Posted inBestsellers

Avenue of Champions by Metis author Conor Kerr returns to top of Alberta independent bookshops’ fiction bestseller list

Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. Readers will notice that Mr. Kerr’s An Explosion of Feathers […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Emboldened by Erin O’Toole’s fate in Ottawa, UCP anti-vaxx faction eyes Jason Kenney

Emboldened by the success of the social conservative coup plotters who overthrew Conservative Party of Canada leader Erin O’Toole in Ottawa Wednesday, the same anti-vaccine faction of Alberta’s United Conservative Party is now eyeing Premier Jason Kenney. Not that Mr. Kenney is a moderate. Far from it.  But he is politically wounded, unpopular with voters, […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Five environmental groups file statement of claim in defamation suit against Jason Kenney

After giving Jason Kenney more than two months to apologize for or retract his claims they spread false information about Alberta’s fossil fuel industry, five environmental groups followed through yesterday on their threat to sue Alberta’s premier and the provincial government for defamation. In a statement of claim filed with Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Danielle Larivee, nurse and former NDP cabinet minister, announces plan to return to public life

After all the grim, disturbing and strangely familiar Groundhog Day news yesterday, it was nice to learn this morning of a positive development in Alberta politics – the return of Danielle Larivee to public life. Ms. Larivee, a public health nurse and capable former NDP cabinet minister, said in a news release she intends to […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Convoys, COVID and Conservative discord dominate Jason Kenney’s return from Washington governors’ clambake

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, back from an ill-timed and seemingly mostly fruitless trip to Washington D.C., pleaded for federal Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole’s political life yesterday at a typical Alberta Government news conference about nothing in particular. “I would just say this to my friends in the federal Conservative party, I don’t think in […]

Posted inCanadian Politics

A not-so-bold prediction: that $9.5-million GoFundMe pot will be a tempting target for Ottawa civil lawyers

The mysteriously sourced “Freedom Convoy 2022” account on the GoFundMe crowd-funding site sat at more than $9.5 million yesterday. Its fund-raising goal, which has been repeatedly ratcheted up over the past two weeks, is now $10-million.  Meanwhile, as the occupation of their city by far-right “freedom convoy” anti-vaccine-mandate protesters continues into its fourth full day […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Did Jason Kenney’s support for Ottawa anti-vaxx-mandate convoy protest encourage copycat Coutts blockade he now condemns?

It would be ironic if Premier Jason Kenney’s baseless claim a week ago that Ottawa’s vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers had led to empty shelves in Alberta grocery stores ended up causing real shortages. Mr. Kenney’s tweets of photos of empty grocery shelves and his tendentious assertions that “with a quarantine rule for unvaccinated truckers, […]

Posted inCanadian Politics

We are judged by the company we keep: a harsh lesson Michael Cooper and many other Conservative MPs are about to learn

ST. ALBERT, Alberta – Michael Cooper, Member of Parliament for this small suburban city and a part of Edmonton next door, is going to wake up to a big problem this morning that’s unlikely to go away any time soon.  Mr. Cooper’s problem is a microcosm of the troubles now facing the entire Conservative Party […]

Posted inBestsellers

Perennial favourite Five Little Indians by Michelle Good returns to top of independent bookshops’ Alberta fiction bestseller list

Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. ALBERTA FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Five Little Indians – Michelle Good […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Very fine people on both sides? Jason Kenney defends convoy participants; says NDP welcomes ‘eco-terrorists’ to protests

Yesterday, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons warned Members of Parliament that individuals associated with the anti-vaccine-mandate truck convoy nearing the nation’s capital have been trying to suss out the location of their Ottawa residences. Also yesterday, Jason Kenney used a news conference supposedly about COVID-19 to defend the demonstrators. Sergeant-at-Arms Patrick McDonell, whose […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

UCP MLAs on Legislature committee refuse to receive Auditor General’s reporting findings on how government handled COVID-19

Alberta’s Auditor-General has completed six performance audits of the United Conservative Party Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.  But the Legislature’s Public Accounts Committee, dominated by UCP MLAs, has refused to receive Doug Wylie’s reports – so the committee will never do its job of reviewing his recommendations and calling on the affected departments to […]