As long threatened, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government yesterday announced the end of Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s tenure as the province’s chief medical officer of health through the most difficult months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Mark Joffe (Photo: Alberta Health Services). Was Dr. Hinshaw pushed or did
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Alberta Politics: It was the spring of crypto-hope, now it’s the winter of crypto-despair … Calgary’s promised crypto-boom is off, eh?
It’s always the best of times in Alberta; it’s always the worst of times. Readers may recall how Jason Kenney’s Best Summer Ever was followed by the worst winter ever. But that was just COVID, and never mind the wastewater viral load and all the kids home from school with
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Cometh the hour, cometh the mandate letter: Premier Smith turns to the important task of looking busy
Cometh the hour, cometh the mandate letter. Education Minister Adriana LaGrange (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Premier Danielle Smith, having won a seat in the Legislature Wednesday night, immediately turned to the vital task of looking busy and grownup. This will be hard to do given many of the nutty things she’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hot take: Premier Danielle Smith finally wins a seat in Brooks-Medicine Hat – with an unimpressive 54.5% of the vote
Who knew the Brooks-Medicine Hat by-election results would turn out to be exciting? NDP candidate Gwendoline Dirk (Photo: CHAT News). Well, sort of exciting. Everyone was pretty sure Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was going to win and finally get herself a seat in the Legislature. After all, Brooks-Medicine Hat is
Continue readingAlberta Politics: New cracks appear in UCP façade as party officials disallow anti-vaxx nomination candidate in premier’s home riding
If Alberta’s United Conservative Party were the “centre right” political party its leader Danielle Smith would like us to imagine it is, the disqualification of Nadine Wellwood as a candidate would barely rate as news. Ms. Wellwood campaigning with People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier in the Banff-Airdrie federal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: As by-election test nears for UCP Premier Danielle Smith, new poll shows NDP in majority territory
“We are going to beat the NDP in rural Alberta, we are going to beat the NDP in Edmonton, and we are going to beat the NDP in Calgary,” shouts Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in a little video ad for voters in next Tuesday’s Brooks-Medicine Hat by-election that popped up
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith vows not to let school districts impose mask mandates to protect students and teachers
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith vowed Saturday to take measures to ensure masking mandates for children in Alberta’s kindergarten-to-Grade-12 classes can no longer be imposed. Justice Grant Dunlop of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench (Photo: Canadian Underwriter). “Our government will not permit any further masking mandates of children in Alberta’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Signals unintelligence: Danielle Smith’s latest fumbles suggest her government struggles with ineptitude
It’s hardly reassuring to learn Alberta’s new Danielle Smith Government is apparently so inept it didn’t know that it needed a minister to oversee the administration of the province’s labour laws. Alberta Federation of Labour President Gil McGowan (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Leastways, that’s what the government wants us to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Vaccine-skeptical slate sympathetic to Danielle Smith’s public health views captures all 9 contested positions on UCP board
So what happens now that half the 18 elected members of the United Conservative Party board are vaccine-skeptical allies of Premier Danielle Smith? Mount Royal University political science professor Duane Bratt (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). While media was concentrating on the speeches and calls for unity at the UCP annual
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A tale of two speeches: Rachel Notley and Danielle Smith mark informal start of campaign leading to 2023 election
Members of Alberta’s only two political parties with MLAs in the Legislature met in convention yesterday – the governing United Conservatives in Edmonton and Opposition New Democrats in Calgary – where they heard strikingly different speeches from their leaders. Premier Daniel Smith addresses the United Conservative Party annual general meeting
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith announces absurdly large cabinet that keeps friends close, some enemies closer, and includes few women
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith named her cabinet yesterday. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Jake Wright/Creative Commons). It is absurdly large. Premier Smith named 37 cabinet members – 24 full ministers with portfolios, two ministers without portfolio, and 11 parliamentary secretaries. With her own presumably soon-to-be-elected self, that brings the total
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Today’s cabinet choices should cast more light on Premier Danielle Smith’s 2023 election strategy
Danielle Smith announces her Cabinet choices today. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in her broadcasting days (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). So we’re about to see if Alberta’s still-unelected premier meant it when she told a newspaper columnist three days after she was sworn in that as long as her United Conservative
Continue readingAlberta Politics: A big apology by Danielle Smith and a bad poll for the UCP make it look like her government’s already on the ropes
Coming on the heels of two official statements since she was sworn in as Alberta’s premier that attempted to explain or clarify contentious comments, Danielle Smith’s straight-up apology yesterday for controversial opinions about Ukraine published in April in a livestream chat leave the impression her week-old government is already on
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Support for Freedom Convoy in Alberta was an inch wide and an inch deep, research for inquiry suggests
Now that the public hearings mandated by law after use of the federal Emergencies Act are under way, we are reminded that Canadian support for the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protesters early this year was an inch wide and an inch deep. Convoy occupiers block Wellington Street in Ottawa on Feb.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith’s first news conference as premier: Sovereignty, health care changes, succour for the Great Unvaxxed!
Premier Danielle Smith was sworn in yesterday morning and in the afternoon gave her first news conference in Alberta’s top political job, offering so much news it was hard to know where to start. Former premier Jason Kenney, still pouting, apparently (photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Say what you will about former
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith v. Rachel Notley: One remarkable political comeback sets the stage for another
When Danielle Smith is sworn in today as Alberta’s still-unelected United Conservative Party premier, there can be no doubt she has executed a remarkable comeback. NDP Opposition Leader and former premier Rachel Notley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). But has one remarkable comeback set the stage for another? Way back, in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Voters in Calgary-Elbow have every right to be furious with their treatment by the United Conservative Party
It didn’t take United Conservative Party Leader and premier designate Danielle Smith long to change her story about why there will be no by-election in the Calgary-Elbow riding, which has been without an MLA for two months. Former Calgary-Elbow UCP MLA and Kenney Government cabinet minister Doug Schweitzer (Photo: David
Continue readingAlberta Politics: There will be only one by-election in Alberta before 2023, and it won’t be where it’s needed: Danielle Smith
Let us get this straight: Apparently will be only one by-election in Alberta before the next general election. Brooks-Medicine Hat MLA Michaela Frey (Photo: Facebook/.Michaela Frey). That election will take place in a rural electoral district handpicked to make it easy for premier designate Danielle Smith to win a seat
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith is chosen, too narrowly for comfort, to lead a divided United Conservative Party
Former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith beamed last night when she learned she had won the leadership of Alberta’s governing United Conservative Party and is set to be sworn in as Alberta’s premier within days. The lineup of candidates after the first ballot calculation (Photo: Screenshot of UCP livestream). Privately,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney took months to become as unpopular as he is; Danielle Smith is poised to get there overnight!
It took Premier Jason Kenney a couple of years and plenty of fallout from a deadly pandemic and a series of policy flops to become the most unpopular provincial politician in Alberta. NDP Opposition Leader and former Alberta premier Rachel Notley (Photo: Dave Cournoyer/Creative Commons). It looks like Danielle Smith
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