Premier Alison Redford Following claims of voting irregularities at the recently held Calgary-West Progressive Conservative nomination meeting, Tory sources are saying that Premier Alison Redford may find a new candidate to carry her party’s banner in that constituency. The hard fought nomination battle saw former Calgary-McCall MLA Shiraz Shariff shock political
Continue readingTag: Ralph Klein
David Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Alberta tidbits: Can market-fundamentalist Wildrose Party be trusted to pull plug on high electricity costs?
Contemplating Alberta electricity prices, consumers are usually not as cheerful looking as illustrated. Below: Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith; Edmonton-Mill Woods MLA Carl Benito, former premier Ed Stelmach. Now that the far-right Wildrose Party is poaching Alberta NDP policy, could we trust them to carry it out?Doubtful, but you can hardly
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: No one who has been paying attention should be surprised by Harper government’s fake pension ‘crisis’
“Holy shit,” this old guy is asking himself, “what was I thinking when I voted for Stephen Harper?” Below, Prime Minister Harper himself, possibly not exactly as illustrated. Below that, Mr. Harper as he appears to people who haven’t been paying attention. Does it really surprise anyone that Prime Minister
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Sorry, an Order of Canada for Ralph Klein is not appropriate
Ralph Klein, as premier of Alberta. Below: Kevin Taft, an Order of Canada gong. Does the kind of man who would call immigrants to Alberta from Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada “bums” and “creeps” deserve the Order of Canada? Surely one would think not! But anything can happen in the
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Re-regulating electricity – a great issue for the Alberta New Democrats
An Alberta voter contemplates what’s likely to happen to electricity prices if “deregulation” continues. Below: Brian Mason, Dilbert. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t understand Alberta’s shocking electricity prices. You’re not supposed to. Sales of electricity in Alberta are now managed through what Dilbert calls a “confusopoly.” It’s a system
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Sun Media’s inappropriate obsession with Calgary Mayor’s religion needs to stop
Your blogger with Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Calgary-Fort MLA Wayne Cao, the best singer in the Legislature. Below: Sun columnist Ezra Levant. Demagoguery is not an accusation that stings very much nowadays. Almost anyone can be accused of being a demagogue for saying almost anything, and one’s inclination is
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Old Year assessment and New Year prediction: Alison Redford, Alberta Newsmaker o’ th’ Year, 2011 and 2012
Alison Redford meets the media minutes after her election in a Conservative Party members-only vote was announced in the wee hours of Oct. 2, 2011. Below: The unexpected results displayed. All politics end in tears, a wise man once observed, meaning that sooner or later, almost all political winners turn
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: With a record like his, how could Alberta Health Services Chair Ken Hughes not run for office?
Ken Hughes on the night of Alison Redford’s victory. No idea what that passerby is looking at. Your blogger, perhaps. Behind her, former health minister Gene Zwozdesky tries to butter up Calgary Sun columnist Rick “Not The Dinger Any More” Bell. Well, of course he’s running for office. With a
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: What Alison Redford really needs: a smaller caucus
Members of former premier Ed Stelmach’s caucus discuss their differences in the Legislative Assembly. Is that Ron Liepert top right? Actual Conservative MLAs may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Premier Alison Redford; Tory defector Rob Anderson, in black. Alberta Premier Alison Redford needs to be praying hard that she
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: ‘A pervasive culture of discriminatory bias’ – the justice model for Canada’s loony right
One of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies leads a prisoner, arrested for his shaky command of the English language, toward the chain gang. Racist and abusive Arizona police may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: “America’s toughest sheriff” hisself. Never forget that the Edmonton Sun, apparently a goodly portion of its
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Alberta political TV ad battle: Round 1 to the Wildrose Party
The Alison Redford Party’s first ad from the 2012 election season. Below: Hubby in the headlights. Maybe he’s just seen what’s on that to-do list. Or maybe he just feels strange wearing a sports coat in his kitchen at 7 in the morning. Yesterday, Alberta’s mighty Tory dynasty released its
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Premier Alison Redford enforces generational change in Alberta government
Alberta Speaker Ken Kowalski and other former PC ministers line up to wait for their transition allowances. Tory politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Mr. Kowalski, former Premier Ed Stelmach, Iris Evans, Lloyd Snelgrove. Civilization as we know it in Alberta has ended. Ken Kowalski, 66, is stepping
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: the battle begins on alberta’s energy beach: don scott seeks pc nomination in fort mcmurray-conklin.
One might think that the battle to build Oil Sands pipelines or the struggle to fight climate change would be the hottest conflicts on Alberta’s energy beach, but with a provincial election approaching the local political scene is heating up. Everybody loves trees: Don Scott and Wood Buffalo Mayor Melissa
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Never mind non-disclosure claims or Bill 24: Albertans still deserve an independent judge-run health inquiry
Zipp it! You have a non-disclosure agreement. Below: Premier Alison Redford; Dr. John Cowell of the Alberta Health Quality Council. Albertans who want to see a judicial inquiry into allegations of intimidation and bullying against physicians, line jumping and political meddling in the Alberta health care system are being subjected
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Alberta to balance budget, cure cancer, put men on Mars by 2013
Members of the 2013 Alberta Mars Mission solemnly mark Peter Lougheed’s birthday with cupcakes, non-alcoholic soda and a spacewalk. The Alberta Space Ship Wild Rose can be observed lower right. Alberta political promises may not turn out to be exactl…
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Too many non-union managers, not union members, drive up Alberta government costs
A typical Alberta civil servant, who apparently can’t be trusted to work alone, helps his manager doff his coat. Actual unionized Alberta public employees may not be exactly as illustrated, but the manager is probably depicted pretty accurately. Belo…
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Wildrose leader nails the problem – but not the solution – with Calgary’s shortage of health professionals
The “Calgary South Health Campus” rises from a field in Calgary’s southeast corner. Below: Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, Tory Health Minister Fred Horne, radio host Dave Rutherford. I just hate to agree with Danielle Smith.Regular readers of th…
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: The Annals of the Klein-tastrophe: 18 years of chaos and conflict in regional planning
Regional planning in Alberta since 1993, pretty much exactly as illustrated. Below: A rare photo of Ralph Klein and Steve West, grabbed from the Internet. “Limits to growth on horizon,” proclaimed the main headline on yesterday’s print edition of…
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Redford Tories have good news and bad news for government union’s president
AUPE President Guy Smith with some of the approximately 1,000 demonstrators who gathered at the Alberta Legislature yesterday afternoon to protest against privatization talk by Premier Alison Redford. Below: Former AUPE President Dan MacLennan talking …
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Redford’s Rocky Mountain Cabinet Horror Show: We’re doing the time warp again!
Premier Alison Redford and members of her new cabinet in a Transylvanian Tory Time Warp. Ron Liepert is at right. Alberta premiers and their cabinets may not be exactly as illustrated, here or during their campaigns. Below left: Ms. Redford, centre, at…
Continue reading