All direct employees of the Alberta Government will now be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or provide regular negative test results, Premier Jason Kenney announced yesterday. Umm… That’s it. Alberta Public Service Commissioner Tim Grant (Photo: Screenshot of Alberta Government video). Of course, that’s not just it. As
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Alberta Politics: As volcano spews lava from Spanish island into Atlantic, huge bozo eruption reported in Alberta city north of Calgary
Lava flowing from a volcanic eruption in Spain’s Canary Islands reached the Atlantic Ocean yesterday, raising fears among scientists who study geophysical and geochemical phenomena of dangerous explosions and toxic gases. Meanwhile, in the Canadian province of Alberta, political scientists were tracking a major bozo eruption in the small city
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Conservative MLA, notorious for ‘Cheezies’ remark, righteously scorched by indignant Edmonton physicians
It’s a wonder Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s inbox didn’t spontaneously combust yesterday when the letter from the Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association landed in it. Signed by EZMSA President Erika MacIntyre, Vice-President Cheryl Mack, and 10 other physicians, the letter was intended to take UCP MLA Shane Getson to task
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney says it ain’t so, but with Alberta’s high COVID-19 rates, a hard lockdown seems inevitable soon
Brace yourselves, Alberta, for a hard, circuit-breaker lockdown to rein in the province’s surging, out-of-control COVID-19 infection rate. We can be reasonably certain this is coming soon to Alberta’s error-riddled pandemic response because Jason Kenney informed us yesterday there’s no way it’s going to happen. Former health minister Tyler Shandro
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 78: Orange and Red in a Sea of Blue
Brad Lafortune joins Dave Cournoyer on the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the federal election results in Alberta, including NDP candidate Blake Desjarlais‘ spectacular win over Kerry Diotte in Edmonton-Griesbach, and the ongoing troubles in the United Conservative Party and how many more days Jason Kenney might have as leader. We
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Napoleon’s advice to the Alberta NDP: ‘Never interfere with your enemy when he’s busy destroying himself’
VICTORIA – At least some in the Alberta NDP must have been offering up discreet prayers of thanks last night. Premier Jason Kenney, threatened with a vote of confidence yesterday by his rebellious United Conservative Caucus members, bluffed the lot of them into silence. Alberta Opposition Leader Rachel Notley, the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Health Minister shuffled to Labour; Labour Minister shuffled to Health … premier says he won’t quit
VICTORIA – Say what you will about Jason Kenney, he never fails to disappoint. When the buzz hit social media yesterday morning that Alberta’s premier would attempt to shore up his shaky perch atop Alberta’s government with a post-federal-election cabinet shuffle, the assumption was natural that he was about to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney proves that Alberta provincial leaders can still influence federal election campaigns!
Who says Albertans don’t have influence in Confederation? Jason Kenney proved once again Wednesday that an Alberta political leader, just by calling a news conference and speaking a few words, can single-handedly influence the course of a federal election! Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: Justin Trudeau/Flickr). One imagines, though, Alberta’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney, declaring public health emergency, to Alberta: ‘I apologize … I don’t apologize!’
The richest, most self-righteous province in Confederation has been forced to go cap in hand to other provinces to beg for beds in which to park our sick vaccine refuseniks and health care workers to travel here and help us keep our hospitals open. Thanks, Kenney! Alberta Health Minister Tyler
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney’s rotten record of COVID chaos has finally become an issue in the federal election
So it’s come to this: Jason Kenney has become an issue in the federal election. All that effort keeping his head down for all but a couple of days over the past five weeks while Alberta’s health care system appeared to fall apart, and here we are. Chief Medical Officer
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 77: Back from the Best Summer Ever
We are back from the summer with the first episode of Season 4 of the Daveberta Podcast and we dive right into Alberta’s response to the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, speculation about how long Jason Kenney might last in the Premier’s Office, the federal election, municipal political parties
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Bafflegab aplenty but few answers for Albertans at Health Minister Tyler Shandro’s COVID-19 news conference
Albertans are dying, yet the Kenney Government is paralyzed, a deer caught in the headlights. Alberta is in crisis. Hammered by the fourth wave of the pandemic, our health care system appears to be on the verge of collapse. All elective surgeries in Calgary have been cancelled. The province leads
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government suddenly backs away from long-brewing big battles with nurses and teachers
Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government has suddenly retreated from controversial battles with nurses and teachers that were a priority for Premier Jason Kenney and his inner circle almost since their election in the spring on 2019. Over the Labour Day weekend, a representative of the Alberta Health Services bargaining committee
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s on the rise! And so are COVID-19, hospitalizations and ICU admissions
It seems appropriate that the United Conservative Party has chosen “Alberta on the rise” as the theme of its 2021 annual general meeting in November. “Alberta is OPEN! Come join us in person for the AGM this fall,” the UCP’s convention website pleads. (Emphasis added.) Airdrie-Cochrane UCP MLA Peter Guthrie
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Yippee-ki-yay! Kenney Government exempts weekend rodeos from a feeble COVID-19 rule
Friday’s jaw-dropping “Kenney Pennies” announcement may have included a few feeble temporary measures to slow surging COVID-19 infection rates and ease the strain on the fraying health care system, but it took less than 24 hours for word to leak the Alberta government has created special exemptions for rodeos. So
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s ‘Kenney Pennies’ scheme to motivate vaccine-hesitant holdouts earns instant, visceral, near-universal derision
Everybody hates a freeloader. This is a universal law of human nature. Postmedia political columnist Rick Bell and Mr. Kenney not so long ago – things seemed somewhat less amiable at Friday’s newser (Photo: Facebook). So while it’s true evidence suggests “vaccine passports” would be more effective at getting vaccination-hesitant
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The UCP says they aren’t, but here’s why vaccine passports are coming to Alberta
Vaccine passports are coming to Alberta. Not just yet, but they’ll be along soon enough. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Not because they make sense. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley laid out that case pretty clearly yesterday: during a pandemic like the fourth wave of COVID-19 now battering our
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ne media welcome: Jason Kenney reappears, virtually, answering curated questions via Facebook Live
Having been spotted out for shawarma in Calgary Tuesday night, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney cautiously emerged back into the artificial light of political life yesterday. Rather than making an actual public appearance and risking having to answer rude questions by the province’s media, uncharacteristically uncooperative after Mr. Kenney’s two-week vacation
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The silence of Premier Jason Kenney, out of sight since Aug. 9, keeps Alberta’s rumour mill churning
Now and again, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un or some other foreign dictator disappears for a spell and international media spins up a whirlwind of wild speculation. Academic experts think the leader’s dead, or maybe just in “a vegetative state.” Experts theorize he’s hiding out from a coup attempt, or
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That Delta variant COVID-19 scenario that Jason Kenney just didn’t see happening? As summer ends, it’s happening
Delta variant or no variant, Alberta would be pulling the plug on almost all COVID-19 restrictions on July 1, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney confirmed on June 18. “On July the first, on Canada Day, Alberta’s public health measures will be lifted and our lives will get back to normal,” he
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