Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Kelsey Piper writes about the U.S.’ memory-holing of the successes of a vaccine program which resulted in exceptionally quick development and distribution…
Danielle Smith
Apocalypse Now? Or apocalypse later? Are we looking at the last days of the UCP, or just another self-inflicted speed bump?
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”…
Political Interference in the Administration of Justice (Again!)
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”—Proverb, originated 1562 Did you catch all that? Premier Smith has been all over the airwaves saying that regardless of what…
Texas businessman, world traveller, decides not to seek re-election in rural Alberta riding
A United Conservative Party backbencher caught up in the Alohagate pandemic travel scandal in the first hours of 2021 and seldom seen in his own riding has acknowledged reality and…
Ah, Imprecision! Carry On, Prosecutors! Danielle Smith takes it all back in clarification
As predicted in this space yesterday, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has now clarified her statement of the day before about contacting Crown prosecutors “on a regular basis” to ask if…
Stuff Danielle Smith says: Alberta premier in hot water again, this time for suggesting she interfered with administration of justice
You just never know what Danielle Smith is going to say next. Opposition NDP Justice Critic Irfan Sabir (Photo : David J. Climenhaga). The trouble is, neither does she. Consider…
Danielle Smith to Alberta at first newer of 2023: ‘We haven’t made a decision to invoke the Sovereignty Act on anything’
Judging from Premier Danielle Smith’s first formal news conference of 2023 in Calgary yesterday, no one needs to worry too much about her using the deceptively named Alberta Sovereignty within…
Free Money? No Thank You!
Many years ago the (then) Progressive Conservative government offered energy companies bags of money if they undertook projects the government thought were necessary. The CEO I worked for told us…
Alberta NDP’s $7.1-million fund-raising total in 2022 speaks to deep dissatisfaction among many voters with Premier Danielle Smith and the UCP
It is remarkable by any measure that the Alberta New Democratic Party raised $7.1 million in 2022, not to mention that $3.2 million of that sum was donated during the…
Resignations leave residents of two corners of southwest Calgary with neither an MP nor an MLA
Happy New Year! The small block of Calgary’s North Glenmore neighbourhood, south of Glenmore Trail, that’s in both the federal Calgary Heritage Riding and the provincial Calgary-Elbow riding (Map: Government…
The Alberta political story of 2022 was the decline, fall, irrelevance and virtual disappearance of Jason Kenney
Looking back over the Alberta political stories of 2022, one theme dominates all others: the fall of Jason Kenney. What may have been Mr. Kenney’s worst moment of 2022, the…
Never mind what Danielle Smith promises, here are the Top Ten Things that WON’T happen in Alberta politics in 2023
It is traditional at this time for year for prophets, prognosticators and political pundits to make predictions about what dramatic events the coming year will hold. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith…
Wednesday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Zaina Hamza discusses new research showing how COVID-19 fatalities hit younger people and caused more loss of expected years of life in the…
Premier Smith to nurses and doctors: Forget about measures to mitigate respiratory disease spread, the UCP is for ‘choice’
On Tuesday, both the United Nurses of Alberta and the Alberta Medical Association’s Section of Emergency Medicine sent letters to Chief Medical Officer of Health Mark Joffe urging him to…
Danielle Smith runs the idea of an Alberta pension plan referendum in May up the flagpole – then yanks it halfway down again
From time to time, Calgary Herald columnist Rick Bell has been used by Alberta Conservatives to float their trial balloons. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). So when Mr.…
Tracy Allard, pushed from cabinet in 2021 for a Hawaiian pandemic holiday, welcomed back as ‘parliamentary secretary for civil liberties’
When then municipal affairs minister Tracy Allard was busted by media when she returned from a mid-pandemic Hawaiian vacation at the end 2020, it was billed the first United Conservative…
In only 64 days, Danielle Smith blew the relationship Jason Kenney strove to build with Alberta First Nations to smithereens
Say what you will about Jason Kenney and his ideas, he made progress on persuading First Nations communities to buy into his vision of Alberta’s future. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith…
Alberta: Doing everything in its power to protect ‘law abiding’ gun owners from having to obey the law!
Welcome to Alberta where you can now be a law-abiding citizen while defying the law! Says who? Says Tyler Shandro, minister of justice, who announced yesterday that the province will…
‘Premier Smith does not understand our Treaty or our inherent rights nor does she respect them’ – Treaty 6 chiefs
The chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations emerged from their first meeting with Danielle Smith yesterday clearly unimpressed with the Alberta premier’s glib patter about the significance…