Vaccine passports are coming to Alberta. Not just yet, but they’ll be along soon enough. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Not because they make sense. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley laid out that case pretty clearly yesterday: during a pandemic like the fourth wave of COVID-19 now battering our
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Alberta Politics: Welcome home, blogger! Don’t worry about closed Alberta hospital beds – we have pepper spray and pickup trucks
SIDNEY, B.C. Welcome home, blogger! Alberta Premier Jason Kenney trying to prove that he’s a real manly Alberta man too (Photo: Twitter/Jason Kenney). Having spent a few days dealing with family business in British Columbia, the first reminder of what passes for reality back home as I await my delayed
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Kenney and the Autocrat’s Handbook
The Alberta Legislature ended the 2021 Spring Session on a particularly disturbing note. Members of the Opposition asked Jason Kenney to apologize for his role in pushing the niqab ban, a policy that contributed to growing Islamophobia, while he was a federal cabinet minister. Instead of an apology, Kenney stood
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Worst news conference ever? Jason Kenney apologizes for Sky Palace patio party, touts silly equalization referendum
The rebellion that now has United Conservative Party Premier Jason Kenney looking as if his career is on the ropes is strongly reminiscent of the circumstances that brought Progressive Conservative Party premier Alison Redford’s political career to an end in 2014. Ironically, both feature the “Sky Palace” as a powerful
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Buoyed by overwhelming leadership approval vote, Rachel Notley sketches outline of Alberta NDP’s 2023 campaign
Acting like someone with a serious chance of returning to the Premier’s Office in 2023, Alberta New Democratic Party Leader Rachel Notley received a 98.2-per-cent approval vote in the Opposition party’s leadership review Sunday. The former Alberta premier set out a hopeful vision of how her next government would “transform
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Jason Kenney’s Thoughts on Residential Schools
The only reason I’m going to mention the Sky Palace scandal in the same post as the deaths of 215 Indigenous children at a former residential school in Kamloops BC is because the Sky Palace scandal pulled our focus away from Jason Kenney’s utterly inappropriate response to the history of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Two defiant UCP ministers tell Jason Kenney to apologize for breaking COVID-19 restrictions at Sky Palace patio party
The good ship United Conservative Party, the vessel carrying Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s ambitions, sprang a couple more leaks yesterday. This time it was two female members of the UCP cabinet who dared to criticize the boozy pandemic patio party last Tuesday on the roof of Edmonton’s notorious Sky Palace,
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Alberta’s Reopening Plan: “The Best Alberta Summer Ever”
“Today we are truly near the end of this thing. We’re finally getting back to normal, and I think it means the best Alberta summer ever.” – Premier Jason Kenney Last week Premier Kenney, Dr Deena Hinshaw, and Health Minister Shandro (collectively KHS) unveiled Open for Summer, Alberta’s reopening
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney rolls the dice on COVID-19: We’re going to have the best summer you can imagine even if it kills us
Only pure political calculation can be driving Premier Jason Kenney’s COVID-19 reopening strategy now. Science? Prudence? Caution? Second vaccine doses? Forget about ’em. Health Minister Tyler Shandro (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). We’re going to have the best little ole summer you can imagine even if it kills us. And it just
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 174: UCP Mutiny (Barnes and Loewen Edition)
Dani Paradis and Chris Henderson are back on the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the recent blow-out in the United Conservative Party caucus, the expulsion of Drew Barnes and Todd Loewen and the ongoing challenges to Premier Jason Kenney’s flailing leadership. We also discuss recent developments in Edmonton’s mayoral election, Michael Oshry launching
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 174: UCP Mutiny Edition
Dani Paradis and Chris Henderson are back on the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the recent blow-out in the United Conservative Party caucus, the expulsion of Drew Barnes and Todd Loewen and the ongoing challenges to Premier Jason Kenney’s flailing leadership. We also discuss recent developments in Edmonton’s mayoral election, Michael Oshry launching
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney steps up to rostrum, announces new COVID-19 restrictions, then skedaddles
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney stepped up to the rostrum at his hastily scheduled 6:02 p.m. “news conference” yesterday, reeled off what he proposes to do about the fact Alberta now has the worst collective case of COVID-19 in North America, and skedaddled. The whole affair took roughly nine and a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: When the going gets tough, tough-guy Jason Kenney gets going – this time leaving the Legislature padlocked behind him
With COVID-19 out of control, the United Conservative Party Government clueless and divided, ordinary citizens increasingly frightened, and defiant covidiots organizing super-spreader events like that no-more-lockdowns rodeo in Bowden Saturday, Premier Jason Kenney adopted his crisis response of choice. Cut and run. Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley (Photo: David J.
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 73: Alberta politics is never boring
There is rarely a week in Alberta politics that is boring. On this episode of the Daveberta Podcast we discuss the recent fundraising numbers that show the NDP crushed the UCP in the first three months of 2021 and what that could mean for the rest of the year. And
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Kenney vs Freeland: National Child Care
“…this is going to be the most powerful step change in the Canadian economy since we did the NAFTA deal. It will really drive our economic productivity, our growth.” – Chrystia Freeland describing the Feds $10/day child care plan.* You’d think Jason Kenney, the premier who says the economy is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Small donors, potential election volunteers, flock to Alberta NDP as disillusionment with Jason Kenney grows
Alberta’s New Democratic Party raised twice as much as the ruling United Conservative Party in the first quarter of 2021. And we’re not just talking about chicken feed here, people. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, leader of the United Conservative Party, as he is often seen – surrounded by flags (Photo:
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 72: The COVID 18 and the Curriculum Catastrophe
Alberta politics moves at a mile a minute and there’s no time to waste. On this episode of the Daveberta Podcast, we dive into the United Conservative Caucus rebellion against mild public health restrictions to fight COVID-19 and challenges to Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership, the controversial draft K-6 curriculum, and
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Easter in Alberta
Whether you observe Easter, Passover, or the rising of the first full moon after the spring equinox, this is the time of year when we emerge from the gloom of winter with renewed hope for the spring. Sadly, some of us are crawling out of a pit that is darker
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 71: Peace, Order and Good Carbon Taxes
University of Alberta economist Andrew Leach joins the Daveberta Podcast for a rousing discussion about the Supreme Court of Canada’s big decision about the federal carbon tax, the politics of climate change in Canada, and what Alberta’s next oil boom might look like. The Daveberta Podcast is hosted by Dave Cournoyer and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The short, unhappy reign of Alison Redford nevertheless showed a better Alberta was possible – and still is
Seven years ago today, Alison Redford resigned as premier of Alberta. Her rise and fall were swift. Unexpectedly chosen to replace the departing Progressive Conservative premier, Ed Stelmach, in the wee hours of Oct. 2, 2011, she was sworn in six days later. She survived an election the PCs had
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