It's been an embarrassing week so far for Andrew Scheer. On Monday he skipped Question Period so he could pose for pictures of himself dressed in a Raptor's red hoodie.So he could pretend to be a fan, bask in the glory if they won, and no doubt blame Trudeau if
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Montreal Simon: Doug Ford’s Vacation and the Hidden Hand of Stephen Harper
When I heard that Doug Ford had decided to give himself and his government a five-month vacation until the federal election was over, I wasn't really surprised.I'd heard he'd found running a province about a hundred thousand times more exhausting than running a small label factory, and needed to take the whole
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A timely reminder on this historic day: The hammer of D-Day crushed Hitler on the anvil of Russia
FREDERICTON, N.B. – It’s now been 75 years since our magnificent Canadian soldiers went ashore at Juno Beach in Normandy to play their part the grim and deadly task of sweeping Hitler and his odious empire from Europe. Canadians need to remember, though, that the landings on June 6, 1944,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Is Alberta’s ‘Yes to TMX’ campaign a sly tax-funded attack on the Trudeau Liberals?
Things are certainly different on the pipeline front now that Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party are in power in Alberta! Yesterday, the airwaves were full of reports Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage had announced an advertising campaign urging Parliamentarians to say “Yes to TMX.” (We’ll get back to
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Andrew Scheer and the Not So Great Economist Leader
Who can forget how Stephen Harper tried to fool us, or brainwash us, into believing that he was a Great Economist Leader.And how it all ended in dismal failure. But now Andrew Scheer is trying to make us believe that he too can be a Great Economist Leader.And he's also heading for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Mandel, as impudent as ever, pleads for public subsidy for his Alberta Party
Hello, Alberta! Stephen Mandel here! My Alberta Party didn’t manage to elect a single MLA last month, but we’re good guys and we got 9.1 per cent of the vote. How about you give us some money? That wasn’t really Stephen Mandel saying that, of course. It was me, your
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne discusses why we can’t afford another Harper government – but also why we shouldn’t merely accept the Libs as the only alternative no matter how dishonestly and angrily they try to limit our choices. And Tom Parkin highlights the need to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On full considerations
Max Fawcett is right to a point in discussing the need to acknowledge the political problems with carbon taxes as matters stand now. But there’s a serious problem with the conclusion he tries to draw. It’s true that carbon taxes were originally – and understandably – pitched as the form
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former NDP leader Brian Mason said ready to bring Alberta-style politics to B.C.
Brian Mason, soon to be a resident of British Columbia, will seek a nomination as an NDP candidate in that province as soon as he can, AlbertaPolitics.ca is reporting. The former leader of the Alberta New Democrats and Edmonton city councillor who announced in July he was retiring from Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Be careful what you wish for, Conservatives: Canadians may like a tougher Trudeau
Memo to Conservatives, New Democrats and others who are crowing about how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to have been revealed as a harsher and less cuddly politician than he has been thought to be till now: Be careful what you wish for. If Mr. Trudeau is revealed as a
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why The Fake Scandal Is Now More Dead Than Alive
Well the fake scandal is now more than a month old, and it's starting to look its age. A little wizened, a little flaky, a little green around the gillsBut if you thought it might finally keel over, or return to its crypt, before it drives most decent Canadians crazy.Well I'm
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Deficit hawks fall silent in Washington but screech in Alberta and Canada – what gives?
It’s starting to feel like spring, the days are longer, and the deficit hawks, apparently, have all flown north for the summer. As a result, nowadays, the hawks’ angry shrieks are seldom heard in Washington! “The federal budget deficit is ballooning on President Trump’s watch and few in Washington seem
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Could Justin Trudeau be coated with Trump-like Teflon? It’s possible, and here’s why …
Is the SNC-Lavalin Affair really the Trudeau crusher Andrew Scheer and his strategic team obviously think it is? No sooner had former justice minister Jody Wilson-Reybould completed her startling testimony last Wednesday before the House of Commons Justice Committee – replete with detailed allegations of political interference in the justice
Continue readingPolitical Potshots: The Nothingburger Scandal And The Amazing Technicolor Dream World Of The Canadian Conservative
First, here are a few thoughts from Jody Wilson-Raybould’s committee testimony and the aftermath. What Jody Wilson-Raybould and Justin Trudeau are both saying could likely be true. They do not have to be mutually exclusive. We know now that Jody Wilson-Raybould is likely responsible for the leak, or had a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The stars of the NDP firmament are aligning today for someone in Burnaby South – it remains to be seen if it’s Jagmeet Singh
Even if all the New Democrats vote Liberal and all the Liberals vote NDP in the Burnaby South by-election today, the outcome could be a very close one. It’s rude of me to mention this just now, of course, but you have to admit something like this could very well
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hey, Andrew Scheer! Do you know whose truck that is you’re riding in?
What are we to make, fellow Canadians, of federal Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer’s now justly famous Louis Riel Day Tweet? Bear with me while we ponder this. There is a troubling point. It will take us only a moment to get there. Mr. Scheer, who leads the Canadian political party
Continue readingPolitical Potshots: Who Is Andrew Scheer? Lesson #3
“Call me Stephen Harper with a smile” Andrew Scheer In this lesson, I am not going to be the one who explains Andrew Scheer. I am going to let the people with whom Andrew Scheer chooses to surround himself define him. In life, the true test of a person’s character
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The realpolitik of real politics: attack ads work, and sometimes they’re necessary
One of the enduring myths of our era is that Albertans (or Canadians, or whomever) don’t like negative political advertising, and therefore that political attack ads won’t work here. Now that Alberta’s New Democratic Party has published a website attacking Opposition Leader Jason Kenney’s record as a federal Conservative MP,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Restaurant lobby launches campaign to elect UCP, roll back $15-per-hour minimum wage
Alberta’s perpetually dissatisfied restaurant owners find themselves in such difficult straits they’re investing their hard-earned dollars in a high-profile PR campaign to make sure we all understand just how tough they have it – and while they’re at it, maybe they can get us to elect a right-wing government that
Continue readingPolitical Potshots: Andrew MacDougall: The Haze Runner
If you observe politics long enough, you will witness moments of pure political amnesia. Its almost as if the commentator/pundit forgets their own past in a moment of faux moral outrage meant to generate clicks, or set up their next serving of revisionist political pablum in Maclean’s, or the National
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