Alberta Premier Alison Redford, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi talk to reporters with the swollen Bow River and Calgary’s skyline in the background. (Photo from Ms. Redford’s Facebook page.) Below: U.S. Republican contender Mitt Romney; Calgary talk show host Dave Rutherford. It is not unreasonable, in
Continue readingTag: Ron Liepert
Alberta Diary: The way the cookie crumbled: Fred Horne fires Stephen Lockwood, entire AHS board
The former Alberta Health Services Board, fired yesterday by Health Minister Fred Horne, as seen by the 99 top executives of the provincial health care agency. Actual AHS board members may not appear exactly as portrayed by the health minister. Below: Former AHS CEO Stephen Duckett, former AHS board chair
Continue readingAlberta Diary: AHS Chair Stephen Lockwood to Health Minister Horne on executive bonuses: ‘Drop dead, Fred!’
Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne: it’s hard to imagine how he can come out of this fight with Alberta Health Services Chair Stephen Lockwood not looking foolish or weak. Below: Mr. Lockwood in a screen grab from his first news conference as AHS chair. Whatever happens next, it seems certain
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Are Alberta’s cannily incompetent Conservatives quietly awaiting a ‘Bitumen Gusher’?
Everybody should be as happy about Alberta’s “Bitumen Gusher” as these two guys, your blogger and former Finance Minister Ron Liepert. Below: AUPE’s chart of the price differential between Alberta bitumen and West Texas Intermediate crude. Below that: The Alberta government’s chart showing its natural resource revenue projections to 2022,
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Former Finance Ministers Morton, Liepert and Snelgrove line up with free advice.
TweetFree from the tight leash of party discipline, three former Finance Ministers are giving plenty of advice to Premier Alison Redford and Finance Minister Doug Horner. Ted Morton, the former two-term Tory MLA from Foothills-Rockyview and two-time Tory leadership candidate who served as Finance Minister from 2010 to 2011, penned
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Scenes from an Inquiry: No fireworks as Ron Liepert and Lynn Redford testify
Lynn Redford, the Alberta Premier’s sister, stars in Scenes from an Inquiry, directed by Ingmar Bergman, or someone with a similarly Nordic directorial touch. Below: Former Alberta health minister Ron Liepert chooses his colour for a game of chess with retired justice John Vertes. Actual inquiry participants may or may
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics: Map: Alberta cabinet ministers catch the international travel bug.
Tweet“The Redford government spent more than half a million dollars on its trip to the London Olympics earlier this year, including about $113,000 in hotel rooms that were not used…” – Edmonton Journal reporter Keith Gerein According to the Journal, the $518,280 trip sent 29 Albertans to London including Tory
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: is edmonton’s former capital health board being targeted by a calgary-led witch-hunt?
TweetAre executives of the former Calgary Health Region, now comfortably occupying senior positions at Alberta Health Services, campaigning to discredit the work done by executives of Edmonton’s now-defunct Capital Health Region? AHS President and CEO Chris Eagle announced earlier this week that, following the Allaudin Merali expense-claims scandal, an Ernst
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Two additional reasons morale is better at Alberta Health Services: Liepert & Duckett are gone
Dr. Stephen Duckett, right, doesn’t mince words while talking to Doug Knight, then the President of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, in September 2009, Below: former Health Minister Ron Liepert. Morale among doctors, nurses and other medical staff is dramatically better than it was two years ago at Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Two additional reasons morale is better at Alberta Health Services: Liepert & Duckett are gone
Dr. Stephen Duckett, right, doesn’t mince words while talking to Doug Knight, then the President of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, in September 2009, Below: former Health Minister Ron Liepert. Morale among doctors, nurses and other medical staff is dramatically better than it was two years ago at Alberta
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: What’s up with Calgary West Progressive Conservative nomination? Rematch, appointment or what?
Surprise winner Shiraz Shariff sends favourite Ken Hughes out of the ring in Round 1 of the Calgary West PC nomination battle on Jan. 21. Alberta political candidates may not appear exactly as illustrated. Now it appears that a rematch may be in the offing. Below: Ken Hughes, Shiraz Shariff
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
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: alberta budget 2012: keep calm and carry on voting tory.
Alberta's 2012 pre-election budget. Judging by past performance, not rocking the boat is a difficult thing for Finance Minister Ron Liepert, who managed to table a budget yesterday that will rock Albertans to sleep before it rocks them into a riot. Reminding Albertans of just how good their forty-year government
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Who shot Shariff? More lessons in democracy, Alberta-style
Shiraz Shariff works the phone in his Calgary office yesterday afternoon. Below: interim PC Executive Director Kelley Charlebois; former AHS Chair Ken Hughes; outgoing Calgary-West MLA Ron Liepert. The Alberta Progressive Conservative Party has now given the bum’s rush to Shiraz Shariff, the 30-year party supporter and former MLA who
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Alberta’s Electrolux Throne Speech: breathtaking in its vacuity, but quite possibly effective
Your blogger with Tory campaign mastermind Stephen Carter. Below, Charles Dickens, who also wrote a good story; Finance Minister Ron Liepert. It was either the best of Throne Speeches or it was the worst of Throne Speeches. Heck, maybe it was both at the same time. Yesterday being the 200th
Continue readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: alison redford to appoint a new candidate in calgary-west, say tory sources.
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 readingdaveberta.ca - Alberta politics blog: tories nearing a full-slate of candidates, opposition parties all over the map in election preparation.
After a week away from the blogging world, I spent some time this weekend catching up with plenty of election nomination candidate updates. Alberta’s political parties are all in varying degrees of preparation for the upcoming election and for the next session of the Legislative Assembly. The Spring sitting of
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Ex-MLA Shiraz Shariff gives Redford favourite Ken Hughes the bum’s rush in Tory nomination battle
Ken Hughes, back in the day as chair of the Alberta Health Services Board. He’s now Alberta’s newest unemployed person. Below: Shiraz Shariff, Joey Oberhoffner. As the beloved Scottish poet Rabbie Burns so famously observed, “the best-laid plans o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” The best-laid plans o’ mice,
Continue readingDavid Climenhaga's Alberta Diary: Will only NDP and Wildrose mount full slates to challenge Alison Redford this spring?
Alison Redford: Why is this woman smiling? Why not? Below: NDP Leader Brian Mason: the next leader of the Opposition? Even with Alberta Premier Alison Redford in a mood to tarry just a little and not call an election until after her government has passed its first budget, only one
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