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…
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Susan on the Soapbox: Refuges? Paris? Wait, what?
What’s the difference between these two sentences? Sentence “A”: “You terrorist, you don’t belong here.” Sentence “B”: “You might be a terrorist, you don’t belong here.” Sentence “A” was uttered by two white males who attacked a 31 year old … Continue reading →
daveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Who said what about the NDP’s ambitious Made-in-Alberta Climate Change Plan
Pigs continued to fly in Alberta politics today as energy industry leaders and environmental groups joined Premier Rachel Notley and Environment and Parks Minister Shannon Phillips at a press conference to release Alberta’s much anticipated plan…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: End of exile seems likely for Calgary MLA Deborah Drever, expelled from NDP caucus for tasteless social media posts
PHOTOS: Calgary-Bow MLA Deborah Drever around the time of her banishment from the NDP caucus for tasteless social media posts she had published before her political career (CBC Photo). Below: Lethbridge-East MLA Maria Fitzpatrick and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. A welcome effort to rehabilitate Independent Calgary MLA Deborah Drever, pilloried
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brad Wall’s call to block refugees from Syria is just more of the same old conservative wedge politics
PHOTOS: Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall (CBC Photo). Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott and B.C. Premier Christy Clark. Bottom: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is either demonized or ignored by Western mainstream media. In light of the inevitably angry and emotional response to the Paris terror attacks
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 readingSusan on the Soapbox: Brian Jean Embarkes on Post Truth Politics
“Fact-checking was a great development in accountability journalism…[but] one-off fact-checking is no match for the repeated lie.” Brian Jean, leader of the Wildrose opposition, published an article in the Calgary Herald last week. It was heavy on the repeated lie and light on everything else. Jean’s premise is: pipelines
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Is there something vaguely familiar about the Wildrose Leader’s ‘interactive event’?
PHOTO: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean gazes into the future, or into a pond, or something. For $150 bucks, you can sit there with him. The annual general meeting pages on the Wildrose website include an invitation to an opportunity to take part in a conversation with Brian Jean in an
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Wildrose demands transparency from NDP and PCs but holds its annual meeting in secret
Alberta’s conservative Wildrose Party is holding its annual general meeting this weekend in Calgary and, according to one media source, the event will be closed to the media with the exception of leader Brian Jean‘s speech ahead of the leadership review vote on the evening of… Continue Reading →
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: POTUS Kills Keystone XL
On Friday Barack Obama refused to issue a presidential permit allowing TCPL’s Keystone XL pipeline to cross the border between Canada and the United States. POTUS Obama rejected KXL because it wouldn’t meaningfully contribute to the economy, reduce gas prices or enhance America’s energy security. He described the urgent need
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: Keystone XL is dead. New government means climate change back on the agenda.
Having enjoyed the last week in the sunny Berkeley, California, it felt odd to turn on the car radio to hear the local disc jockeys discussing the tarsands and the merits of a pipeline that would pump unrefined bitumen from Canada to Texas. Being one of… Continue Reading →
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s official: the Harper Government’s approach to petro-diplomacy was a spectacular flop
PHOTOS: The White House, home of the Most Powerful Person, etc. Below: Stephen Harper, one of the architects of Canada’s Bitumen bullying export policy, the fruits of which are now apparent; Barack Obama, President of the United States. The office of the President of the United States may not be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley sticks to her fiscal guns at ‘state of the province speech’ to Edmonton Chamber of Commerce
PHOTO: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley addressing the Alberta Chamber of Commerce yesterday. Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley yesterday continued a tradition of “state of the province speeches” to chamber of commerce audiences long beloved by the province’s Progressive Conservative premiers. PC premier Jim Prentice gave the last one to the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brown shoes may not make it, but Justin Trudeau’s cabinet choices seem pretty sound
PHOTOS: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, members of his cabinet and ordinary Canadians walk toward the swearing-in ceremony yesterday morning at Government House in Ottawa. (Vancouver Observer photo.) Below: Mr. Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, making the same walk with members of his new cabinet down the same driveway in 1968. Below
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What’s with that Wildrose leadership review? (Inquiring Albertans want to know!)
PHOTOS: Wildrose Opposition Leader Brian Jean with the kind of cow a guy doesn’t have to get up at 4 in the morning to milk. (Photo grabbed from Wildrose.ca.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt, Alberta Chambers of Commerce President Ken Kobly and former Wildrose Leader
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta Politics: This Week in Alberta Politics
Here are a few items to watch out for in Alberta politics this week: Which of the four Liberal Members of Parliament will be appointed to the federal cabinet on Nov. 4, 2015? Most speculation points toward newly elected Calgary-Centre MP Kent… Continue Reading →
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrose leader advocates a return to deep cuts and deep freezes for public services and public employees
PHOTOS: Opposition Leader Brian Jean holds forth on public jobs and public services during his Oct. 30 interview with the CBC. (Screenshot.) Below: Is this Mr. Jean’s idea of the future of Alberta’s public services? Below that: NDP Finance Minister Joe Ceci. Wildrose Leader Brian Jean is starting to sketch
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Budget 2015: The Neutrino Problem
Scientists solved the problem of the Ghost Particle in less time than it’s taken the Alberta government to come up with a creative approach to economic diversification. For 40 years Tory premiers talked a good line about diversification but with the exception of Premier Lougheed, they failed to deliver. Now,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lana Payne surveys some of the glaring warning signs about the Trans-Pacific Partnership for anybody who thinks a government’s job is to further the interests of citizens rather than corporations: These deals are no longer about free trade. Rather, as I pointed
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Start work at 9 in the morning? Never! Alberta’s Wildrose picks another great hill to die on
PHOTOS: You want me to be at the Legislature when? A young Brian Jean contemplates the horrors of a future under an NDP government. Younger versions of Alberta political leaders may not have appeared exactly as illustrated. Below: The real Mr. Jean as he appears today; NDP Infrastructure and Transportation
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