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,
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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – George Monbiot writes that the fossil fuel companies most responsible for endangering our living environment are also polluting our politics: …What counts, in seeking to prevent runaway global heating, is not the good things we start to do, but the bad things we
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney pledges ‘I will never give up on Canada’ while stoking Alberta separatist sentiment
Maybe Canada needs a Clarity Act for pollsters’ questions intended to gauge the level of support for provincial secession from Canada. The Clarity Act, of course, is the federal law passed in 2000 in response to the scary 1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum that came within 1 per cent of destroying
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Regardless of Jason Kenney’s tweets, the Corporate Mapping Project is uncovering data of value to citizens
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has a well-known propensity to blame Justin Trudeau for things that were done by Stephen Harper, as the debate over who is responsible for the time it’s taken to complete the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project nicely illustrates. So condemning Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau for the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Corporate Mapping Project grant was approved on Stephen Harper’s watch, OK?
On a personal note, it was a disappointing shock to learn of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s rage tweet yesterday morning blaming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the $2.5-million Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant to the Corporate Mapping Project that was awarded on former prime minister Stephen Harper’s watch
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition
Some parties and leaders recognize the stakes in determining how to manage a minority Parliament: I asked Mr. Duceppe what he thought would happen if the prime minister refused to accept such an ultimatum. He replied that a government defeat so soon after a general election meant the Governor General
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why Does Michelle Rempel Hate Canada So Much?
As you may know, I'm not a member of the Michelle Rempel fan club. I consider her one of the most aggressive members of the Con cult. She's always making wild accusations, and complaining that Alberta is getting screwed by the rest of Canada.She insults the Prime Minister all the time
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Harper’s proposed restrictions on bitumen exports caused no uproar – so why the fury at Justin Trudeau?
Late last week, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer was once again accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Government of wanting to phase out the oilsands, as he put it, and passing laws to put that putative plan into action. Notwithstanding a lack of persuasive evidence, the popularity of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Corporate Mapping Project names top fossil-fuel emitters, enablers and legitimators, unlocks online database
“The fossil fuel industry … is the biggest obstacle to real action on climate change today,” says the co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project, which this morning published an eye-opening list of the 50 most influential players in the industry and a publicly accessible database with information on more than
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Canada Day! In a troubled world, Canada stands out as a genuine triumph of bureaucracy
Happy Canada Day! One way or another, our Canada always seems to end up on every list of the world’s Top Ten economies. Granted, we are almost inevitably No. 10 of 10, which may leave the intensely competitive dissatisfied. But, realistically, this also means we’re No. 10 of 193, if
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Why The Scheer Cons Are Still The Harper Party
Ever since it was recently revealed that Andrew Scheer consults his mentor Stephen Harper before making any major decisions, an old and deeply disturbing question is being asked again.Who is the real leader of the Cons?Some say Scheer aka Weak Andy is just humouring Harper because he's afraid of him…Read
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Andrew Scheer’s Most Painfully Embarrassing Week
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
Continue readingMontreal 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
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