Did the Great Barrington Declaration just transition into the Great Edmonton Declaration? Remember that thing? The now discredited notion – with the thinnest veneer of transitory scientific respectability – that everything would be OK if we just shielded the old folks from COVID-19 and ignored almost everyone else while the
Continue readingTag: United Conservative Party
Alberta Politics: Kinney versus Kenney: Can a progressive gadfly offer unhappy Albertans a way to send their premier a message?
Progressive gadfly Duncan Kinney, executive director of the progressive news and advocacy organization behind the Progress Report newsletter and podcast, is the first Albertan to file his papers with Elections Alberta to run in the Kenney Government’s “Senate Nominee Election.” Such Senate votes – they’re not really elections as electing
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 73: Alberta politics is never boring
There is rarely a week in Alberta politics that is boring. On this episode of the Daveberta Podcast we discuss the recent fundraising numbers that show the NDP crushed the UCP in the first three months of 2021 and what that could mean for the rest of the year. And
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Small donors, potential election volunteers, flock to Alberta NDP as disillusionment with Jason Kenney grows
Alberta’s New Democratic Party raised twice as much as the ruling United Conservative Party in the first quarter of 2021. And we’re not just talking about chicken feed here, people. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, leader of the United Conservative Party, as he is often seen – surrounded by flags (Photo:
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Bill to hinder COVID-negligence suits against long-term-care firms will also protect Kenney Government from scrutiny
The Kenney Government would like you to think the bill it introduced yesterday to make it hard to sue long-term-care companies for negligence causing the death from COVID-19 of anyone in their care “strikes a balance between protecting those who have dutifully followed the rules with still permitting civil action
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Legislature passes transitory vaccine leave legislation, a worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Alberta style!
Never let it be said the United Conservative Party has done nothing worthwhile during the two years it’s been in power in Alberta. Late yesterday the Alberta Legislature passed a bill amending the Employment Standards Code “to ensure working Albertans can access up to three hours of paid, job-protected leave
Continue readingAlberta Politics: More flimflam than usual in yesterday’s four-province news conference touting small nuclear reactors
By recycling some old news about their joint project to promote “small modular reactors” yesterday, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick have proved dubious ideas in Canada have a half-life worthy of a uranium isotope. Well, maybe not quite that persistent. Some of those suckers can hang around for four
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Another Alberta spring day: Premier lectures, Speaker apologizes, dissident pastor’s secret sermon revealed as anti-vaxxers chant ‘lock ’er up!’
Jason Kenney had barely decided what to do about his United Conservative Party’s dissident COVID-denial caucus when a mob of three or four hundred anti-vaxxers turned up on the steps of the Alberta Legislature yesterday and started yelling that Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw ought to be locked
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 72: The COVID 18 and the Curriculum Catastrophe
Alberta politics moves at a mile a minute and there’s no time to waste. On this episode of the Daveberta Podcast, we dive into the United Conservative Caucus rebellion against mild public health restrictions to fight COVID-19 and challenges to Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership, the controversial draft K-6 curriculum, and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Hundreds of maskless demonstrators, apparently none from GraceLife congregation, protest COVID-defiant church’s closing
Several hundred mostly maskless protesters packed the rural road in front of GraceLife Church southwest of Edmonton Sunday to protest against the closing last Wednesday of the Edmonton-area church by Alberta Health Services and the RCMP. Catcalling police, vandalizing the car of the chief of the nearby Enoch Cree Nation,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Things fall apart? 18 UCP MLAs join full-blown rebellion against Alberta’s effort to control COVID-19 third wave
Having opted Tuesday for a return to restrictions on some business and social activities to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the face of virulent mutations of the coronavirus, Premier Jason Kenney immediately faced a full-blown rebellion yesterday by 15 members of his United Conservative Caucus in the Alberta Legislature,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On a wing and a prayer, Alberta reluctantly adopts stricter measures to counter frightening upswing in coronavirus variants
Faced with rising infection rates and a frightening upswing in coronavirus variants, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney reluctantly announced a return to somewhat stricter measures to control the spread of COVID-19 in the province yesterday. Half-hearted though the reimposed restrictions announced at yesterday afternoon’s COVID-19 news conference may seem to advocates
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy Easter! A time of astonishing negligence, incompetence and mismanagement by Alberta’s UCP Government
Happy Easter 2021! It being Easter Sunday, presumably the flock at GraceLife Church in Parkland County will pack into their pews inside their barn-like rolled-steel worship centre southwest of Edmonton this morning in open defiance of Alberta’s COVID-19 restrictions. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: Government of Alberta). We can likewise
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What Jason Kenney calls the virus-versus-vaccine race is part of Alberta’s problem fighting COVID-19
According to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s logic, Alberta’s doing a better job of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic than New Zealand. New Zealand, a country with a population roughly the same size as Alberta’s with a similar demographic makeup, is widely considered to be one of the few success stories
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Few Albertans are likely to be pleased by the UCP’s ‘jaw-droppingly misguided’ K-6 social studies curriculum
Wherever one may fall on the question of traditional arithmetic versus the kinds of new math that frustrate many parents or the value of phonetics over other ways to learn to read, there’s not much chance many Albertans will be pleased with the changes to the kindergarten to Grade 6
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 71: Peace, Order and Good Carbon Taxes
University of Alberta economist Andrew Leach joins the Daveberta Podcast for a rousing discussion about the Supreme Court of Canada’s big decision about the federal carbon tax, the politics of climate change in Canada, and what Alberta’s next oil boom might look like. The Daveberta Podcast is hosted by Dave Cournoyer and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP gobsmacked by widely anticipated Supreme Court ruling – Jason Kenney: No Plan, No Way!
According to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, he was so sure his government would win its challenge of the federal government’s carbon-mitigation law that he never gave it a second thought, let alone plan what to do if the Supreme Court of Canada thought otherwise. Gee, it just seemed like a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Former PC MLA Mike Allen, a man with a controversial past, to seek mayor’s office in Fort McMurray
Former Progressive Conservative MLA Mike Allen, a man who’s been the subject of some interesting stories in recent Alberta political history, announced Tuesday he plans to run for mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which in practical terms means mayor of Fort McMurray. Nowadays, the former music store
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The short, unhappy reign of Alison Redford nevertheless showed a better Alberta was possible – and still is
Seven years ago today, Alison Redford resigned as premier of Alberta. Her rise and fall were swift. Unexpectedly chosen to replace the departing Progressive Conservative premier, Ed Stelmach, in the wee hours of Oct. 2, 2011, she was sworn in six days later. She survived an election the PCs had
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Facing stark choice on COVID-19 response, Alberta delays third phase of reopening plan and blames Ottawa for all its troubles
Cornered by an upswing in the rate of COVID-19 cases and a frightening rise in cases of the more infectious B117 variant, Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government was forced yesterday to shelve its plan to move immediately into the third phase of its reopening. Under the circumstances, a return to
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