Notley’s NDP should ban corporate and union donations in municipal elections
One of the main promises made by the NDP before their win in the May 2015 provincial election was a commitment to ban corporate and union donations in provincial politics.…
Alberta Politics
Grim Athabasca University report says ‘future is now,’ but faces a different future than the one its authors anticipated
PHOTOS: Athabasca University’s spooky headquarters in the forest near the town of Athabasca. Below: Athabasca-Sturgeon-Redwater NDP MLA Colin Piquette, AU President Peter MacKinnon and Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre Wildrose MLA Jason…
Alberta’s new political insiders mostly come from outside Alberta
Edmonton Journal report Karen Kleiss published a story this week naming the new Chiefs of Staff hired to advise Alberta’s twelve NDP cabinet ministers and manage their offices at the…
Starting with the A’s in Alberta: Archer is in; Asbell is on the way out
PHOTOS: A chaotic scene, not atypical of Alberta labour relations in the Age of Asbell, shot with a phone camera in the offices of the Alberta Labour Relations Board in…
NDP health minister’s decision to drop Tories’ phony AHS ‘decentralization’ is no loss to anyone
PHOTOS: Alberta Health Services, as originally envisaged by the Tories and described by the Wildrose Party. Below: Another AHS reorganization as seen by the NDP. Below that train wreck, Alberta…
Tory-linked lobbying firm hires former Canadian Labour Congress president and former B.C. NDP minister
PHOTOS: Lobbyists head out to provide “strategic counsel” to Alberta’s new NDP government. Can you spot the recently hired New Democrats among them? No? Well, neither can I. Actual Alberta…
$15 is too low, and three years is too long to wait, for a higher Alberta minimum wage
PHOTOS: Greetings from Halifax, where a minimum wage almost as low as Alberta’s isn’t half of what a two-earner family needs to live a decent life. Can it be much…
Ours is smaller than yours! With 2 Sky Palace killers and 9 members, PC shadow cabinet outdoes Notley Cabinet … sort of
The PC Alberta Drum Band. It’s not this bad, but close enough. Below: Grant Notley, Raj Pannu and Brian Mason. HALIFAX, N.S. Well, we have to give them this much:…
The tough road ahead for Alberta’s opposition PC Party
When Members of Alberta’s Legislative Assembly gather on June 11 to choose a new Speaker, the seating chart will be unlike anything Albertans have seen in this province’s 110 year…
Wildrose MLA Jason Nixon faces expulsion motion from students’ union
While the mainstream media has spent an inordinate amount of time focusing on the social media indiscretions of Calgary-Bow MLA Deborah Drever, newly elected Wildrose Party MLA Jason Nixon faces…
Alberta’s shattered Tories have a tougher task ahead than the ‘inexperienced’ NDP
PHOTOS: A really smart guy tries to figure out a way back to power for Alberta’s post-Prentice Progressive Conservatives. Actual PC strategists may not appear exactly as illustrated. Doesn’t look…
There’s no way the Broadbent Institute should have hired a high-profile strikebreaker to moderate a panel on Alberta’s election
PHOTOS: A striker, at right, confronts a security guard during one of the dark days of the 1999-2000 labour dispute at the Calgary Herald. Below: Calgary Herald political columnist Don…
Is anyone seriously surprised Alberta’s books might be in worse shape that we were told?
PHOTOS: Uh-oh! Newly appointed NDP chiefs of staff start to check the books left by the now-departed Prentice Government, and they don’t like what they’re finding. Actual government political staffers…
Does advertising plagiarism suggest Harper Government’s running on intellectual fumes?
PHOTOS: A screen shot from the new Harper Government anti-Tom-Mulcair advertisement. Actual Harper government plagiarism may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Scenes from the nearly identical 2011 Manitoba NDP…
Navigator hires Notley’s press secretary. Former NDP, Wildrose, PC MLAs go into business.
The realm of government relations and lobbying is a world that most Albertans will never be exposed to. The industry of influencing elected officials and government policy as practiced by…
Sunshine, ice cream and a mellow multitude of 10,000 or so usher in the NDP era in Alberta
PHOTOS: Here’s my shot of the crowd as it began to break up after the ceremony had ended and I’d managed to run upstream to the steps of the Legislature.…
Notley’s Crew: Alberta’s First NDP Cabinet
Thousands of Albertans packed the Legislature Grounds for the swearing-in ceremony of Premier Rachel Notley and Alberta’s first NDP Cabinet. This marked the first time in 44 years that a…
Was Lake of Fire 2.0, the 2015 edition, averted by an incompetent Tory war room?
PHOTOS: Former premier Jim Prentice, left, asks a member of his opposition research and strategy team what the heck went wrong on May 5. Actual Alberta politicians and their flunkies…