This and that for your Sunday reading. – Lauren Leatherby and David Gelles examine how people are spending money differently in the midst of a pandemic, while Lucia Mutikani reports on a massive drop in prices as declining consumer spending outweights any disruption to supply chains. And Armine Yalnizyan comments
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Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Saturday reading. – Henry Giroux discusses how the greatest risks arising out of the coronavirus pandemic can be traced back to neoliberal political assumptions. And Patrick Sharkey notes that the effect of the pandemic has been to reveal the U.S.’ glaring inability to address collective action
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney lays out the bad news on COVID-19 capably enough, then wanders into the economic weeds
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney actually sounded pretty good on TV last night as he laid out the hard facts about COVID-19, what it’ll probably do, and what might do if too many of us act like jackasses and don’t stay close to home for the next couple of months. Mr.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: OK, Canada’s good to go for those 3M medical masks — at least until Donald Trump changes his mind again
As is often the case when dealing with Donald Trump, the saga of the five million N95 respirators built by Minnesota’s 3M Co. and purchased by Ontario keeps changing. On Saturday, the U.S. President invoked the Defense Production Act to force the Maplewood, Minn.-based multinational to stop sending Canadians the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The premier is disappointed? Where did Alberta’s Mr. Belligerence go when Donald Trump told 3M not to ship N95s to Canada?
Where’s the tough guy we got to know during the last Alberta election campaign, the Jason Kenney of the Summer of Repeal, the War Room and the War on Foreign Funded European Urban Greens? The Alberta premier’s favourite American president, Donald J. Trump, say’s he won’t let 3M Co. of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Eric Doherty, and Eric Galbraith and Ross Otto, respectively write that the response to the coronavirus shows how it’s possible to imagine and implement needed changes along the lines of a Green New Deal. And Heather Mallick theorizes that it can also
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With coronavirus chaos south of the line, brace yourself for some of it to come to our way in Canada
U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s incompetent and ideologically driven response to the international coronavirus crisis poses a serious national security threat to Canada. Can we do anything about it? Say, closing the border to non-Canadian travellers from the United States, as Russia sealed its border with China in the first
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former U.S. ambassador to Canada unaware of any conversation like the plot described by Jason Kenney
There’s a small but important update to the story about Jason Kenney’s conspiracy theorizing in Washington at the end of last week. According to the man who served as the United States’ ambassador to Canada from 2014 to 2017, nothing was ever said to him that would suggest there were
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney names Gerry Butts and Barack Obama in latest UCP conspiracy theory!
Does anyone actually believe Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s startling claim that Gerald Butts, then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary, secretly conspired with the White House in 2015 to engineer “a co-ordinated surrender” by Canada on President Barack Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL Pipeline project? Judging from the conversations
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Foresight is 2020: It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without a Top Ten List of political predictions
This year, foresight is 2020! It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without AlbertaPolitics.ca’s Top Ten Political Predictions for 2020, so your blogger will gaze into his crystal ball one more time and tell you what’s up next. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). No one seems to have
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There was actually something new in the leader’s debate Monday — alas, it’s not a good thing
The United States’ two-party political setup may not be much of a template for actual democracy, but at least it has lots of potential for interesting leaders’ debates. A televised leaders’ debate in a vibrant multi-party democracy like Canada? Not so much. For one thing, you have to invite the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calling Peter MacKay! Could you remind us what we were fighting for in Afghanistan again?
Peter MacKay, former Harper Government defence minister and one of the dimmer candles to cast his flickering light Canadian affairs, turns out to have been a prophet after all! Who would have guessed? Back in 2008, when Canada’s role in the long war in Afghanistan had grown considerably in its
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta discourse may still be mired in climate change denial, but the rest of the world is moving on
Public discourse in Alberta may still be mired in climate change denial, but the rest of the world is changing and changing fast. Even the New York Times, which along with much of the mainstream media in the United States could be accused until recently of seriously underplaying the climate
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Why are Conservative-run Canadian provinces turning down federal cash? The answer’s in the Republican playbook
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau observed back on April 16 that the Ontario provincial government led by Premier Doug Ford was throwing roadblocks in the way of Ontario municipalities accessing federal money for needed transportation infrastructure, Conservatives responded with angry denials, and not just in Ontario. The prime minister had
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Andrew Sheer would let Canadians rot in foreign jails before giving up an electoral edge!
I rarely paid much attention to John McCallum during his years as a federal Liberal cabinet minister under three prime ministers and, on the few occasions I did, he never left much of an impression one way or the other. But I was shocked last week both by the specious
Continue readingAlberta Politics: We need an honest inquiry into foreign political funding – unfortunately, Jason Kenney’s ‘witch hunt’ inquiry isn’t it
In truth, Canada needs a thorough and honest inquiry into foreign political funding, online manipulation and influence. Unfortunately, the $2.5-million probe into “foreign funded defamation” of Alberta’s fossil-fuel industry announced by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s government yesterday at a news conference in Calgary isn’t it. How could it be? It’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Parades! Bands! Singers! Tanks! Some thoughts on Independence Day, Donald Trump, and the state of the neighbourhood this July 4
Today is Independence Day, the 4th of July, best known in Canada as the setting for the country gothic hit of the same name but, of course, also our cacophonous cousins’ national holiday. The occasion nominally marks the 243rd anniversary of the Declaration of Independence by the citizens of the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Another week in the Annals of Diplomacy: in stormy times, half a loaf is better than none
From the sublime to the ridiculous, it would appear, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government will do anything to keep Donald Trump sweet. Consider the dissimilar cases of Meng Wanzhou and Stephanie Clifford. The first we won’t allow to leave Canada, the second we won’t allow to visit. Both, obviously, because
Continue readingAlberta Politics: U.S. brags about targeting Russian power plants with cyber-attacks – have they lost their minds?
Back in 2011, not long after Barack Obama had been sworn in as president of the United States, a Pentagon spokesperson warned that henceforth and forevermore, the United States intended to treat cyber-attacks by other nations as acts of war. “A response to a cyber-incident or attack on the U.S.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If it seems as if Canada’s Conservatives have lost it, guess again: They’ve just adopted the Trump playbook in its entirety
“Huge pothole on #StAlbert Trail right now! This is a preview of Canada’s future if Justin Trudeau is re-elected as prime minister, as he continues to implement his terrible anti-automobile agenda.” Were I to take to Twitter and say such a thing, dear readers, presumably many of you would conclude
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