Better late than never, the Kenney Government sharply changed course yesterday and announced much tougher lockdown measures that have the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19. These will include closing bars, lounges, casinos, hair salons, libraries, and sports studios, restricting restaurants to take-out sales, mandating indoor masking and at-home work for many employers province-wide, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
COVID-19 measures put in place two weeks ago insufficient to reduce infections, Deena Hinshaw admits
Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw admitted yesterday that Alberta’s current response to soaring COVID-19 infection rates is “not likely to be sufficient to bring down our numbers.” Fielding uncharacteristically tough and focused questioning by reporters taking part in her afternoon COVID-19 briefing and news conference, Dr. Hinshaw wouldn’t quite let herself be goaded […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Australian state’s four-point plan to eliminate COVID-19 worked; Alberta did the opposite on every count
A few Albertans may still remember Stephen Duckett, the remarkably undiplomatic Australian health economist hired by Premier Ed Stelmach’s Progressive Conservative government to run the then-just-created Alberta Health Services in 2009. Dr. Duckett had a stellar resume and was obviously great in an interview. However, it turned out, he didn’t speak Albertan. Most Albertans can’t […]
Posted inBestsellers
Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife returns to top of independent bookshops’ 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. 29, 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. How to Pronounce Knife – Souvankham […]
Posted inGeopolitics
Canada should quit stalling to let the U.S. save face and send Meng Wanzhou home now
Anyone who still imagines the Trump Administration’s partly successful effort to get Canada to seize and extradite Meng Wanzhou to the land of chaos and COVID had anything to do with “the rule of law” needs to consider the implications of yesterday’s report in the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Justice Department is in […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Space, the UCP’s final frontier — taking catastrophe where no Alberta government has gone before!
Space, the final frontier … they even think Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party Government are an interstellar disaster at Starfleet Command! Well, in fairness to the Alberta premier and his out-of-its-depth government, William Shatner was never a real Starfleet commander, he just played one on TV. Still, it’s symbolic of the shambles the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Latest leak shows AHS modelling forecasts Intensive Care Units packed with COVID-19 patients by mid-December
In the first unauthorized information leak of December, Alberta’s NDP Opposition revealed yesterday Alberta Health Services case modelling projects about 775 Albertans will be in hospital with COVID-19 in just two weeks. More than 160 of them will be in intensive care units, further straining the overstressed provincial health system’s ability to cope, Opposition Leader […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
With pandemic respiratory disease rampaging virtually unchecked in Alberta, Calgary faces oxygen rationing
In a development that is surely emblematic of the unchecked progress of the novel coronavirus under the United Conservative Party Government of Premier Jason Kenney, Albertans learned yesterday we are now having to ration oxygen in Calgary. Oxygen! Just to be perfectly clear, this means that Alberta Health Services is rationing the use of medical […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Oppositional by nature, the UCP acts as if Rachel Notley’s NDP was still the government
Perhaps because he’s the only United Conservative Party MLA in Edmonton, Justice Minister Kaycee Madu seems to have become the Kenney Government’s main spokesperson responsible for yelling at the NDP. Whether Mr. Madu writes his own social media material or has an aide to perform that function for him, his comments have taken on a […]
Posted inBestsellers
A Promised Land, Barack Obama’s autobiography, tops independent bookshops’ non-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. 22, 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 […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
UCP tries to recast story of premier’s meddling in pandemic response as tale of betrayal by unidentified leaker
Turns out the Kenney Government’s pandemic response has been guided more by political pressure and right-wing ideology than science and expert advice. For weeks Premier Jason Kenney and his army of “issues managers” have claimed Alberta’s determined effort to keep its restaurants, bars and casinos open in the face of surging COVID-19 infections was based […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Gary Mar on Keystone XL: Likely the only guy who can save Jason Kenney’s Keystone XL pipe-dream is Justin Trudeau
It may not quite be impossible for Jason Kenney to see his dream of completing the Keystone XL Pipeline to the U.S. Gulf Coast on his watch come true, but it will be almighty difficult with Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. What’s more, if the project is to be completed the way Alberta’s […]