A dignified official portrait of Jim Prentice, last Progressive Conservative premier of Alberta, was unveiled in the Alberta Legislature yesterday. It’s a very nice piece of official portraiture that does justice to the beautiful third-floor hallway of the Alberta Legislature’s Rotunda where portraits of the province’s former premiers hang. Its unveiling was accompanied by warm […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
UCP Leader Jason Kenney, political lifer elected at 29, mocks 29-year-old NDP candidate with sophomoric and offensive joke
I hear, “a gay 19 year old.” Quite clearly. I speak, of course, of Jason Kenney’s notorious cheap shot in Cochrane last Thursday, in which he mischaracterized the NDP’s newly acclaimed candidate in the Airdrie-Cochrane riding for a few laughs. Speaking at a United Conservative Party rally at an upscale golf club in Cochrane, just […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
What gives? Polite crowd, no visible security, no official UCP critics at Edmonton open house for Bighorn Park proposal
I can’t tell you about the one in Drayton Valley on Friday, but everything seemed copacetic at the Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park proposal open house in Edmonton yesterday afternoon. But what would you expect? As is the case in most of Alberta, one suspects, support is pretty strong in Alberta’s Capital Region for the Kananaskis-Country-style […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
NDP governments’ approaches to health care funding characterized by fiscal prudence, new study says
Who knew? The facts don’t support the myth that New Democratic Party governments always try to break the bank with health care spending! Just as NDP governments have a better fiscal record than all other Canadian political parties that have formed governments, a new study by the Edmonton-based Parkland Institute released yesterday shows that when […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Supreme Court says bankrupt corporations’ assets must pay for environmental cleanup first, pay off debtors later
CALGARY Stand by for a veritable tempest of wailing about “activist judges” from banking, oil industry and conservative quarters, now that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled bankrupt fossil fuel companies can’t use federal bankruptcy law to walk away from their environmental responsibilities as set out in provincial laws. If anything eases the intensity […]
Posted inBestsellers
Canadian Geographic’s Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada tops Audreys Books’ Edmonton Non-Fiction Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Jan. 27, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. The Golden Tresses of the Dead – Alan Bradley 2. Foe – Iain […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Supreme Court ruling tomorrow could leave Albertans on the hook for corporate toxic mess cleanup
The Supreme Court of Canada will announce its ruling tomorrow morning in a case that could leave taxpayers on the hook for a toxic mess left by a bankrupt oil company – and by extension a whole raft of corporate polluters, not just in the oil industry. If the Supreme Court agrees with a 2016 […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A little homily for churchgoers: Thou shalt do no tweeting from thy pew!
Preachers of many faiths wonder if anyone in their congregations ever pays attention to what they have to say. That complaint was common in clerical circles long before everybody had a direct line to the Internet, instead of God, right in their pocket or purse. Could social media be about to force churchgoers to start […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Justice Minister needs to ask for RCMP investigation of Election Commissioner’s concerns, and quickly
Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley needs to ask the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate concerns raised by Alberta Election Commissioner Lorne Gibson that someone is trying to interfere with his office’s inquiry into alleged irregularities in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race. Mr. Gibson expressed his alarm in a Jan. 24 letter to participants […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
UCP leader’s tweet fumbles response to Islamophobic group’s harassment of worshipers at Edmonton mosque
Perhaps United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney needs to engage someone new to compose his tweets for him. Mr. Kenney is a bright guy, so I’m assuming for reasons that will soon become apparent he doesn’t come up with his own contributions to Twitter, the antisocial medium. Last fall, when several members of an Islamophobic […]
Posted inBestsellers
Poetry by Smokii Sumac, two-spirited member of Ktunaxa Nation in B.C., tops Audreys Books Edmonton Fiction Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Jan. 20, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. you are enough: love poems for the end of the world – Smokii […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell keeps the pot boiling under Jason Kenney and his questionable housing expense claims
Just when you thought it was about to fade away over the coming weekend, the saga of Jason Kenney’s dubious House of Commons housing expense claims got a new lease on life yesterday thanks to a Liberal Member of Parliament from Ontario. Jennifer O’Connell, MP for Pickering-Uxbridge, breathed new life into the story with a […]