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…
Alberta 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…
Overwhelmed by new cases, Alberta outsources contact tracing to people testing positive for COVID-19
Overwhelmed by a rising tide of new daily COVID-19 cases – “about 800” were reported yesterday by Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw – Alberta Health Services has announced…
Big changes at Athabasca U: President departs for B.C. Interior; health dean returns to faculty ranks
Neil Fassina is about to leave his job as president of Athabasca University to lead a small public college in Kelowna, B.C. Two weeks ago, Okanagan College announced in a…
Alberta’s story about Ottawa’s COVID-19 app keeps changing, but the ending’s still the same: You can’t have it!
Premier Jason Kenney issued a new explanation yesterday for why Alberta won’t adopt the COVID Alert tracing app created by the federal government. In a testy response to a question…
Say what? Conservative Alberta MP’s riding association buys pro-life transit ads in Vancouver
Regardless of exactly how Garnett Genuis’s Vancouver bus advertisement asking how there can be too many children was paid for, the Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan MP well known for his vocal…
Alberta chases multi-billion-dollar deal with Saudis, never mind what Jason Kenney used to say about them
Now that Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party is desperately trying to a do a deal with a Saudi Arabian company to build a petrochemical plant in Alberta, I wonder how…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
Premier Jason Kenney, in isolation, blows off criticism of the lackadaisical UCP approach to COVID-19 restrictions as ‘political pressure’
It’s not very reassuring to learn Alberta Premier Jason Kenney treats calls for stricter measures to control resurgent COVID-19 infections as “political pressure.” But yesterday, after Alberta on Wednesday surpassed…
Episode 61: Don Iveson on being a Mayor during COVID and his plan to end homelessness
“Countries investing in cities are winning.” Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson joins Dave Cournoyer on the Daveberta Podcast to talk about being a big city mayor during the COVID-19 global pandemic,…
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…
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…
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…