Crib notes: Understanding yesterday’s United Conservative Party Throne Speech
As the documents that lay out the government’s policy agenda for the next couple of years, Throne Speeches are by nature tendentious. In the service of making what is a…
Alberta Politics
Nathan Cooper chosen as Legislative Speaker – so how about those early mornings?
Now that Nathan Cooper has been chosen as Speaker of the Alberta Legislature, I wonder if the business of the Assembly will be getting under way at a more civilized…
The Smart Guys Got Us To This!
OK, now let’s see. Trudeau bought the Kinder Morgan pipeline and Horgan has immersed us in unneeded and unwanted fracking operations and LNG fantasies that will all blow up in…
On the streets of Edmonton with Dale the Street Preacher: ‘It’s really tough’
Dale the Street Preacher is doing the Lord’s work. We can acknowledge this, even if we don’t share his idea of whom the lord is, or accept his view about…
Keep your eyes on the story of Jason Kenney’s ‘War Room’ – it’s going to be a boondoggle!
The discovery last week Postmedia was trying to cash in on Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s promised $30-million anti-environmental “war room” at the same time it has its hand out to…
Postmedia bid for role in UCP ‘war room’ illustrates the folly of Trudeau’s lifeline for failing newspapers
Connect the dots, Mr. Prime Minister! That newspaper industry bailout package you’re foolishly planning in the name of preserving democracy is principally designed to keep a corporation afloat that will…
Uh-oh! Look for unhappy campers: Premier Kenney has vowed to end ‘the War on Fun’
Hey, who can be against ending Canada’s War on Fun? Not me, and not Jason Kenney either by the sound of it. You have to admit, though, the Alberta premier’s…
The Annals of Justice: Vice-Admiral Mark Norman gets an apology and Conrad Black gets a pardon
Remember this important fact: None of us knows whether Vice-Admiral Mark Norman is guilty of the crime with which he was charged. Well, Vice-Admiral Norman knows, presumably, and his legal…
UCP posturing around public sector wages portends a return to perpetual crisis in health care
The United Conservative Party Government’s transparent early manoeuvres around public sector wage negotiations and the heavy hints found in a paper by the chair of Premier Jason Kenney’s “blue ribbon…
Cuts & Critics: Expect fireworks in the Legislature, but no real brakes on radical UCP agenda
Alberta’s 24 NDP Opposition MLAs were sworn in yesterday and Opposition Leader Rachel Notley, not so long ago the province’s premier, named the MLAs who will fill her shadow cabinet…
Stephen Mandel, as impudent as ever, pleads for public subsidy for his Alberta Party
Hello, Alberta! Stephen Mandel here! My Alberta Party didn’t manage to elect a single MLA last month, but we’re good guys and we got 9.1 per cent of the vote.…
Lest we forget? Does Veterans Affairs’ video blooper signal something more seriously amiss in Canada?
On Thursday 13,000 soldiers of what used to be known as the Red Army marched through the heart of Moscow to military bands playing “The Sacred War” as Russia marked…
UCP Health Minister Tyler Shandro hesitates over risky ideological plan to pull plug on medical ‘Superlab’
When it opted to build a $590-million “Superlab” in Edmonton, Alberta’s former NDP government was relying on sound advice from the Health Quality Council of Alberta, which recommended medical lab…
Your tax dollars at work: Looks like public funding for religious schools likely helped today’s large anti-abortion march
Taxpayers’ contributions to publicly funded parochial schools appeared to be hard at work today in Edmonton as a throng of students from religious high schools throughout the province marched through…
Albertans, in their ‘bitumen bubble,’ may have missed the significance of West Coast Green goings on
We Albertans have been living in a bit if a bubble – a bitumen bubble. As a consequence, we may not all have noticed what’s been happening on Canada’s West…
Feeling blue? Don’t worry, Jason Kenney’s got a ‘blue ribbon panel’ sharpening its razors for you!
Brace yourselves, people. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has announced his “Blue Ribbon” panel to do a “deep dive” into the province’s books and figure out how to get them into…
Rachel Notley sets out to do a little narrative building of her own about what Jason Kenney is up to, now that he’s premier
CALGARY – In her first major speech since losing the Alberta election to Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party on April 16, Rachel Notley called on her supporters not to allow…
Vindication? Board of Internal Economy renders a Scotch verdict on Jason Kenney’s ethical lapse
CALGARY – Jason Kenney’s been in power for less than a week and already his election promises are falling like dominoes.* Yesterday, another wobbled when the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal…
Meanwhile, back on the Alberta farm, when in doubt, blame Ottawa
CALGARY – Meanwhile, back on the farm, a new template for government of Alberta news releases is a-birthin’. Henceforth and forevermore, presumably, all news releases issued by Alberta’s New Government…