’Tis late, it’s been a long day, and your blogger is tired, so I’m going to leave you, dear readers, with some audio and visual commentary on next week’s Alberta election to chew over this morning.
I had the pleasure of being invited to take part in yesterday’s edition of TVOntario’s flagship current affairs program, The Agenda with Steve Paikin.
The other guests were AB Today reporter Catherine Griwkowsky, with me in the CBC’s studio in downtown Edmonton, and in Calgary Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt and commentator Bruce Dowbiggin, who podcasts at NotThePublicBroadcaster.com.
We had some things to say, and we didn’t always agree. As always with broadcasting, there wasn’t enough time to explore the issues as deeply as they deserved. I hope it entertains you. It certainly entertained me the first time around. And I hope it educated viewers in Upper Canada, as Mr. Paikin kept calling Ontario – a term I was sure had gone out of use in 1841, thanks to Lord Durham et. al. But, whatever.
I’m informed, by the way, that Mr. Paikin cut his hand yesterday morning seriously enough to require a hospital visit, but made it to the studio only a few minutes behind schedule and moderated the show with flawless grace. This is what they’re talking about, people, when they say, “the show must go on,” and I have to tell you I was impressed.
Saw your interview on TVO last night. That was an excellent discussion and you did very well.
Thanx
don
I wonder how a sports analyst, Bruce Dowbiggin and a “free-enterpriser” (at least for professional sports players) is on a panel discussing Alberta politics? http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com/npb
I had no idea that Dowbiggin was a full-blown John Bircher-type kook until five minutes ago. His website abounds with the weird neo-fascist jargon of the new savages.
The quote from Jen Gerson’s Apr 6 Maclean’s article that was mentioned on the program caught my attention: “Over the past few weeks, my inbox and private messages have been inundated with notes from conservatives—staunch, genuine conservatives—who admit to deep misgivings about the current ethical and moral direction of the UCP.”
And last night we got the double-barrelled blast from the petrostate prostitutes of Alberta, Notley and Kenney. Everyone is conspiring against them, you know, people who actually recognize climate change. And that Bill C-48, well it’s positively anti-Albertan! Alberta demands – indeed insists! – not for the first time, that its neighbour do its bidding and that Canada turns a blind eye to Alberta caterwauling.
Entitled and dumb with it. Alberta is being led by nincompoops, and the rest of us have to listen to the constant prattle of small minds, determinedly missing the point. If Alberta left Confederation I wouldn’t complain. Never seen such a bunch of navel-gazers bar the USA. We can put an all-weather highway and train tracks across the top of Alberta if we have to, and you lot can salute the stars and stripes while raping your landscape.
Grow up you lot. And stop heaping your dilbit on BC. Refine the glue there and export refined product. You’ll make much more money anyway. Nobody owes you a living and the whining is getting beyond the pale.
Alberta’s tentacles reach all the way to Nova Scotia. Alton Gas. Now approved to build a salt dome gas storage facility while pouring tens of thousands of gallons of brine per day from the jet-washing out of an underground cavern – right into a FRESHWATER salmon river. What could possibly go wrong? Go home Albertans! How this sh!t gets approved and has Mounties arresting First Nations people protesting the obvious IS BEYOND ME. Pretty much like demanding BC carry your prize goo over its land and across its waterways.
One thing’s for sure, it’s not your average plod of a citizen pushing this crap on our already tortured clear-cut land here in Nova Scotia. Nor the average British Columbian agitating for a piece of Kenney pie.
Dowbiggin is a dimwit. Thank goodness I don’t have to hear from him regularly any more. Go back to sports.
Nicely done, David. I was glad when you called out Bruce Dowbigen on the Alberta victimhood nonsense (although to be fair, I’m not sure he was claiming he agreed with it). I agree that Albertans are in for a big surprise with Kenney at the helm, as his government would be much more conservative than most Albertans are comfortable with.
Yes, good job perfesser. I will second the comment about WTH was Dowbiggin doing on there? He just interrupted all the time like a jock-talk show host to say things that were either perfectly obvious or that someone else had already said. He lowered the value of the program, same with Steve’s wasted time reading quotes from people like Jen Gersen, Kenny and Notley. All around interesting though, even to an out-of-province viewer.
I can’t explain this invitation myself. I was just a talking head, a token left-wing meat-puppet. DJC
“Upper Canada” … well, while this terminology is still used in the Maritimes to refer to Ontario & sometimes Quebec, Mr Paikin was born in Hamilton, so I can’t imagine where he picked up that formulation.