boxes in his quest to be the next premier of Alberta: Become the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party—check. Maneuver Brian Jean (WR) into accepting a merger proposal—check. Merge the PC and WR parties into the United Conservative Party—check. Become the leader of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrose and PC party members alike vote 95% in favour of Alberta conservative merger
PHOTOS: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, who says he will resign as Alberta Opposition leader to pursue the leadership of the United Conservative Party, creation of which endorsed by members of the Wildrose Party and the Progressive Conservative in a merger vote yesterday. Below: PC Leader Jason Kenney, who hasn’t yet
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Sounds of PINs dropping audible all over Alberta as Wildrose unity vote descends into farce
PHOTOS: Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt and Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney in a chummy moment (grabbed from Facebook). Below: Wildrose Party President Jeff Callaway and Wildrose Leader Brian Jean (Photos: CBC). You could hear PINs dropping all over Alberta yesterday. With Alberta’s Wildrose Party members scheduled to vote today,
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: Wildrose-PC merger a big deal, but not a silver bullet for 2019
Albertans will find out on July 22 whether members of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties have voted to amend their party constitutions in order to abandon their existing parties and form a new party named the United Conservative Party. For the vote to pass, it will need the support
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A wacky idea for getting more value from university administrators: pay them less and never mind competitiveness
PHOTOS: Alberta Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt serving pancakes at yesterday morning’s Premier’s K-Days Breakfast on the south lawn of the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton. Below: Just to stick with the photographic theme, even though it has nothing to do with the story, Premier Rachel Notley cooking up the flapjacks
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On Jason Kenney’s Progressive Conservative leadership victory: big money guys finish first (nice guys, not so much)
PHOTOS: Tory volunteers and armed guards move cash into Jason Kenney’s campaign vault. Actual Progressive Conservative bag people and security measures may not appear exactly as illustrated. (Photo … dimly recalled when needed … University of Victoria Archives.) Below: Alberta Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney and badly outspent leadership contender
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The race is on … unity voting starts tomorrow and UCP candidates are already at the clubhouse turn
PHOTOS: The race is on and it looks like … “a dangerous leader.” (Old horseracing print with that title found on the Internet, artist unknown.) Below: Would-be United Conservative Party leaders Brian Jean, Jason Kenney, Doug Schweitzer and Derek Fildebrandt. Calling an effort to merge two large mammals into a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Something useful for the premiers to talk about: the right’s perpetual myth making about equalization
PHOTOS: Edmonton’s stately old Macdonald Hotel, named for the prime minister of the same name and site of Canada’s premiers’ annual summertime beanfest this week. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Jake Wright) and B.C. Premier-Designate John Horgan, who will be
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