Is it likely Boris Johnson will accomplish something neither Napoleon nor Hitler could manage – to wit, destruction of the United Kingdom? Perhaps it’s not likely. States like trees, even badly broken ones, possess a powerful life force. But it’s definitely now within the bounds of possibility. The Royal Navy, after all, might have been […]
Corporate Mapping Project grant was approved on Stephen Harper’s watch, OK?
On a personal note, it was a disappointing shock to learn of Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s rage tweet yesterday morning blaming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the $2.5-million Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant to the Corporate Mapping Project that was awarded on former prime minister Stephen Harper’s watch in 2015. “Why did the […]
Jim Stanford Part II: An Australian cautionary tale for Alberta and Canada
What do Albertans imagine will happen if we manage to build more pipelines to tidewater, as the ocean is known out here on the Great Plains of North America? Going into last April’s Alberta provincial election, there was a clear consensus by both Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party and Rachel Notley’s then-governing NDP that more […]
Irony is dead but doublethink thrives as Calgary opts to cut services and subsidize hockey billionaires at once
Really, what can one say about the deal the City of Calgary struck with the Flames professional hockey club yesterday for the former Cowtown’s taxpayers to subsidize half the cost of a new arena for the team to the tune of $225 million at the same moment as this city slashes $60 million from its […]
Why are Conservative-run Canadian provinces turning down federal cash? The answer’s in the Republican playbook
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau observed back on April 16 that the Ontario provincial government led by Premier Doug Ford was throwing roadblocks in the way of Ontario municipalities accessing federal money for needed transportation infrastructure, Conservatives responded with angry denials, and not just in Ontario. The prime minister had told a news conference Kitchener, […]
More questions than answers in last week’s fallout from 2017 UCP leadership campaign
Eight Alberta United Conservative Party MLAs, five of them cabinet ministers, now admit they’ve been interviewed by the RCMP in the federal police force’s ongoing investigation into the curious goings on during the party’s 2017 leadership race, from which Premier Jason Kenney emerged victorious. Every time another UCP Caucus member is interviewed by the Mounties, […]
Laini Giles’ Bathing Beauty: A Novel of Marie Prevost tops Audreys Books Edmonton fiction bestseller list
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton during the week ended July 14, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Bathing Beauty: A Novel of Marie Prevost – Laini Giles * 2. The Empress of Idaho […]
The Lesson of the Beaver: Something for Alberta’s fossil fuel boosters to think about
If you forget everything else, just remember this about our country’s incessant and often bitter debate about fossil fuels: “Canada is never going to run out of oil, just like we never ran out of beavers.” We owe this pearl of insight to Canadian economist Jim Stanford, late of the Canadian Auto Workers Union and […]
Advice to Jason Kenney’s cabinet: curb your enthusiasms, one conspiracy theory at a time!
It’s sound advice in private and public life to restrict yourself to one nutty conspiracy theory at a time, lest folks start to wonder if you’re the one who’s, well, nutty. Take Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party Government in the context of this sensible and widely held rule of thumb. The Kenney cabinet could almost […]
Yet another annual message to the Calgary Stampede: real men don’t hurt animals for entertainment
There will be a “thorough review process surrounding chuckwagon safety” after the deaths of six horses during the 2019 Calgary Stampede, which is now mercifully over. Oh, please! There will be no meaningful review of the safety of the horses that are abused for fun at the Stampede, just as there will be no meaningful […]
OK, he said nothing new, but why did Justin Trudeau’s pipeline presser make Conservatives so angry?
Conservatives’ faux shock at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s relatively news free pipeline construction announcement in Edmonton last week was a thing to behold. The tone generally was, “there oughtta be a law,” to wit, a law against making announcements when you have nothing to announce. Only with considerably harsher language, of course, because nowadays the […]
Andrew Sheer would let Canadians rot in foreign jails before giving up an electoral edge!
I rarely paid much attention to John McCallum during his years as a federal Liberal cabinet minister under three prime ministers and, on the few occasions I did, he never left much of an impression one way or the other. But I was shocked last week both by the specious and dishonest attacks by Conservative […]