Are Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party nuts? I mean, are they actually nuts, going down the rabbit hole of bizarre and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories like some of their Republican brethren in the United States? Former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, now leader of the Opposition in the provincial Legislature
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Linda Geddes discusses the problem with people approaching COVID-19 restrictions based on the question of what’s permitted (or worse yet what they can get away with), rather than what choices are most likely to limit the spread of the virus. – Richard
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jerusalem Demsas discusses the strong popular support for affordable social housing even as governments continually fail to provide it. Daphne Bramham rightly asks why we haven’t seen far more of a move toward the Housing First models (including both secure housing and the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Simon Enoch traces the COVID-19 spending that’s taken place in Saskatchewan – finding that most of the support has come from the federal government, while Scott Moe has combined a refusal to lift a finger (and indeed a failure to make use
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How much of the pipe that was supposedly ready to build Keystone XL is fit only for scrap?
Alberta is unlikely to recoup much of its $1.5-billion loss on the Keystone XL Pipeline by selling off unused pipe now that the Biden Administration has pulled the plug on the megaproject. At any rate, it’s hard to believe much of the pipe will be good for anything but scrap
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP to ask UCP cabinet to release risk analysis and full documentation of Premier Jason Kenney’s $7.5-billion Keystone XL deal
Opposition NDP members plan to make an emergency motion on Tuesday at a meeting of the Legislature’s Public Accounts Committee calling for full-disclosure of Premier Jason Kenney’s $7.5-billion Keystone XL Pipeline deal last March. Technically, the motion will urge the United Conservative Party Cabinet to waive its privilege and release
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Premier Jason Kenney tells Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to make the U.S. pay off his gambling debts
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney wants the United States government to pay off his gambling debts! I kid you not. In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent yesterday and published this morning on social media, Mr. Kenney demanded the Canadian Government press the new U.S. Administration of President Joseph
Continue readingAlberta Politics: When U.S. President Joe Biden killed KXL yesterday, Jason Kenney lost the largest cash bet in Canadian history
U.S. President Joseph R. Biden’s swift action yesterday to revoke the permit to build the Keystone XL Pipeline has exposed Alberta Premier Jason Kenney to the world as a hopeless prat. Mr. Kenney gave away $1.5 billion on a dumb bet that he’d look like a hero if Donald Trump
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Expense claims show MLA who rarely visits his own riding spent almost every day in Edmonton for four months last year
Lots of Pat Rehn’s constituents may think the Lesser Slave Lake MLA is about as helpful as a screen door on a submarine, but it turns out the fellow’s been able to dine out on his exalted status just the same. Quite literally, it would seem. Researcher Tony Clark (Photo:
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Bruce Arthur calls out Doug Ford’s choice to blame his constituents rather than himself and his government for a gross lack of leadership in trying to limit the damage from COVID-19. John Michael McGrath discusses the reality that no level of restrictions will
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta premier piously pleads for restoration of order in Washington, smooth ascension of Joe Biden to U.S. presidency
“Alberta has always had close ties to the United States, so it’s painful to watch the bizarre scenes unfolding at the U.S. Capitol,” Jason Kenney lamented yesterday, presumably tweeting from a secure command post atop the office building that overlooks the Alberta Legislature. “Political violence is always wrong, especially when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Political New Year’s fireworks go off as Alberta learns Tracy Allard, minister responsible for vaccine rollout, is just back from Hawaiian vacation
Happy New Year, Alberta! And welcome to the first United Conservative Party Government scandal of 2021: Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard has been caught vacationing in Hawaii, mid-pandemic. Lethbridge-East MLA Nathan Neudorf shows a copy of today’s edition of his local newspaper in a video posted to Facebook this morning
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your Boxing Day reading. – Kyle Hanniman and Trevor Tombe examine the relative fiscal positions of Canada’s federal and provincial governments – concluding that while there isn’t a need for austerity anywhere, there’s a lot more room to maneuver at the federal level than in most provinces
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Elisabeth Rosenthal writes about the need to ensure that our public health messaging includes the graphic details of the severe threat of COVID-19. And Josh Kovensky points out one of the crucial questions still unanswered about the vaccines we’re hoping to rely on
Continue readingAlberta 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: Jason Kenney’s ineffective COVID-19 strategy mirrors his failing response to world demand for cleaner energy
Memo to United Conservative Party issues managers: Your boss will need to take some time today away from defending his COVID-19 response to attack the New York State pension fund for its decision to dump all fossil fuel stocks in the next five years and eliminate investments in companies that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada should quit stalling to let the U.S. save face and send Meng Wanzhou home now
Anyone who still imagines the Trump Administration’s partly successful effort to get Canada to seize and extradite Meng Wanzhou to the land of chaos and COVID had anything to do with “the rule of law” needs to consider the implications of yesterday’s report in the Wall Street Journal that the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Gary Mar on Keystone XL: Likely the only guy who can save Jason Kenney’s Keystone XL pipe-dream is Justin Trudeau
It may not quite be impossible for Jason Kenney to see his dream of completing the Keystone XL Pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast on his watch come true, but it will be almighty difficult with Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. What’s more, if the project is to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Umair Haque discusses the U.S.’ extreme aversion to public goods (based primarily on a desire to exclude large numbers of people from normalized society) – and the role that ideology has played in its failure as a state. – Erika Beauchesne reminds
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s progressive politicians need to pay attention to Erin O’Toole’s pivot to unions
If Erin O’Toole was sincere when he surprised everyone last month by bemoaning the decline of unions, you’d think he’d publicly rebuke Premier Jason Kenney for his ongoing campaign to turn Alberta into a right-to-work state. So far, though, the new Conservative Party of Canada leader has had nothing to
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