Rachel Notley looked and sounded like a politician on a roll yesterday afternoon as she addressed at least 1,500 people sardined into Edmonton’s Polish Hall – energized, by turns forceful, funny, and inspiring. This runs counter to the media narrative about this 2019 election campaign from the get-go, of course, not to mention the United […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Captive audience? Continuing care operators’ ‘reference document’ pushes residents, families to vote for UCP, shows NDP in negative light
A “reference document” implying residents of private for-profit and not-for-profit seniors’ care facilities and their families should vote for the United Conservative Party has been distributed by the Alberta Continuing Care Association. In addition to creating the misleading impression the UCP is more committed to creating housing for seniors than the NDP, the colourful one-page […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
RCMP raid on UCP candidate’s business, polling trends, hordes of advance voters wind up the Internet
Alberta’s Internet was in a furious swivet last night. There seemed to be something to wind everyone up as we enter the final stretch of a provincial election both sides have characterized as an epochal event sure to seal the fate of the province if it goes the wrong way. This may have been only […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Notice to public employees: Jason Kenney and the UCP are eyeing your pensions again
If you’re a public employee in Alberta and you’ve been deferring your salary for years to build a secure retirement through your modest pension, Jason Kenney would like to take it away. If he can’t do that, he at least wants to ensure no one else can have the same thing. How can I be […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A question begged: Where were the UCP’s top operatives if they weren’t vetting candidates?
Apparently someone in the United Conservative Party could run a sophisticated vote-diversion scheme but the party didn’t have the technical wherewithal to operate a simple candidate vetting process capable of eliminating candidates with a high potential for causing embarrassment. And not at the same time either, so it’s not as if there was a conflict […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Now for something completely different: The Agenda with Steve Paikin … and Yours Truly
’Tis late, it’s been a long day, and your blogger is tired, so I’m going to leave you, dear readers, with some audio and visual commentary on next week’s Alberta election to chew over this morning. I had the pleasure of being invited to take part in yesterday’s edition of TVOntario’s flagship current affairs program, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The declining impact of ‘bozo eruptions’ – are Albertans the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water?
Have Albertans grown so inured to Conservative “bozo eruptions” they no longer have much impact? To put that another way, have we grown so accustomed to the Lake of Fire that we imagine we can bathe in it comfortably without putting on an asbestos swimsuit? That’s likely at least part of the story behind the […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
An election’s coming and the PM’s treading water – where’s a Russian to blame now that we need one?
It was a year ago Friday that the government of Canada declared Kirill Kalinin and three other Russian diplomats persona non grata and sent them packing for using, in the words of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “their diplomatic status to undermine Canada’s security or interfere in our democracy.” Nobody bothered to commemorate the expulsion on […]
Posted inBestsellers
There Are Not Enough Sad Songs, poetry by Marita Dachsel, tops Audreys Books Fiction Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton during the week ended March 31, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. There Are Not Enough Sad Songs – Marita Dachsel * + 2. Still Strapped: Flask Fuelled […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney escape relatively unscathed in Alberta election leaders’ debate
Last night’s Alberta election leaders’ debate was an unedifying experience, as these things often are. If anyone except hard-core political junkies kept their hands off the remote, I’d be surprised. Debate stuck to talking points we’ve heard before, the broadcast aired at a weird hour when many viewers were still coming home from work, the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Were Mark Smith’s comments on gay love a Lake of Fire moment for the UCP, or just another insignificant bozo eruption?
With the revelation United Conservative Party candidate Mark Smith holds the offensive view gay love can never be real love, and equates LGBTQ people with pedophiles, it appeared that Alberta’s United Conservative Party was finally having its own genuine Lake of Fire moment. But was it? It certainly looked like it in the aftermath of […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A generation of impulsive right-wing politicians ruins Preston Manning’s dream of ‘green capitalism’ – what’s next?
Let’s start with a pop quiz. Who said this? “One of the biggest issues will be the question of how much of current revenue from non-renewable resources should be saved and how those savings should be invested … so that, if the day ever comes that oil and gas isn’t as significant as it is […]