Edmonton Strathcona Member of Parliament Heather McPherson launched her campaign this afternoon to lead Canada’s New Democrats out of the wilderness they found themselves wandering in after last April’s federal election. Vowing to “make the NDP a viable choice again, a choice that unites that delivers on the promise of good jobs, of wages that […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The ebb and flow of the endless stream of MAGA nonsense in Alberta becomes more apparent at a distance
MELBOURNE, Australia – When one’s at home struggling to keep up with the stream of performative MAGA garbage emitted daily by Premier Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party, it’s easy to forget how much Alberta these days is influenced by what’s happening in Washington. A few thousand kilometres of distance provides a little perspective […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
According to Danielle Smith, any additional pay for teachers means Alberta can’t afford for more teachers
SYDNEY, Australia – Let me take a few moments out of my Antipodean sojourn to make a couple of observations about Danielle Smith’s fairy tale about how the Government of Alberta lacks the funds to give the province’s teachers a meaningful raise and also hire enough additional teachers to serve the growing population of Wild […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Sorry, we’re closed … Well, OK, just three more things
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith poked the top of her head out of the hole she’d dug for herself yesterday and announced her government has momentarily “paused” the book ban she insists isn’t a book ban long enough to rewrite it to say it’s only about images and that literary classics can stay. Unlike Japan, Canada […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta celebrates Labour Day on the brink of a major labour dispute with the province’s teachers
Happy Labour Day! Starting tomorrow, with the Labour Day holiday behind us and another school year about to commence, Alberta news coverage will be “laser focused,” as our government likes to say, on the looming labour dispute between the Alberta Teachers Association and the Teachers Employer Bargaining Association. The potential inconvenience to parents caused by […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Danielle Smith at Fort Mac ‘Gilead Next’ town hall: When in doubt, yell at Quebec
It didn’t take Danielle Smith long to start complaining about Quebec when someone challenged her about education funding here in Wild Rose Country at her recent Gilead Next* town hall meeting in Fort McMurray last week. Pardon me, I should have said Alberta Next, although the way things are going with the premier’s forced self-censorship […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Danielle Smith and her ministers burrow deeper into their self-dug book-ban and bargaining holes
Premier Danielle Smith and her education and finance ministers spent much of the day yesterday digging themselves deeper into the holes they started with their it’s-not-a-book-ban ban on books and their self-inflicted impasse in bargaining with the province’s teachers’ union. With the book ban, Premier Smith and her army of social media bots apparently don’t […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
No Margaret Atwood, please! We’re Albertan!
Thanks to Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides’ book ban, it looks as if the work of iconic Canadian author Margaret Atwood is on a list of books to be stripped from Edmonton Public School Board libraries. Has anyone in Canada ever banned a book by the winner of the Governor General’s Award before? Probably not. Well, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Finance minister to Albertans: Oh no! Bigger deficit! But we’ll come up with a plan to steer through the storm!
Was it mere coincidence Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner released an unhappy statement saying the province’s projected budget deficit will be $1.3 billion bigger than what he promised in last February’s Budget Speech on the very same day as he put out a statement complaining that contract negotiations with the province’s teachers appear to be […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta Affordability Minister Nathan Neudorf is jetting off to the U.K. today to ‘explore nuclear energy in London’
Alberta Affordability Minister Nathan Neudorf is jetting off today for a nice 10-day holiday in the United Kingdom … mostly at his own expense. Not entirely at his own expense, though, since Alberta taxpayers will presumably be picking up the tab for his airfare in his other cabinet role as minister of utilities (with the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
AXE THE VAX TAX!
According to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the $100 her government intends to charge most Albertans who want to be vaccinated against COVID-19 is just an “administration fee” to cover the current cost of a dose of the vaccine. Ms. Smith claimed in a news conference last Thursday that the average cost over the past three […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Danielle Smith to Albertans: No way can you have free COVID vaccinations like every other Canadian
If you’d hoped Danielle Smith’s flip-flop from denying free COVID-19 vaccinations to health care workers to providing them might indicate she could also have a change of heart on vaccines for other Albertans, you can forget about it. Someone is going to have to pay for upsetting the United Conservative Party’s anti-vaccine base during the […]