Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Thomson Reuters reports on the latest UN research showing that planned fossil fuel production far exceeds what we can afford if we want…
Alberta NDP
Latest leak shows AHS modelling forecasts Intensive Care Units packed with COVID-19 patients by mid-December
In the first unauthorized information leak of December, Alberta’s NDP Opposition revealed yesterday Alberta Health Services case modelling projects about 775 Albertans will be in hospital with COVID-19 in just…
With pandemic respiratory disease rampaging virtually unchecked in Alberta, Calgary faces oxygen rationing
In a development that is surely emblematic of the unchecked progress of the novel coronavirus under the United Conservative Party Government of Premier Jason Kenney, Albertans learned yesterday we are…
Oppositional by nature, the UCP acts as if Rachel Notley’s NDP was still the government
Perhaps because he’s the only United Conservative Party MLA in Edmonton, Justice Minister Kaycee Madu seems to have become the Kenney Government’s main spokesperson responsible for yelling at the NDP.…
UCP tries to recast story of premier’s meddling in pandemic response as tale of betrayal by unidentified leaker
Turns out the Kenney Government’s pandemic response has been guided more by political pressure and right-wing ideology than science and expert advice. For weeks Premier Jason Kenney and his army…
David Khan and Don Iveson, two bright lights of Alberta politics, announce they’re packing it in
Two prominent Alberta politicians have taken the traditional Canadian walk in the snow and announced their planned departures from their current political roles. Alberta Liberal Leader David Khan, 46, one…
The Premier is Missing (not a novel) – will he be back today to launch a big COVID-19 lockdown, or is it something else?
Where’s Jason Kenney? Alberta’s in the midst of a pandemic emergency that grows more frightening by the day, but it’s been days since the public’s seen or heard from the…
63: Defending Alberta Parks
Annalise Klingbeil joins the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the latest developments in United Conservative Party government’s plans to close and privatize more than 160 provincial parks and recreation areas. We…
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…
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…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Fred Hahn writes about the importance of government investment in times of crisis to make up for what people can’t afford – or…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Throwing health care into chaos isn’t easy, but the UCP’s political staffers are willing to sacrifice to do it
Throwing Alberta’s health care system into chaos isn’t easy. It takes hard work and sacrifice. But thanks to the United Conservative Party’s front-line fighters in the war against fair and…
UCP government announces massive health care layoffs at hastily called news conference
If you think this morning was a crazy moment for Health Minister Tyler Shandro to announce a major restructuring of public health care in Alberta, including the layoffs of 11,000…
If you want to know how an Alberta Provincial Police force would behave, read between the lines of yesterday’s announcement
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police may be no paragon of liberalism and progressive enforcement, but they’re apparently too liberal and progressive for the members of the so-called Fair Deal Panel…