Bill 1 is a breathtakingly terrible piece of legislation. The bill, given first reading in the Alberta Legislature on Tuesday, is called the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act. Just for starters, in case you missed it, Bill 1 appears to be intended to make protest illegal and criminalize dissent, although its conveniently timed justification allows the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Progress Alberta wins injunction against Kenney Government, which tried to ban progressive news site from budget lockup
Progress Alberta has been granted an emergency injunction by a judge of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench ordering the Alberta Government to permit the news site’s representative to attend the provincial pre-budget lockup in Edmonton tomorrow. The Edmonton-based progressive news and advocacy organization sought the emergency injunction after it was informed on Monday by […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Between Our Sovereign Lady the Queen and the Accused at Bar: Lieutenant Governor Dave reads the Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, honourable members of the Legislative Assembly, fellow Albertans … [Turns page.] I speak to you as Alberta’s vice-regal — which has nothing to do with vice, by the way, not that kind, anyway — representative of Our Sovereign Lady the Queen, whom many of you last heard from when you were the Accused […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
What really happened to the Teck Frontier oilsands mine? It’s the market, stupid!
So what really happened to the Teck Frontier oilsands mine? Hint: It wasn’t anything Justin Trudeau did or didn’t do. That’s pure United Conservative Party gas lighting, a game a career politician like Alberta Premier Jason Kenney just can’t make himself stop playing. It probably didn’t have had all that much to do with the […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Is the Conservative Opposition a national government in waiting or a separatist bloc? Andrew Scheer must decide
Who said, “At time of global economic instability, Canada’s government must stand unequivocally for keeping the country together”? I won’t tease you. It was Stephen Harper, on Dec. 3, 2008. Prime minister Harper, desperate to avoid a non-confidence vote in Parliament that was certain to defeat his Conservative government and be followed by a minority […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The state of the art of Conservative victimhood in Alberta: Cue the violins! Here comes the Buffalo Declaration!
Cue the violins! No one does victimhood like an Alberta Conservative contemplating the prospect of another term in Opposition overlooking the Ottawa River. Michelle Rempel Garner, the Blocker Queen of Twitter and Conservative MP for the monochromatic suburban wasteland of Calgary Nose Hill, apparently wants us to think she is the Pierre Vallières of Wild […]
Posted inBestsellers
The Great Gatsby — yes, that Great Gatsby — was the best-selling work of fiction in Alberta’s independent bookstores last week
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Feb. 16, 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. Now, I suppose if this […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
UCP launches blitzkrieg on physicians as health care in Alberta returns to its normal state of chaos
If you’ve been operating under the misapprehension the United Conservative Party is just the latest version of the Progressive Conservative Party that ran Alberta from 1971 to 2015, yesterday’s blitzkrieg attack on the province’s 11,000 physicians should disabuse you of that notion. No, this crowd is unique in the history of Alberta and Canada. They […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Never mind the gong show! The War Room will war on, vows Energy Minister Sonya Savage
Political commentators and professional gag writers breathed a sigh of relief yesterday when they learned from Energy Minister and Canadian Energy Centre Ltd. Director Sonya Savage that Alberta’s “Energy War Room” will live to fight another day for oil. Ms. Savage told reporters at an impromptu news conference in Calgary that the War Room’s problems […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
We do face a national crisis in Canada; it’s not caused by a few non-violent Indigenous blockades
We do face a serious national crisis in Canada. It is not caused by a few rail and road blockades by First Nations activists and their allies, however. Nor is it caused by environmentalists to some of whom the grave issues facing Indigenous Canadians may be secondary but who view any enemy of their enemy […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A Family Day toast to Don Getty, whose record is underwhelming, but whose best-known achievement was one for the ages
The winters around here are long. Even with social media Canadians need a February holiday. Come to think of it, given what the Internet has turned into in the few years since it arrived on the scene with such promise, we need a February long weekend even more than we did in the dark ages […]
Posted inBestsellers
A Small Silence, by Jumoke Verissimo atop independent Alberta booksellers 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, Feb. 9, 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. A […]