Today is the Fourth of July, Independence Day in the Great Republic immediately to our south. Normally, as befits our national character, we Canadians celebrate this occasion with restrained fondness for our American cousins, coming as it does just three days after la fête du Canada. On the 242nd observance of this occasion, however, owing […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
No need to make this stuff up: Celebrate Canada Day 2018 by driving the secret highways of Alberta!
Happy Canada Day! Why not celebrate by driving on Alberta’s secret highways? Frankly, I don’t know how the Beaverton stays in business with the brutal competition they’re facing nowadays from Wild Rose Country. There’s an expression we’ve all heard: “You can’t make this stuff up!” In Alberta, you don’t need to. The ambitious folks vying […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Do we need a Canadian version of the Logan Act to put a stop to dangerous freelance diplomacy?
Most observers of Canada-U.S. politics and the two countries’ unexpectedly fraught trade relationship would agree former prime minister Stephen Harper’s no-longer-secret visit to the White House on Tuesday is unlikely to do much good and has the potential to do harm. What Mr. Harper, now just another private citizen in law if not in political […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
As reproductive rights wither in the United States, a UCP candidate’s abortion-restricting strategy for Canada is revealed
“On abortion, we’re never going to see a black and white, yes or no question. My job as your MP is to fight for incremental changes. … It’s called the foot-in-the-door tactic.” — Joseph Schow On a day when there’s serious talk in the United States that women’s right to reproductive freedom may not just […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Effort by religious schools to halt enforcement of Alberta’s GSA protection law tossed out by Medicine Hat judge
An effort by the so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms to get a court injunction to halt enforcement of the Alberta law that prevents schools from informing parents when students join gay-straight alliances fell short in a written ruling of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in Medicine Hat yesterday. While the Calgary-based JCCF acting […]
Posted inBestsellers
This Wound is a World by Billy-Ray Belcourt from the Driftpile Cree Nation tops Audreys Books’ Edmonton Bestseller List
Here is the list of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended June 24, 2018, compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. Last week’s fiction bestseller, missed during a short vacation by your blogger, was The Home for Wayward parrots by Darusha […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
It’s not equalization! It’s the taxes, stupid! They’re almost too low to keep the lights on and something’s gotta give
It’s not equalization. It’s the taxes, stupid! That is to say, Alberta’s taxes are too low to run the place over the long term and something’s gotta give. The great thing about Alberta’s never-ending tantrum about equalization and how the province of Quebec taxes and spends, at least from the perspective of the modern conservative […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Nothing new under the Prairie sun as Alberta Conservatives ratchet up their faux outrage about equalization and Quebec
Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s Opposition United Conservative Party, calls the Trudeau Government’s renewal of Canada’s current equalization formula for an additional five years “a slap in the face to Alberta.” “It means we will continue to be forced, even when times are bad in Alberta, forced to subsidize public services in other parts of […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
U.S.-based Atlas Network, which has ‘reshaped political power in country after country,’ a ‘partner’ of Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a self-described non-partisan tax watchdog and taxpayer advocacy group once headed by Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney, has always been tight-lipped about the sources of its own funding and support. This may be mildly ironic, given its vocal demands for transparency in government policy, but as a private organization that aggressively fund-raises […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Money from wealthy right-wing ideologues helps fuel group challenging Alberta’s protections for GSA members
The so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms achieved its first goal yesterday, generating plenty of publicity for itself and its social conservative supporters at the first day of its court bid to overturn the Alberta NDP Government’s legislative effort to protect students who join gay-straight alliances. By the sound of media reports from the southeastern […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Group making incendiary ‘ideological sexual clubs’ claim about Gay-Straight Alliances has history of backing social conservative causes
As was widely reported yesterday, a judge of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench will begin hearing arguments in Medicine Hat today in a legal effort by a social conservative group to upend the Alberta law that prevents schools from informing parents when students join a gay-straight alliance. The claim by the Justice Centre for […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Calgary MLA Brian Malkinson joins NDP cabinet as Alberta shuffle unfolds as more micro than macro
Alberta Premier Notley runs a pretty tight ship when it comes to her cabinet. So, as expected, there wasn’t much shuffling in the cabinet shuffle announced on the weekend and smoothly executed yesterday morning. Changes were minimal. So minimal, indeed, that mainstream media were calling it a “mini-shuffle.” One new cabinet member is in: Brian […]