When the New York Daily News published its famous FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD headline on Oct. 30, 1975, all president Gerald Ford had done was deny a federal bailout to Gotham, which was nearly bankrupt. It shows the power of a great headline that Oct. 29, the day President Ford gave the offending speech, […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Can Canada’s Conservatives resist temptation to try to sabotage the accord with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs?
It will be interesting to see how the Conservative Opposition in Ottawa and Alberta’s Conservative government react to yesterday’s announcement the federal and British Columbia governments have reached an accord with the Wet’suwet’en First Nation that would recognize its system of hereditary governance. Participants said the agreement reached yesterday in Smithers, B.C., after three days […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta’s self-selecting separation survey — unscientific, biased, tendentious, and a poor use of tax dollars
Is the Kenney Government trying to persuade Albertans, one step at a time, that separation from Canada would be a good idea? How else do we explain the gratuitous inclusion of a question giving respondents the opportunity to express support for Alberta’s separation from Canada in an online questionnaire published by Premier Jason Kenney’s so-called […]
Posted inBestsellers
Edmonton author Wayne Arthurson’s Red Chesterfield tops independent bookstores Alberta 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. 23, 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
Budget Day: Creatures of the night return to the hallways of Alberta’s Legislature as boisterous protesters chant outside
The thing about Budget Day at the Legislature that news media seldom gets across is that the real news usually isn’t the budget. The budget’s broad strokes are all known long before the details roll off the press at the Queen’s Printer or its privatized equivalent. There was certainly news at Alberta’s Budget Speech yesterday, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Unconstitutional anyone? If Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell is doing her job, she’ll refuse to sign Bill 1 into law
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 […]