A claim by an anti-abortion website that a “current draft” of the United Conservative Party’s planned revisions to the recondite Alberta Bill of Rights would extend rights to “all persons at all stages of life from conception, gestation in the womb, to birth” caused a predictably sharp reaction on social media yesterday. Coming as it […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Possibly the biggest rollback of public health insurance in Canadian history gets underway in Alberta with barely a peep of protest
With the creation of the Recovery Alberta agency and the plan to farm out all addiction recovery treatment programs to a small group of out-of-province private operators with a controversial record, the Alberta Government is commencing what must be the biggest single health care privatization binge in Canada since Saskatchewan introduced provincial medical insurance in […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Danielle Smith touts frightening AHS leaders, handing hospitals to church-run system as cures for Alberta’s health care woes
A story published by a community newspaper chain late Monday quotes Premier Danielle Smith telling a United Conservative Party town hall in Drayton Valley how she plans to hand over some public hospitals in rural Alberta to the Catholic Church, which will as a matter of principle refuse to provide certain basic health care services, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi spotted at an NDP BBQ in Calgary, preaching to the choir
I had coffee with my old friend Buff yesterday, and Buff had a theory about what’s happened to NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi since his slam dunk 86-per-cent victory over all the other candidates to lead Alberta’s Opposition party back in June. “I think Nenshi’s been kidnapped,” said Buff as we waited for our overpriced cappuccinos. […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
RTIA faculty member is operations director of controversial B.C. addiction recovery society
One of the faculty members named on the Recovery Training Institute of Alberta’s website has ties to a controversial B.C. addiction recovery society that owns a tracking app that must now be used by everyone being treated in all Alberta detox and residential recovery facilities. RTIA faculty member Jessica Cooksey’s short biography on the website […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Larry Hubich, former SFL leader, connects the dots about who is actually putting the country at risk of a national rail shutdown
Reading the universally terrible mainstream news coverage of the continuing negotiations between the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference and Canada’s two largest rail corporations, not to mention angry commentary by anti-union business groups and increasingly hysterical statements by Alberta’s United Conservative Party government, you’d think the looming national rail shutdown had been caused entirely by a […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Thank goodness, there’s no known Alberta connection to Pierre Poilievre’s embarrassing ‘Canada, Our Home’ video!
Pierre Poilievre’s now infamous white-hat-and-white-T-shirt video was no sooner posted on Saturday than social media was lit up by mockers pointing out that almost none of the scenes used to illustrate the federal Conservative leader’s Calgary Stampede speechifying about Canada were recorded in Canada. The Conservative Party yanked it down faster than you could say […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Smith government’s announcement of the ‘Recovery Training Institute of Alberta’ raises more questions than it answers
Thursday’s Alberta Government news release announcing the official opening of so-called Lakeview Recovery Community in a rural area west of Edmonton included the intriguing tidbit that the facility will also be home to the “Recovery Training Institute of Alberta.” “The RTIA is a provincial training hub for those employed within a recovery community or other […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
‘Lakeview Recovery Community’ clearly intended to be showpiece for UCP’s controversial ‘Alberta Recovery Model’
“Alberta opens its third world-class recovery community,” said the headline on a news release sent by the Alberta Government to media yesterday about a reopened rural addiction treatment facility off the beaten path west of Edmonton. After being subjected to some gentle mockery on social media, the headline on the government website soon read: “Alberta […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Raj Sherman is back again, this time as Danielle Smith’s man at the head of the Health Quality Council of Alberta
As if to reinforce his role as the proverbial bad penny of Alberta politics, Raj Sherman has turned up again – this time as Premier Danielle Smith’s man at the head of the Health Quality Council of Alberta. Actually, Dr. Sherman has been back for a while – since June, anyway, when according to his […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Where’s Naheed? Alberta’s New Democrats need to know!
So where’s Naheed? Alberta’s New Democrats need to know! Since June 22, when Naheed Nenshi posted his crushing 86-per-cent victory on the first ballot in the race to replace former premier Rachel Notley as leader of the Alberta New Democratic Party, we’ve hardly seen the guy. The moment the former mayor of Calgary announced his […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta Health Services letters tell COVID-19 long-haulers specialized long-COVID clinics are being shut down
It’s not hard to connect the dots between the anti-vaccine extremists including Premier Danielle Smith who now dominate Alberta’s United Conservative Party and the admission by a beleaguered Alberta Health Services that it is shutting down its long-COVID clinics in Calgary, Edmonton and Sherwood Park. AHS, once a model of how to run a modern […]