At 4:02 o’clock on the afternoon of Sunday, May 23, 2021, somebody pressed the “tweet” button on Jason Kenney’s Twitter account, sending an enigmatic message about the government’s response to COVID-19 whizzing into cyberspace. Perhaps it was Mr. Kenney himself who clicked the click. Perhaps, since he is the premier
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Alberta Politics: Teachers give Education Minister Adriana LaGrange a 99% non-confidence vote – but it’s Jason Kenney who’s driving the school bus
Ninety-nine per cent of the delegates to the Alberta Teachers Association’s virtual annual representative assembly voted Sunday to affirm a motion of non-confidence in Education Minister Adriana LaGrange. There’s no question that as education minister Ms. LaGrange has possessed a sort of reverse Midas touch – virtually every policy the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What does the UCP do now that its favourite researcher says she never thought Canadian environmental groups were being used by U.S. interests?
What is the United Conservative Party’s position, pray, about Vancouver blogger Vivian Krause’s bombshell assertion she always understood the environmental conspiracy to landlock Alberta’s oilsands she promoted so energetically had nothing to do with the U.S. oil industry advancing its interests at Canada’s expense? Wherever it came from, the notion
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Foundering public inquiry gets another two months to find evidence; UCP gets even more time to figure out what to do with it
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has announced his government’s foundering “public inquiry” into the supposed conspiracy by American interests to bankroll environmental charities to help landlock Alberta’s fossil fuel resources will get another two months to come up with some evidence. After that, the government will give itself an additional three
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney, speaking directly to rural COVID skeptics, tries an end-run around his rebellious caucus
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney used the daily COVID-19 briefing yesterday to send a message directly to the supporters of his opposition in the Legislature. Not the official NDP Opposition. Those guys aren’t the premier’s biggest problem just now, especially with the Legislature still shuttered, supposedly to reduce the threat to
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 174: UCP Mutiny (Barnes and Loewen Edition)
Dani Paradis and Chris Henderson are back on the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the recent blow-out in the United Conservative Party caucus, the expulsion of Drew Barnes and Todd Loewen and the ongoing challenges to Premier Jason Kenney’s flailing leadership. We also discuss recent developments in Edmonton’s mayoral election, Michael Oshry launching
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 174: UCP Mutiny Edition
Dani Paradis and Chris Henderson are back on the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the recent blow-out in the United Conservative Party caucus, the expulsion of Drew Barnes and Todd Loewen and the ongoing challenges to Premier Jason Kenney’s flailing leadership. We also discuss recent developments in Edmonton’s mayoral election, Michael Oshry launching
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Judge gives green light to ‘anti-Alberta energy campaigns’ inquiry – a ruling the UCP may come to regret
At the end of a terrible week, there was a smidgen of solace for Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party. Yesterday, Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Karen Horner rejected Ecojustice Canada Society’s arguments the Kenney Government’s so-called “Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns” was just a politicized attempt
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney, wounded by UCP Caucus dissent, manages to kick out two rebellious MLAs
Can Alberta Premier Jason Kenney remain in officer longer than Alison Redford was premier? Until yesterday, I would have answered that despite his current unpopularity, Premier Kenney’s rule would obviously last longer than Ms. Redford’s short, unhappy tenure. Former Alberta premier Alison Redford (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Now I am
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Todd Loewen becomes first UCP MLA to call for Premier Jason Kenney’s resignation
Todd Loewen, United Conservative Party MLA for Central Peace-Notley, called in a letter dated this morning for the resignation of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. Damning the Kenney Government as “out of touch and arrogant,” Mr. Loewen also quit as chair of the UCP Caucus. “I feel it is best to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Speaker Nathan Cooper, who signed complaint about COVID-19 rules, cites pandemic ‘health concerns’ to extend Legislature shutdown
Alberta Speaker Nathan Cooper, one of the United Conservative Party MLAs known as the COVID 18 who last month signed a controversial letter opposing their own government’s COVID-19 restrictions, has issued a memorandum saying the Alberta Legislature will stay closed “due to the ongoing public health concerns arising from the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kaycee Madu’s claim Liberals and New Democrats want Alberta to be overwhelmed by COVID-19 is just classic gaslighting
When Alberta Justice Minister Kaycee Madu said the federal Liberals, the Alberta NDP and the media all hoped Alberta would be overwhelmed by COVID-19, he was gaslighting. He’s just not as good at it as Premier Jason Kenney is. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Mr. Madu shouldn’t feel
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Police finally show signs of cracking down on open defiance of public health orders – but will it last?
Did the members of United Conservative Party Caucus all accidentally leave their earplugs in the Legislature Building in their hurry to get out of Dodge when Premier Jason Kenney ordered them home for an extended COVID break a week ago? With police finally showing signs of cracking down on open
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney shut down the Legislature, but debate on Alberta’s dismal COVID-19 record migrates to House of Commons
Not only is the Kenney Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic a spectacular failure, its strategy for suppressing public awareness of just how bad things have become in Alberta dramatically unravelled yesterday. Having used the wildfire spread of COVID-19 in Alberta as an excuse to unilaterally shut down debate in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney steps up to rostrum, announces new COVID-19 restrictions, then skedaddles
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney stepped up to the rostrum at his hastily scheduled 6:02 p.m. “news conference” yesterday, reeled off what he proposes to do about the fact Alberta now has the worst collective case of COVID-19 in North America, and skedaddled. The whole affair took roughly nine and a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney edges closer to blaming Albertans for the province’s COVID-19 predicament
Considering his performance at yesterday’s COVID-19 briefing, it seems Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is working himself up to a look-in-the-mirror moment. In Canadian politics, that’s not something that involves looking in the mirror and contemplating the mistakes you’ve made to get yourself into a mess. The late Jim Prentice, Progressive
Continue readingAlberta Politics: When the going gets tough, tough-guy Jason Kenney gets going – this time leaving the Legislature padlocked behind him
With COVID-19 out of control, the United Conservative Party Government clueless and divided, ordinary citizens increasingly frightened, and defiant covidiots organizing super-spreader events like that no-more-lockdowns rodeo in Bowden Saturday, Premier Jason Kenney adopted his crisis response of choice. Cut and run. Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley (Photo: David J.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Drew Barnes is calling the shots for Alberta and any way you look at that, it’s not healthy
It looks like Drew Barnes calling the shots for Alberta! By any measure, Jason Kenney is a pretty bad premier. But he’s not the worst we could have in the midst of a deadly global pandemic that just won’t quit. No, that would be someone like Mr. Barnes, the COVID-denying,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier’s news conference shows little change in Alberta’s inconsistent, indecisive, confusing, unsuccessful approach to COVID-19
If there was an obvious takeaway yesterday afternoon from Premier Jason Kenney’s announcement Alberta is reimposing “targeted regional measures to bend the curve,” it was that his government’s inconsistent, indecisive and confusing approach to COVID-19 will continue. With the third wave of the pandemic smashing Alberta infection records yesterday and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta heads into record-breaking territory as new COVID-19 cases surpass second-wave record set in December
Pandemic cases in Alberta are breaking records. CBC reporter Robson Fletcher’s daily accounting of the latest Alberta Health Services estimates indicated that probable and confirmed new cases of COVID-19 reached 1,888 yesterday – surpassing the previous single-day record, set on Dec. 4 during the second wave, of 1,874. CBC reporter
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