Alberta set a new daily record for COVID-19 yesterday, with 1,105 confirmed new cases reported over the previous 24 hours. No fear, though. Apparently the worst of the pandemic is already behind us! Leastways, that cheerful message has been showing up in mailboxes in Alberta’s Banff-Kananaskis riding, courtesy of Miranda Rosin, the area’s young United […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
UCP still covets CPP grubstake, so one way or another AIMCo CEO’s walk in the snow was inevitable
Did Kevin Uebelein jump or was he, ever so gently, shoved? Albertans can be confident we’ll never, ever get a straight answer about what led to the low-key announcement the day before yesterday that the CEO of the Alberta Investment Management Corp., better known as AIMCo, had decided to take the traditional Canadian walk in […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Canada’s progressive politicians need to pay attention to Erin O’Toole’s pivot to unions
If Erin O’Toole was sincere when he surprised everyone last month by bemoaning the decline of unions, you’d think he’d publicly rebuke Premier Jason Kenney for his ongoing campaign to turn Alberta into a right-to-work state. So far, though, the new Conservative Party of Canada leader has had nothing to say about the United Conservative […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
It was good luck not good management that saved us from COVID-19 last spring; bad management is killing us now
Sunday was Alberta’s deadliest pandemic day to date. Twenty people died from COVID-19. There were 860 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total of active cases to 10,031. And one gets the feeling, given the Kenney Government’s determinedly lackadaisical response to the pandemic, that this is just getting warmed up. Surely it was hubris to attribute […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Corporate lobbyist and former aide to two Conservative premiers named University of Alberta external relations VP
A high-profile lobbyist with connections to past Alberta Conservative governments and involvement in a controversial effort to open a large private hospital in Edmonton has been named as the University of Alberta’s new vice-president of external relations. U of A leadership, presumably, concluded lobbyist Elan MacDonald has the connections necessary to work with Premier Jason […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
COVID-19 is out of control and Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government looks like a deer in the headlights
Faced with a real crisis — a deadly pandemic that won’t quit when you yell at it to knock it off — Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government apparently has no idea what to do. COVID-19 is out of control. Alberta hospitals and care facilities are in near chaos. And the UCP Government is paralyzed, afraid […]
Posted inBestsellers
Forever Terry, edited by Darrell Fox, tops independent booksellers’ non-fiction bestseller list for week ended Nov. 8
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books in Edmonton and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. ALBERTA FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. To […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Ignoring worried doctors, Jason Kenney sticks with largely voluntary ‘pause’ to keep lid on COVID-19
The pandemic is bad and quickly getting worse in Alberta with 860 new daily cases reported yesterday, but Premier Jason Kenney remains deeply committed to the please-knock-it-off-guys approach to controlling the spread of COVID-19. Only, this time, he really means it. Really! Obviously desperate to be seen by his party’s libertarian wing as having nothing […]
Posted inGeopolitics
Evidence suggests U.S. conservatives have given up on democracy — can Canada’s Cons be far behind?
Yesterday was Martinstag in Germany. I suppose if you think about it, it’s St. Martin’s Day here in Canada, too. The occasion is said to be quite popular with children, with lots of colourful lanterns, costumes and sweets. Sort of like Halloween, only with more conventionally religious overtones. It turns out the Germans don’t celebrate […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Arbitration panel rejects rollback demand, awards 1% raise to non-academic staff at eight small Alberta public colleges
It’s unlikely the United Conservative Party Government of Premier Jason Kenney was pleased when it got word Monday an arbitration panel had rejected an employer demand for a pay rollback and awarded support staff at eight smaller Alberta post-secondary institutions a 1-per-cent raise for the final year of their contract. Unfortunately for the government, this […]
Posted inGeopolitics
U.S. election exposes ‘Triple-E’ Senate myth once and for all as a democratic disaster
Does anyone recall the Reform Party of Canada’s campaign starting in the late 1980s to impose on our country a “Triple-E Senate” – that is to say elected, effective, and, above all, “equal”? Pushed by the likes of Calgary-area farmer Bert Brown and would-be philosopher king Preston Manning, this call for institutional reform based on […]
Posted inBestsellers
The Finder, by Alberta author Will Ferguson, tops independent bookshops’ fiction bestseller list
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books in Edmonton and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. ALBERTA FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. The […]