Did Kevin Uebelein jump or was he, ever so gently, shoved? Albertans can be confident we’ll never, ever get a straight answer about what led to the low-key announcement the day before yesterday that the CEO of the Alberta Investment Management Corp., better known as AIMCo, had decided to take
Continue readingTag: United Conservative Party
Alberta Politics: It was good luck not good management that saved us from COVID-19 last spring; bad management is killing us now
Sunday was Alberta’s deadliest pandemic day to date. Twenty people died from COVID-19. There were 860 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total of active cases to 10,031. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). And one gets the feeling, given the Kenney Government’s determinedly lackadaisical response to the pandemic,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Corporate lobbyist and former aide to two Conservative premiers named University of Alberta external relations VP
A high-profile lobbyist with connections to past Alberta Conservative governments and involvement in a controversial effort to open a large private hospital in Edmonton has been named as the University of Alberta’s new vice-president of external relations. U of A leadership, presumably, concluded lobbyist Elan MacDonald has the connections necessary
Continue readingAlberta Politics: COVID-19 is out of control and Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government looks like a deer in the headlights
Faced with a real crisis — a deadly pandemic that won’t quit when you yell at it to knock it off — Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government apparently has no idea what to do. COVID-19 is out of control. Alberta hospitals and care facilities are in near chaos. Alberta’s premier,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Ignoring worried doctors, Jason Kenney sticks with largely voluntary ‘pause’ to keep lid on COVID-19
The pandemic is bad and quickly getting worse in Alberta with 860 new daily cases reported yesterday, but Premier Jason Kenney remains deeply committed to the please-knock-it-off-guys approach to controlling the spread of COVID-19. Only, this time, he really means it. Really! Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Arbitration panel rejects rollback demand, awards 1% raise to non-academic staff at eight small Alberta public colleges
It’s unlikely the United Conservative Party Government of Premier Jason Kenney was pleased when it got word Monday an arbitration panel had rejected an employer demand for a pay rollback and awarded support staff at eight smaller Alberta post-secondary institutions a 1-per-cent raise for the final year of their contract.
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 62: Maybe Keystone XL wasn’t a very good investment after all
In this episode of the Daveberta Podcast we discuss: the election of Joe Biden as President of the United States and the future of the Alberta government’s $7 billion investment into the Keystone XL Pipeline. the Kenney government’s response to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and Health Minister
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With COVID-19 infections surging, Jason Kenney doubles down on failing voluntary strategy
With Alberta’s COVID-19 infection rates surging toward Red State proportions, Premier Jason Kenney opted yesterday to double down on the strategy that’s already failing. Using an unusual Friday COVID-19 briefing as his stage, Premier Kenney bragged about how well Alberta used to be doing, then urged Albertans to do their
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s the UCP Government that’s been blocking Albertans’ access to Ottawa’s COVID Alert app, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says
We now know with reasonable certainty it’s the United Conservative Party Government that’s been responsible for blocking Albertans from having access to the federal COVID Alert smartphone app. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it clear in a radio interview in Edmonton yesterday morning that Ottawa views Alberta’s UCP Government as
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Earth scientist David Hughes, latter-day Cassandra, predicts completed TMX will see extra losses for every barrel shipped to Asia
Earth scientist David Hughes has become well known in certain circles as the Cassandra of the oilpatch. Cassandra, as the classically educated will recall, was the priestess of Apollo cursed to foretell the truth and never persuade anyone. A figure of Greek myth, and a walk-on part with a few
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Public inquiry, conducted in secret, gets another extension to find elusive foreign funders of ‘anti-Alberta’ campaigns
Apparently commissioner Steve Allan still isn’t having any luck finding those sinister foreign funders of “anti-energy” campaigns. But don’t worry, the government of Alberta has given the head of its “inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns” yet another extension to keep looking for the elusive foreigners featured in Premier Jason Kenney’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How propaganda became memory: Pierre Trudeau, Alberta and the National Energy Program
On this day 40 years ago, prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s finance minister and deputy PM, Allan MacEachen, rose in Parliament to introduce a new national budget. Warning that Canada could become increasingly dependent on foreign supplies of oil and subject to the vagaries of the world oil market, Mr. MacEachen
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP plan to lay off 11,000 public sector health workers sparks wildcat walkouts at 45 Alberta health facilities
Infuriated at the Kenney Government’s determination to lay off 11,000 public sector health care workers and privatize their jobs, members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees walked off the job in a province-wide wildcat strike yesterday morning. Last night, the Alberta Labour Relations Board ruled the work stoppage to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Activate the COVID Alert App in Alberta. Activate it right now!
With coronavirus pandemic surging in most parts of Canada, most definitely including Alberta, the federal government needs to make its COVID Alert exposure notification app available in this province immediately. Needless to say, with case numbers rising rapidly in Alberta, it is extremely frustrating for Albertans concerned about their health
Continue readingAlberta Politics: COVID-19? Forget about it! Alberta restaurants to stay open, Premier Jason Kenney vows
“Alberta restaurants to stay open, barring ‘catastrophe,’ premier says,” the CBC’s online headline writer summarized yesterday. Here, as they say on social media, let me fix your headline: “Alberta restaurants to stay open, sparking ‘catastrophe,’ premier says.” Premier Kenney visits an Alberta Restaurant that presumably will be staying open no
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Handpicked UCP advisors call for mention of residential schools to be erased from primary grades’ social studies curriculum
A recommendation by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s handpicked curriculum advisors to strip all mention of residential schools from the province’s Kindergarten-to-Grade 4 curriculum “will perpetuate systemic racism through whitewashing,” says Melissa Purcell, the Alberta Teachers Association’s staff officer for Indigenous education. “The Indian Residential School system was created to erase
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP launches ambitious legislative session, with 20 bills packed into six weeks and no time for COVID-19
An ambitious six-week fall sitting of the Alberta Legislature commenced in Edmonton yesterday with Premier Jason Kenney telling the House during Question Period that his government isn’t about to publish any updated COVID-19 modelling. As Opposition Leader Rachel Notley argued, it would be useful to know what the experts say
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Second COVID-19 wave rolls into Alberta as Premier Jason Kenney continues to emphasize ‘personal responsibility’
Alberta has now passed a significant milestone — more COVID-19 cases than at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in the spring, 3,138 compared to 3,022 on April 30. There were 898 new cases over the weekend if you count Friday, as Alberta Health Services does, and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta must learn to walk and chew gum at the same time, premier muses on the topic of energy and the environment
Jason Kenney may have missed it, but Lyndon Johnson’s famous comment about how certain people weren’t up to walking and chewing gum at the same time was an observation about their lack of intelligence, not their ability to get away with saying contradictory things at the same time. Alberta’s premier
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Sundre hospital renamed to honour MP Myron Thompson, long-time foe of equality for same-sex couples
“They’re trying to take away our culture, they’re trying to take away our history,” Donald Trump complained back in 2017 about activists who call for the removal statues of Confederate and colonialist heroes. Mr. Trump’s supporters have been loudly making their agreement known ever since, including here in Alberta where
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