We’re closed … but not for long (and we hope you had a happy Labour Day)

Labour Day – the traditional end of the Canadian summer and supposedly the moment when we all get seriously back to work, or school, or whatever – has come and gone.

To Alberta’s United Conservative Party government, Labour Day was worth 136 words in a mostly anodyne statement from Jobs, Economy, Trade, and Everything Except Labour Minister Matt Jones. Weirdly, it was on the Government Website last night, but wasn’t visible if you happened to click on the news tab looking for it. 

The statement promises a review of the Occupational Health and Safety Code, “so it better reflects Alberta’s modern workplaces and is easy for employers and workers to understand.” If you work for a living in Alberta, given the record of the UCP, that should make you nervous. 

There is no mention of unions, of course, although come Labour Day this is standard practice for conservative parties in North America nowadays. And to be fair, there was precious little acknowledgement of the labour movement in the stream of tweets emanating from the Opposition NDP either, although there were so many of them it’s possible I missed something. 

Premier Smith’s Labour Day tweet had a picture of a child wearing a hard hat, which seems appropriate given the conservative movement’s position on child labour. (Viz., it’s good again, or at least OK, at least in Oklahoma. But watch out, it’ll be coming this way soon enough.) 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned the labour movement in his Labour Day tweet, and so did his labour minister, who dared to use the U-word. Federal Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre’s videoed Labour Day message didn’t, but it did mention God, and its tribute to the extraordinary lives of “ordinary people” (some of whom apparently can do impossible things) was weird and creepy, and got weirder and creepier every time I listened to it. 

Conclusion: if I’m listening to Pierre Poilievre bloviating to inspiring royalty-free music for entertainment, I need a break!

So, just to be different – as readers have been forewarned a couple of times – I’m closing down AlbertaPolitics.ca to take a personal break from writing daily blog posts for the rest of the month. I’ll be on the road for a while, and I’m sure to post some photos on X, or whatever the heck Twitter is called now, and on Facebook, notwithstanding its apparent objection to reposting mainstream media stories. So of you’re desperate to know what I’m up to, that’s your chance.

I do this in the full knowledge that with Danielle Smith at the helm and motivated to placate the Take Back Alberta extremists in her party’s base, lots of weird and crazy stuff deserving of entertaining commentary is sure to happen, probably starting right away. 

So, in my absence, I recommend David Cournoyer’s Daveberta.ca blog on Substack and his occasional podcasts, Jeremy Appel’s The Orchard Substack, Graham Thomson’s thoughtful columns in the Toronto Star and elsewhere, Prof. Lisa Young’s commentaries on Substack, and Susan Wright’s Susan on the Soapbox blog. 

For Alberta news coverage, you also can’t go wrong subscribing to The Tyee’s excellent (and free) Alberta Edge newsletter, which regularly features news coverage by the likes of Charles Rusnell, Andrew Nikiforuk, and Yours Truly. You can sign up here. 

I expect to return to my normal blogging schedule at the start of October. Those of you who have donated money to help with the operation of this blog, for which I am very grateful, do not despair. I expect to be back and hope to return to commenting on Alberta politics refreshed and reinvigorated. 

The posting of comments while I am on the road will be, of necessity, haphazard. 

I expect to be back and hope to return to commenting on Alberta politics refreshed and reinvigorated at the start of October.

So, thanks, and so long, and I’ll see y’all soon.