I choo-choo-chooose To get a fair deal for you — Actual United Conservative Party Valentine’s Day Twitter meme Keystone is dead The billions are lost I blame Joe Biden But I’ll probably get tossed The actual UCP meme published today (Image: Twitter). — Response by @DaveCournoyer The ocean is blue
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Alberta Politics: Mayor in the heart of the oilsands dares Jason Kenney to fire him in fight over declining ambulance service
In case you missed it, while Alberta Premier Jason Kenney was trying to pretend the embarrassing rebellion of two COVID-skeptical MLAs in southern Alberta wasn’t happening, another political rebellion against his policies was coming to a boil in the heart of the oilsands. On Tuesday, defiant members of the council
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney chooses the cake department to unexpectedly announce one-time pandemic ‘bonus’ for front-line workers
Was Jason Kenney channelling Marie Antoinette when he appeared in front of an Edmonton grocery store’s cake counter yesterday to announce a one-time $1,200 pandemic payment to front-line workers? Many of the front-line workers risking COVID-19 to deliver us services from health care to retail confections may be badly paid,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Defying Jason Kenney’s pleas to take COVID-19 seriously, two UCP MLAs join ‘End the Lockdowns National Caucus’
Two MLAs from Premier Jason Kenney’s government caucus have joined a national coalition of elected and former politicians dedicated to the proposition restrictions on social and commercial activities intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 must end. Needless to say, centrifugal force is not a good look for a United
Continue readingAlberta Politics: In dizzying turnaround, Alberta abandons plan to drop Lougheed-era coal policy … for now
In what appears to be a tire-screeching reversal, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage yesterday announced full restoration of the Coal Policy established by premier Peter Lougheed’s government back in 1976. “An important part of being a responsible government is to admit when you’ve made a mistake, and to fix it,
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 68: The 1976 Coal Policy and stopping open-pit mining in Alberta’s Rockies
Kevin Van Tighem joins the Daveberta Podcast to discuss one of the biggest issues in Alberta politics today – the expansion of open-pit coal mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. Kevin explains how the 1976 Coal Policy protected larges swaths of the Rocky Mountains from open-pit coal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Conspiracy theories are for losers: What does this tell us about Jason Kenney’s UCP?
Are Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party nuts? I mean, are they actually nuts, going down the rabbit hole of bizarre and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories like some of their Republican brethren in the United States? Former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, now leader of the Opposition in the provincial Legislature
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s lack of vaccine capacity really is a scandal, but there’s no way Conservatives are actually serious about fixing it
The fact Canada lacks capacity to manufacture its own coronavirus vaccine should be a scandal. But there’s a certain irony in Conservative leaders like Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta’s Jason Kenney jumping on this bandwagon now that its potential to be used against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With infectious new COVID-19 strains on the march, Alberta Premier caves to business and eases health restrictions
With more infectious new variants of the novel coronavirus now spreading in Western Canada, Premier Jason Kenney chose yesterday to advise Albertans that next Friday the province will ease the restrictions that appear to have been slowing the spread of COVID-19. Alberta’s new-infection numbers have been a little better lately
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Assailed for their own scandals and bungles, Alberta’s UCP doubles down on bashing Justin Trudeau as distraction
Facing mounting public anger over a truckload of scandals and bungles, Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party Government has doubled-down on its favourite fight-back strategy: rancorous attacks on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Yesterday’s daily COVID-19 briefing was only the latest example of the how the UCP strategic brain trust thinks
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Energy in Depth’s report to the ‘anti-Alberta’ campaigns inquiry is slick, expensive, tendentious, and unpersuasive
There’s nothing outright bonkers about the report by Energy in Depth, the U.S. fossil fuel advocacy organization paid $64,000 by the “Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns” to come up with justification for the conspiracy theories pushed by the United Conservative Party Government during and after the 2019 election campaign.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Digging into the ‘Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns’ Inquiry’s probe of the plot to replace capitalism with a dystopic ecotopia
Now that people are sitting down and actually reading the papers commissioned by Alberta’s so-called Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns, they’re finding paranoia and poppycock aplenty. It begs a question, though. What was Inquiry Commissioner Steve Allan up to when he reached out and paid significant sums from the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How much of the pipe that was supposedly ready to build Keystone XL is fit only for scrap?
Alberta is unlikely to recoup much of its $1.5-billion loss on the Keystone XL Pipeline by selling off unused pipe now that the Biden Administration has pulled the plug on the megaproject. At any rate, it’s hard to believe much of the pipe will be good for anything but scrap
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP to ask UCP cabinet to release risk analysis and full documentation of Premier Jason Kenney’s $7.5-billion Keystone XL deal
Opposition NDP members plan to make an emergency motion on Tuesday at a meeting of the Legislature’s Public Accounts Committee calling for full-disclosure of Premier Jason Kenney’s $7.5-billion Keystone XL Pipeline deal last March. Technically, the motion will urge the United Conservative Party Cabinet to waive its privilege and release
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP leads UCP in 2020 fund-raising totals, significantly in the fourth quarter and marginally over the year
Alberta’s Opposition New Democratic Party noticeably out-raised the United Conservative Party in the fourth quarter of 2020, $2.3 million to $1.9 million, according to figures released yesterday by Elections Alberta. This left the NDP slightly ahead in donations for the full year as well, $5.06 million compared with $5.05 million.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Public’ inquiry into ‘anti-Alberta’ campaigns descends into fiasco with request for third extension, apparently posted in error
Having just been busted for commissioning three reports that an expert critic dismissed as “textbook examples of climate change denialism,” the commissioner of the so-called Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns now appears to be seeking a third extension of time before delivering his final report. Commissioner Steve Allan’s request
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Climate-change denial, bias, and a Marxist under every bed of leaves characterize papers commissioned by energy campaigns inquiry
An “engagement process update” published Wednesday night by the so-called Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns reveals inquiry head Steve Allan commissioned reports by climate-change skeptics and a fossil fuel industry advocacy group in the United States. A critical submission to the $3.5-million inquiry by University of Calgary law professor
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney kicks Lesser Slave Lake MLA Pat Rehn, often missing in action, out of UCP Caucus
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney moved quickly to kick Pat Rehn out of the United Conservative Party Caucus this morning, a day after an Edmonton researcher revealed the Lesser Slave Lake MLA spent almost all of last April, May, June and July in Edmonton while constituents complained he was never in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Expense claims show MLA who rarely visits his own riding spent almost every day in Edmonton for four months last year
Lots of Pat Rehn’s constituents may think the Lesser Slave Lake MLA is about as helpful as a screen door on a submarine, but it turns out the fellow’s been able to dine out on his exalted status just the same. Quite literally, it would seem. Researcher Tony Clark (Photo:
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 66: Aloha! Flying into Alberta politics in 2021
What lies ahead for Alberta politics in 2021? Dr. Jared Wesley joins Dave Cournoyer on the Daveberta Podcast to discuss Jason Kenney’s leadership of the United Conservative Party, Rachel Notley’s focus on health care during the pandemic, the Alberta Party and Wildrose Independence Party leadership races, and the equalization referendum
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