Oilberta
Alberta has long been a puppet of the oil and gas business but Kenney’s compulsion to deliver benefits to this private sector is unprecedented. It is as if Alberta’s right…
Alberta
‘Goddamn the CPR.’
Can you imagine two more Canadian icons than journalist Allan Fotheringham and the Canadian Pacific Railway? It came as a pleasant surprise recently to see a television interview with ‘Doc…
Alberta after Fossil Fuels
Alberta and oil are almost synonymous. But if the province is to do its share to avoid the apocalypse that global warming threatens, it must kick the oil habit, or…
Ten things to know about the 2019-20 Alberta budget
I’ve just written a ‘top 10’ overview of the recent Alberta budget. Points raised in the post include the following: -The budget lays out a four-year strategy of spending cuts,…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Spence discusses how a wealth tax can work, while noting that the worst possible response to growing inequality is to refuse to…
Ten things to know about poverty measurement in Canada
I’ve written a blog post providing an overview of poverty measurement in Canada. Points raised in the post include the following: -One’s choice of poverty measure has a major impact…
How A Liberal Minority Government Might Impact Corporate Environmental Outlook
The 2019 Canadian election resulted in a Liberal minority government led by Justin Trudeau. How might it impact your corporate environmental policy? To help guide your outlook we highlight notable…
Can Trudeau Make a Future with Alberta?
Life is full of little surprises. Often pleasant ones. I encountered such a surprise this week reading the Calgary Herald, not a paper usually on my wave length. And yet…
Banking on the Bigotry of the Bloc?
When does la laïcité (the separation of church and state) become the political war cry in Quebec during a federal election? And why does it front as a cover-up for…
Apparently I’m a Quebecker
Vote Compass recently published a survey of Canadians’ attitudes toward a variety of issues. The results were broken down by province, scaling how much respondents agreed or disagreed with different…
Taking the road to totalitarianism.
It is in Fortress Alberta that Jason Kenney did declare that his propaganda machine will be removed from all controls. What started as a so-called war room will now be…
Greta Goes To Edmonton, Alberta Goes Nuts
If you want to read something funny about bad people, here it is. Climate activist and hero Greta Thunberg is in Calgary and on her way to Edmonton for a…
War Rooms, Secrecy and a Little Patronage—Democracy in Alberta
Former journalist and conservative lobbyist Tom Olsen was the UCP candidate in my riding of Calgary-Buffalo in this spring’s Alberta election. Tom lost to Joe Ceci of the NDP, but…
Greta Thunberg heads for Wild Rose Country: first chance for the UCP’s War Roomers to mess up big time!
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who seems to have turned the world upside down by mobilizing young people to do something about global climate change, tweeted last night that…
Jason Kenney: Doug Ford’s understudy.
Every actor needs an understudy. It just seems appropriate for the much-detested premier Doug Ford in Ontario to have a truly obnoxious stand-in during the federal election. It is conservative…
The use of homeless shelters by Indigenous peoples in Canada
I’ve written a blog post about the use of homeless shelters by Indigenous peoples in Canada. The post is inspired by recently-accessed, internal analysis done by staff at Employment and…
Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Keith Gerein writes that Alberta’s petro-state can’t mask the fact that climate denialism is leading to governance failing its own province’s children.…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – The L.A. Times’ editorial board comments on the need for everybody to pitch in toward a just transition which preserves a habitable planet…
The ghost of Bible Bill Haunts us still
In the late ’30s and early ’40s Alberta’s premier was the colourful William Aberhart, known as “Bible Bill” for his bible studies classes and radio sermons. Founder of the Social…
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett and Wanda Wyporska neatly summarize the insidious social effects of inequality: (I)nequality is socially divisive, making status more important…