Progressive Conservative leader Jason Kenney took aim at the New Democratic Party and Alberta’s teachers this week, claiming that both groups are planning to hijack the July 22 vote to fold his party and the Wildrose Party into a new United Conservative Party. Kenney’s claims are unsubstantiated and are likely
Continue readingTag: Wildrose Party
Alberta Politics: Recommendations of independent review of Athabasca University seem unlikely to survive Alberta political reality
PHOTOS: University of Saskatchewan Professor Ken Coates, author of the independent review of Athabasca University released last week. Below: Athabasca U President Neil Fassina, AU Board Chair Vivian Manasc, and Alberta Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt. Recent news reports about the continuing woes of Athabasca University and in particular coverage
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Year after year, about now, Alberta conservatives shoot themselves in the same foot
PHOTOS: Then-Wildrose MLAs Kerry Towle, leader Danielle Smith and Jeff Wilson (in Wildrose T-shirts behind the sign) take part in the August 2014 Calgary Pride parade. Below: Wildrose staffer Cory Johnston, current party leader Brian Jean, former leader Smith (Photo: Dave Cournoyer) and Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley. Bottom: Calgary
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tee times and cowboys trump Pride when jittery Alberta conservative politicians join the parade
PHOTOS: Participants in last year’s Edmonton Pride Parade as it made its way through the leafy streets of Rachel Notley’s Edmonton-Strathcona riding. They don’t look very dangerous, do they? Below: The missing men – Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney (Photo: Wildrose Party), plus Oscar Wilde
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Mapping the ‘Kleintastrophe’ – veteran journalist and researcher tracks energy policies of past Alberta PC governments
PHOTOS: Alberta premier Ralph Klein at the start of the Kleintastrophe in 1992. (Screenshot of CBC broadcast.) Below: Calgary journalist and researcher Gillian Steward, former Alberta Liberal leader Kevin Taft, the best premier Alberta never had, and would-be United Conservative Party leadership candidate Doug Schweitzer. As the years Ralph Klein
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dennis Howlett comments on the distortions in Canada’s tax system which redistribute money upward to those who need it least: It’s time for Mr. Morneau to deliver a comprehensive and comprehensible tax strategy that will work in 2017 and beyond because, currently, tax
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Finally, early in the 21st Century, NDP braves Opposition outrage to drag Alberta labour law into the late 20th Century
PHOTOS: Alberta Labour Minister Christina Gray. Below: Opposition MLAs Greg Clark and Richard Starke, who contributed amends to the act passed in the wee hours of yesterday morning. In the wee hours of yesterday morning, the NDP MLAs in the Alberta Legislature dragged the province’s labour laws into the late
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrose to members: Want to break a law? No problem! We’ll just get elected and change it
PHOTOS: The Alberta Legislature, about the best your blogger can do on the road to illustrate this illustration-resistant story (Photo: Wikimedia Commons). Below: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney and Wildrose Treasurer James Cole, every one of them people mentioned in this story of whom photos exist.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: If failure to appear at Pride goeth before a fall, what will Jason Kenney do?
PHOTOS: Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney, back in 2010 when he was a Calgary MP, taking part in the Calgary Stampede Parade. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.) Will he show up for the Edmonton Pride Parade next Saturday as well? Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, flanked by Education Minister David Eggen and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Genial and in control, Alberta premier fields questions about B.C. politics with aplomb at hospital announcement
PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and Health Minister and Deputy Premier Sarah Hoffman announce a new hospital on Edmonton’s south side. Alberta Health services CEO Verna Yiu is visible on the right. Below: Infrastructure Minister Brian Mason, controversial B.C. environmentalist Tzeporah Berman and some of the crowd at the hospital
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How but as a leadership campaign brochure are we to interpret Derek Fildebrandt’s paean to ‘Max’ Bernier?
PHOTOS: Derek Fildebrandt, the Alberta Wildrose Party’s finance critic and, possibly, third unofficial candidate to enter the non-race to lead the still-nonexistent United Conservative Party. Below: Maxime Bernier (Photo: CBC), who is apparently Mr. Fildebrandt’s ideological hero, and British Columbia NDP Leader John Horgan, who seems very close to grasping
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Media readers deserve the whole story about the sources reporters quote in public policy stories
PHOTOS: The question isn’t just whether Alberta’s students are getting the information they need, but whether media is giving the rest of us all the facts we require when we read news stories about education policy. Below: Former Edmonton Public Schools curriculum director Stuart Wachowicz, a frequent source used in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Wildrosers and Progressive Conservatives act as if fighting the NDP’s workplace fairness law is their hill to die on
PHOTOS: Edmonton labour lawyer Andrew Sims and Alberta Labour Minister Christina Gray at yesterday’s technical briefing on the NDP Government’s new labour legislation. (Photo: CBC) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, and Alberta Liberal interim Leader David Swann and Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, both of whom supported introduction of the
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: NDP finally introduce their Labour Law modernization bill
Labour Minister Christina Gray introduced Bill 17, the Fair and Family-friendly Workplaces Act, into the Legislative Assembly today. This bill includes long-awaited reforms to modernize Alberta’s Labour Code and Employment Standards Code. Some parts of Alberta’s labour laws have remained untouched since the 1970s. The 249-page bill includes a wide-range of amendments from
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Foreign influence’ had nothing to do with Tory Joan Crockatt’s Calgary Centre election defeat in 2015
PHOTOS: Joan Crockatt, during her brief spell as Conservative Member of Parliament for Calgary Centre. Below: Liberal Veterans Affairs Minister Kent Hehr, who beat Ms. Crockatt in 2015; environmentalist Chris Turner who ran against her for the Greens in 2012 and did very well; and environmentalist Harvey Locke, who ran
Continue readingIn This Corner: The Return of Stuff Happens, week 18: Will the right united; the ‘I’ word is spoken.
There was a seismic shift in Alberta politics this week. Only time will tell if it’s a real earthquake that brings down two (or maybe three) parties, or whether it just grunts and groans and nothing happens. On Wednesday, Wildrose party leader Brian Jean and new Progressive Conservative party leader
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Tories, Wildrosers agree to call new entity United Conservative Party … without ever speaking the initials aloud
PHOTOS: Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney pose uncomfortably in this Wildrose Party photo. Below: A CBC shot by Terry Reith may have captured the real mood better. Below that: Twitterist Edwin Mundt’s take on the You See Pee. Question: What happens when Alberta Can’t Wait?
Continue readingdaveberta.ca – Alberta Politics: The U-C-P: Jean and Kenney launch the United Conservative Party
Today’s announcement from Wildrose Party leader Brian Jean and Progressive Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney that they plan to create a new conservative political party has been expected for weeks. The press conference was filled with fairly nauseating partisan rhetoric about how awful and catastrophic the NDP are, but most importantly, we found
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s weird to see Alberta’s Wildrose Party paying tribute to (Pierre) Trudeau’s National Energy Program … but what the heck!
PHOTOS: Prime minister Pierre Trudeau, at right, and Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed looking friendly enough in this file shot taken back in the 1980s. Below: Wildrose Economic Development Critic Prasad Panda and former Manitoba (shhhhhh … NDP) premier Gary Doer. VICTORIA, B.C. While we await the results of today’s British
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Message to the media and conservatives about Alberta’s NDP: Read their lips, no early election!
PHOTOS: Opposition Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney. Below: A clear-eyed Premier Rachel Notley, former British Columbia NDP premier Dave Barrett and the late Jim Prentice, former premier of Alberta. TORONTO “Two years after Alberta NDP win, critics see signs of early election call,” a headline
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