There’s a certain irony, I suppose, to Alberta’s justice minister piously insisting “the commissioner of the RCMP must be held to the highest of standards” while he himself faces an investigation into whether he breached the Law Society’s code of conduct early next year. RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki (Photo: Royal
Continue readingTag: Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Alberta Politics: Why did China’s government pluck the Two Michaels from among 300,000 Canadians in China?
Soon after Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver two years ago at the behest of U.S. authorities, Chinese state security officers arrested two Canadian men, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. It was clear from the get-go the arrest on Dec.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If you want to know how an Alberta Provincial Police force would behave, read between the lines of yesterday’s announcement
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police may be no paragon of liberalism and progressive enforcement, but they’re apparently too liberal and progressive for the members of the so-called Fair Deal Panel that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney appointed to trot out his quasi-separatist hobbyhorses. Mr. Kenney’s supposedly cash-poor government announced yesterday it
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The federal Conservative leadership race takes a turn both sinister and juvenile
Probably the last thing the Conservative Party of Canada needs right now is a side battle over allegations of dirty tricks and data theft between the campaigns of the two leading candidates in an already uninspiring leadership race. I mean, it’s not as if frontrunners Peter MacKay or Erin O’Toole
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 56: Police problems and what meaningful accountability could look like in Alberta
Calls to defund and abolish the police have become a mainstream conversation in reaction to the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police officer and countless other murders and examples of systematic racism and violent behaviour by police forces against Black, Indigenous and People of Colour across Canada and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Are cracks appearing in the wall of the Kenney Kremlin over Health Minister Tyler Shandro’s fight with Alberta’s docs?
Have the first hairline cracks started to appear in the Kenney Government’s hitherto solid front in its war with the province’s physicians, which is inexplicably being carried on in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic? Is someone inside the Kenney Calgary Kremlin signalling it’s almost time for Health Minister
Continue readingAlberta Politics: RCMP investigation of ‘Kamikaze Campaign’ moves into new phase; what it means remains to be seen
“Soon, we will find out if breaking the law is illegal.” The line is Stephen Colbert’s and, no, he wasn’t talking about Alberta. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). The well-known American comedian and TV personality, of course, was referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Savage attack: There’s nothing like the United Nations putting its oar in to make the locals go loco in Alberta!
If we ever do form the Western Wepublic of Wexit out here in Wild Rose Country, I guess we won’t be able to join the United Nations. Too triggering. There’s just something about the UN putting its oar into our affairs that sends Alberta politicians over the edge. Guilty conscience?
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hey Canada! Alberta here: Get off our lawn! And would you mow it, please?
Watch out, Rest of Canada! Jason Kenney, our leader here in Alberta, has mastered the art of sucking and blowing at the same time! You’re in for it now! This is the New Alberta, and you’re going to need to get the hell out of our way! We’ll be taking
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If you’re shocked by the firing of Alberta’s Election Commissioner, you shouldn’t be
If you’re shocked that Jason Kenney’s Government has effectively just fired the guy who’s been investigating the sleazy Kamikaze Campaign that preceded the premier’s choice as leader of the United Conservative Party in 2017, you really haven’t been paying attention. Alberta’s best-known political commentator is so shocked… How shocked is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Wexit’ isn’t likely, but that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous
“Wexit” is dangerous, but not because it’s ever likely to come to pass. The economic case for Prairie separatism is so obviously lame — because of what’s happened to the world market for fossil fuels and because people who actually live where there’s tidewater aren’t interested and never will be
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Fallout from dual probes into 2017 United Conservative Party leadership campaign still drifting down
It may not be fair, and you may not like it, but politics is like French justice: Guilty until proven innocent. OK, the French say it ain’t so, and we have to take them at their word. They’ve signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, bien sûr! But in politics,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: More questions than answers in last week’s fallout from 2017 UCP leadership campaign
Eight Alberta United Conservative Party MLAs, five of them cabinet ministers, now admit they’ve been interviewed by the RCMP in the federal police force’s ongoing investigation into the curious goings on during the party’s 2017 leadership race, from which Premier Jason Kenney emerged victorious. Every time another UCP Caucus member
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why wouldn’t Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer appoint an independent prosecutor in the Kamikaze Campaign case?
So riddle me this: Why wouldn’t Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer appoint an independent Crown prosecutor to oversee the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into allegations of voting fraud in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race? Especially now it’s been revealed by the CBC that Mr. Schweitzer, who himself was
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of Justice: Vice-Admiral Mark Norman gets an apology and Conrad Black gets a pardon
Remember this important fact: None of us knows whether Vice-Admiral Mark Norman is guilty of the crime with which he was charged. Well, Vice-Admiral Norman knows, presumably, and his legal team would have a pretty good idea, as would a few Crown prosecutors and members of the Royal Canadian Mounted
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Vote-anywhere made it easier to cast a vote against the government from, well, anywhere
Well, God bless the NDP, I guess, who could apparently be depended upon to do the right thing, even if it killed them. Alberta’s official vote results are now in and they suggest how the province’s new “vote anywhere” provisions did no favours for the departing government. Elections Alberta published
Continue readingAlberta Politics: RCMP raid on UCP candidate’s business, polling trends, hordes of advance voters wind up the Internet
Alberta’s Internet was in a furious swivet last night. There seemed to be something to wind everyone up as we enter the final stretch of a provincial election both sides have characterized as an epochal event sure to seal the fate of the province if it goes the wrong way.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jeff Callaway bids to derail Kamikaze Campaign finance probe – why won’t he wait, like Trump?
Despite obviously having been tempted to shut down the “Russian collusion” investigation when he saw friends and supporters charged with lying to the FBI, aides to U.S. President Donald Trump managed to persuade him to hold his fire. How? Although many of us wondered about this during Special Counsel Robert
Continue readingAlberta Politics: This is serious now: the Mounties have entered the Kamikaze Campaign investigation
Some days Alberta politics are like that fine old Johnny Nash song: “I can see clearly now the rain is gone …” A lot has happened since 3 o’clock yesterday morning when the CBC broke the story the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had taken over the investigation by the Office
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP leadership campaign reveals ‘how an aggressive campaign could hijack online votes,’ U.S. journalist writes
Digital-election-theft allegations swirling around the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership campaign should be a sharp warning for the U.S. Democratic Party, which plans to use similar technology in some of its 2020 presidential primary races, says an American journalist who specializes in covering election technology and democratic issues. While a
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