Western Alienation? What Western Alienation?
It’s one of those times. Alberta is enduring an oil bust so “Western alienation” is back in the news. The word of interest here is “Western.” Although some Albertans may…
Alberta
Circle your wagons; they’re on the warpath.
And here we thought war rooms in politics were a thing of the past? Now we see that the Toronto Sun has resurrected the idea with a one-time liberal in…
Conservatives Exceeding Election Spending Expectations
NEW: Elections Canada says it will monitor provincial government interventions in the federal campaign https://t.co/J8UfrINIlR #onpoli #abpoli #cdnpoli — Marieke Walsh (@MariekeWalsh) June 13, 2019 What’s that mean? You’ve heard…
The Need and Will to Change: The Lessons Alberta can learn from Cape Breton and Research in Motion
In 1997, Apple was a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy. It was not Palm. It was not Research in Motion. While, Steve Jobs had returned to them…
Kenney’s Conundrum, Capturing Carbon.
It was in the business news recently. It was about the success of Shell Oil’s $1.3 billion carbon-capture plant, Quest, near Edmonton. The Quest plant is designed to capture and…
Fighting the facts of the future.
In a discussion of what is currently happening in politics, the realization emerged that provincial politicians such as Alberta’s Kenney, Saskatchewan’s Moe and Ontario’s Ford are denying our progeny a…
Homelessness, harm reduction and Housing First
I was recently invited to give a presentation at a two-day event discussing the overdose crisis and First Nations, with a focus on southern Alberta. My presentation focused on homelessness,…
War Rooms from the political past.
It started back in the late 1970s and 80s when Senator Keith Davey, some of us liberal apparatchiks and the marketing communications experts, who volunteered their time, started to look…
To the Rich Go the SpOILs
Oil and Gas don’t clean up their messes, we the Canadian citizen do. https://t.co/xaSJBNciJz — John Klein (@JohnKleinRegina) May 7, 2019 == Unrelated, the Bare Naked Ladies song $1000000 mentions…
Is Kenney a Constitutional Crisis?
It seems that between Jason Kenney and his predecessor as premier of Alberta, Kenney has the shriller voice. When he goes to Ottawa to bitch and whine about how his…
On being liberal in disquieting times.
The word ‘disquieting’ took a while to choose. I have been trying to define the times leading up to the October 21 federal election and it reminds us of flying…
Ford Says Ontario Has Done Enough.
At least there’s something Doug Ford can thank his Liberal predecessor for – cutting Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions. He’s positively boastful about that, to the point where he’s shining an…
Those Ever So Tarry Sands
You know your country has descended into a petro-state by the arguments it invokes to excuse itself. The classic Tory line that’s now the Liberal line is that, gee shucks,…
Political Pipe-Dreams.
While the rest of North America were out on an Easter egg hunt this morning, Albertans were out beating the bushes looking for the pipeline that their politicians have been…
This Is What Gives Them Away
A lot of stupid people in Canada have come to think of Athabasca bitumen as “oil.” That is the single most important victory the petro-state has achieved. It’s not oil.…
So, What in Hell Does Justin Do Now?
This is another fine mess he’s created. He tried to help Rachel as much as he could but she’s out, bumped off by the bete noire of Western conservatism, Jason…
The Alberta that God forgot.
“O outcast land! O leper land! Let the lone wolf-cry all express The hate insensate of thy hand, Thy heart’s abysmal loneliness.” From the poems of Robert Service. Jason Kenney…
This Could Be Another Difficult Day for Mr. Trudeau
He panicked and tossed away $4.5 billion on a pipeline project, money we might not (probably won’t) get back. He’s about to pour another seven to nine billion into constructing…
Chuckles checks conservative campaigns.
You would expect that one of these days, conservative leader Andrew ‘Chuckles’ Scheer will have to take the training wheels off his federal election campaign. He was out on the…
In Alberta, vote, wash hands, wash hands again.
With less than a week to another Alberta provincial election I cannot forecast the vote. It is one of those times you can only vote against. There seem to be…