Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith is imagined being welcomed to Saturday’s Edmonton Pride Festival as Premier Alison Redford and Deputy Premier Tom Lukaszuk, at left, look on. In the event, Alberta political leaders may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: former politician Doug Elniski, cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead and so-con MP
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daveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: alison redford attends the bilderberg. thomas mulcair visits the oilsands.
Tweet Premier Alison Redford is attending the 2012 Bilderberg Group conference. There are no shortage of internet conspiracy theories about the mysterious Bilderberg Group conference, but now Alberta Premier Alison Redford will know the truth about the invite-only private annual meeting of the world’s top neo-liberal financial, business, and political
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: assembly housekeeping: new staff, new speaker, & new public accounts committee chair.
Tweet As the Opposition Caucuses and Parties reorganize following electoral changes caused as a results of the April 23 election, there will be a number of staff and role changes in Assembly. The new Assembly will convene for the first time to elect a new Speaker on May 23, 2012
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Everything new is old again in Alison Redford’s first post-election cabinet
Where’s Waldo? Yesterday’s official cabinet swearing-in photo. Who is missing? With roughly 40 per cent of its members new to a cabinet role – and 15 per cent of them brand new to Alberta’s 87-seat Legislature – Premier Alison Redford’s new cabinet announced yesterday should have given the impression of
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Jack Major’s wise counsel too sensible to be adopted in neo-conned Alberta
Premier Alison Redford contemplates Justice Jack Major’s recommendations on MLA compensation. Actual Alberta politicians may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Justice Jack Major. Former Supreme Court Justice Jack Major’s long-awaited report on Alberta MLA compensation doesn’t stand much chance of doing anything more than serving as a 327-page doorstop
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Calculating the odds in the race for Alberta’s Legislative Speaker
Your blogger with Robin Campbell, Ken Kowalski’s possible replacement as Speaker of the Alberta Legislature. Below: Laurie Blakeman, Gene Zwozdesky, and Wayne Cao with you-know-who. JASPER, Alberta Just when you thought it was safe to go out of the house again, there’s another election! But you don’t get to vote
Continue readingElection Predictions and Ridings to Watch
Today is election day in Alberta and quite a day it will be. I am guaranteed to be glued to my television screen and interweb module well into the wee hours of the morning. I suspect that it will be late before we know who the premier will be and
Continue readingElection Predictions and Ridings to Watch
Today is election day in Alberta and quite a day it will be. I am guaranteed to be glued to my television screen and interweb module well into the wee hours of the morning. I suspect that it will be late before we know who the premier will be and whether they will have a … Continue reading Election Predictions and Ridings to Watch →
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: It’s election day and Alison Redford’s hole card is all she has left: Is it an ace or is it junk?
Alberta Premier Alison Redford, not exactly as illustrated notwithstanding the Stetsons, has only one good card left to play. Is it an ace, or is it junk? We’ll find out tonight. Below: The real Ms. Redford and Danielle Smith. As Albertans head to the polls today with large numbers of
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: If you have any doubts left Alberta’s Conservatives are done like dinner, this should settle ’em
“I never thought I’d vote PC” … just embarrassing. Below: Ralph Klein back when he was premier of Alberta; Saddam Hussein. If you have any doubts left there are only three more sleeps before the end of the Progressive Conservative Era in Alberta, look no further than the video and
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Alberta needs a real progressive opposition, not a fake progressive conservative one
“Hi there, I’m progressive and she’s conservative…” Some Alberta political parties may be about as different as shown … and as creepy! Below: Pastor Hunsperger, Perfesser Morton and Rev. Trudeau. I know which one has my vote! Astonished to find itself with its back against a Wildrose wall, rejected by
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: What Danielle Smith thinks and why Alison Redford’s Tories aren’t fear mongering about it
Typical Albertans react to fear mongering by … well, by anyone, really. We frighten extremely easily out here on the Great Plains. Typical Albertans may not be exactly as illustrated – then again, according to the Wildrose Party, they may be. Below: Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, “Progressive” Conservative Leader Alison
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: danielle smith is ‘out-ralphing’ alison redford.
Recycled 'Ralph Bucks' could become 'Danielle Dollars'. Eight years after the last round of provincial rebate cheques, popularly known as ‘Ralph Bucks‘, were mailed to Albertans care of Premier Ralph Klein, Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith is proposing a similar ‘energy dividend.’ While ‘Ralph Bucks‘ were popular among most Albertans
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: alberta’s tories could have already won another election.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford Premier Alison Redford is expected to call a provincial election today. Had Premier Alison Redford‘s Progressive Conservatives followed conventional political wisdom and dropped the writ shortly after tabling the 2012 provincial budget on February 10, they may have already secured their next majority government. Danielle Smith
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Thomas Mulcair: an NDP leader who passes the Ralph Klein beer test and Tory fear test
One hopes profoundly readers of this blog will indulge its author in running this photograph one more time, given the occasion. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, chosen by the party as its leader this evening, is like Ralph Klein a politician who seems to be someone an ordinary person could have
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Media focus on senior dumped at Emergency Ward signals more trouble for Redford Tories
Journalists focus on Beth Podgurny at yesterday morning’s news conference in Edmonton. Below: Grace Denver, her daughter Beth with husband Jackie Podgurny. As shocking as it is an ambulance crew was used by a for-profit Edmonton nursing home to evict an 80-year-old grandmother afflicted with dementia and dump her at
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Will any of this stuff ever stick to Alberta’s Teflon-coated premier?
Finance Minister Ron Liepert, centre, lets a couple of oil drilling contractors know what he thinks of their political judgment. Alberta politicians may not be exactly as illustrated and may not always come in threes. Below: Gary Mar, Doug Griffiths and Alison Redford; Don Herring of the CAODC. So far
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Alberta’s long political sitzkrieg gives way today to Tory blitzkrieg
Alberta Premier Alison Redford, second from left, gets ready to take the “air war” to the Wildrose Party’s Calgary stronghold with strongly negative radio ads. Alberta politicians may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: former Premier Ed Stelmach as portrayed in 2008’s Albertans for Change campaign; the premier’s chief of
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Forum poll revealed: With an iPhone and a blog, we can now predict poll results before they’re published!
Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith with the voice of Forum Research Inc. She’s smiling because she likes his answers. Alberta pollsters and politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Dave, about to hang up on another poll. ForumPoll3 by djclimenhaga Forum Research Inc. of Toronto was back in the
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Few oxen gored in Alberta Tories’ exquisitely political budget
Your intrepid blogger, with Alberta Finance Minister Ron Liepert. Below: New Democrat MLA Rachel Notley. Oddly enough, there actually was a lesson that could be learned from the first budget of Alberta Premier Alison Redford’s government.While the Budget Speech read yesterday by retiring Finance Minister Ron Liepert was self-evidently an
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