Whatever happens to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney in the weeks and months ahead, the smart money’s on him winning every fight at the United Conservative Party annual general meeting that starts tonight near Calgary. So don’t get your hopes up that the AGM will turn into a battle royale that’ll
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Alberta Politics: Does spat between once-simpatico columnist and Jason Kenney signal the end of the road for Alberta’s premier?
Et tu, Brute? Was political columnist Rick Bell’s news conference question yesterday about allegations of cash being funnelled from political action committees to Jason Kenney’s supporters in advance of this weekend’s United Conservative Party annual general meeting a sign the end is near for Alberta’s increasingly unpopular premier? Alberta Premier
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta signs on to federal child care deal its premier once mocked as ‘9-to-5, urban, government and union-run institutional daycare’
Premier Jason Kenney didn’t look all that cheerful at yesterday’s announcement Alberta had finally signed on to participate in the Trudeau Government’s national $10-a-day-child-care program. While the premier fidgeted in the background, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the other federal Liberal politicians at the morning news conference in Edmonton seemed
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rest in Peace, ‘Grassroots Guarantee’ – Jason Kenney’s famous promise is gone with the wind
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but, as Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have observed, you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Back in the summer of 2017, when he stood up
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That office drinking scandal? Just never mind! Jason Kenney launches job program update in Calgary pub
No wonder they call it the Liquor Cabinet! You’d think it might have occurred to someone in the United Conservative Party strategic brain trust to factor former agriculture minister Devin Dreeshen’s very recent, very public troubles with office drinking into the equation when they decided to hold a news conference
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No one expected Devin Dreeshen to quit Jason Kenney’s cabinet – so what happened between Monday and Friday this week?
Almost no one expected Devin Dreeshen to resign from Jason Kenney’s cabinet Friday morning. The thirtysomething minister of agriculture may have been mired in a messy scandal stemming from allegations made in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit by a former United Conservative Party political staffer, and facing public accusations of drunken
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP bill will allow big money and dark money back into election financing, restrict free speech rights, NDP Opposition says
Alberta’s United Conservative Party introduced new election financing legislation yesterday that appears likely to allow big money and dark money to start flowing back into provincial politics as well as restricting the free speech rights of groups that disagree with the government. So it seems on brand for the UCP
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On Alberta’s anti-equalization referendum, BQ’s Blanchet tells UCP’s Kenney: Bring it on!
As the folk wisdom goes, be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. Jason Kenney got his wish yesterday when Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet told him, in effect, to bring it on. “Let’s open the constitution,” Mr. Blanchet said with a gallic shrug and a sly
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney throws chief medical officer of health under the bus for Alberta’s vicious fourth wave of COVID-19
The second-most-predicted event since the election of Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party as premier and government of Alberta in 2019 has come to pass. The most predicted event took place immediately after Mr. Kenney’s smiley faced June 18 news conference at which he announced, Delta variant or no
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley’s NDP raises more cash than Jason Kenney’s UCP for third consecutive quarter
Alberta’s Opposition New Democratic Party led the United Conservative Party in fund-raising for the third consecutive quarter of 2021, although not by the dramatic margins seen in the first two quarters. This leaves Rachel Notley’s NDP far in the lead for year-to-date contributions from Albertans, but it contains a warning
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Minister’s claim his chief of staff’s troubles were news to him, raises eyebrows, prompts doubts
Judging from the reaction on social media, not a lot of Albertans believed Jobs, Economy and Innovation Minister Doug Schweitzer when he told a news reporter last week it wasn’t his decision in February to fire his former chief of staff, Ariella Kimmel. After the story broke last Thursday that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP Government imploding? Sexual harassment scandal hits Premier’s Office hours after supposed referendum victory
Premier Jason Kenney had less than 24 hours to savour his dubious victory in Alberta’s anti-equalization referendum before a serious scandal involving accusations of sexual-harassment, heavy drinking in the office, and the firing of a victim hit the headlines. It’s not clear if the revelation a former ministerial chief of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney will try to spin his anti-equalization referendum vote as a huge victory – don’t believe him
Deeply unpopular with Alberta voters, distrusted by many in his own divided caucus, and with his United Conservative Party in financial disarray, Premier Jason Kenney will try to spin the 62-per-cent yes vote in his dishonestly worded, constitutionally meaningless, low-turnout, anti-equalization referendum as the hugest victory in the history of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Allen Inquiry half-heartedly exonerates environmental groups that took U.S. funding, turns on Alberta War Room
Of all the conclusions of Commissioner Steve Allan’s misbegotten and sometimes incoherent $3.5-million “Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns” might have come up with, the most unexpected was what he had to say about Canadian Energy Centre Ltd. Who would have thought that the Allan Inquiry would end up attacking
Continue readingAlberta Politics: After another week of political disasters, UCP prepares to release Allan Report on ‘anti-Alberta’ environmental campaigns
Has the leadership of the United Conservative Party grown so disconnected from reality it imagines the release of the report of the so-called “public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns” will somehow win back the hearts of Alberta’s disillusioned public? Or is it just having such a terrible week it’s decided
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The obvious lessons from Alberta’s municipal election will be hard for Jason Kenney and the UCP to learn
Many of Alberta’s highest-decibel conservative loudmouths were by turns appalled and furious yesterday at the outcome of Monday’s province-wide municipal elections. The votes saw progressive mayors and councils elected in the province’s two largest cities and many other signs this place is changing for the better. Edmonton Mayor-elect Amarjeet Sohi
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Despite UCP efforts to tilt the playing field, progressive mayors are elected in both Edmonton and Calgary
Despite the best efforts of Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government to tilt the playing field steeply in favour right-wing candidates, voters in both Calgary and Edmonton elected progressive mayors yesterday. Amarjeet Sohi, a soft-spoken former bus driver and trade unionist who was once a political prisoner in India and served
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 79: Everything you wanted to know about Equalization * But were afraid to ask
University of Alberta political scientist Dr. Jared Wesley joins Dave Cournoyer on the Daveberta Podcast for a deep dive into Alberta’s October 18 Equalization Referendum, why it is being held, what Premier Jason Kenney hopes to accomplish (and why he’s been absent on the campaign trail), and what the ramifications
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What d’ya know? 2021 Nobel economics prize awarded for research directly relevant to political discourse in Alberta
It’s not every day they award a Nobel prize in economics on a topic directly relevant to the political discourse of Alberta, so it is our duty to note Monday’s announcement that Canadian-born economist David Card was accorded the honor for his pioneering work using “natural experiments” to show that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: MLA Drew Barnes, creating more mischief to confound Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, proposes new rural conservative party
Rebel conservative Drew Barnes, a former United Conservative exiled from the party’s caucus who nowadays sits as the Independent MLA for Cypress Medicine Hat, has floated the idea of forming a new conservative party that would run candidates only in rural Alberta. After all, Mr. Barnes told Global News for
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