Vaccine passports are coming to Alberta. Not just yet, but they’ll be along soon enough. Not because they make sense. Opposition Leader Rachel Notley laid out that case pretty clearly yesterday: during a pandemic like the fourth wave of COVID-19 now battering our province, they can protect people, hospitals and the provincial economy. “By providing […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
No media welcome: Jason Kenney reappears, virtually, answering curated questions via Facebook Live
Having been spotted out for shawarma in Calgary Tuesday night, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney cautiously emerged back into the artificial light of political life yesterday. Rather than making an actual public appearance and risking having to answer rude questions by the province’s media, uncharacteristically uncooperative after Mr. Kenney’s two-week vacation ran to 23 days during […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Missing premier reported sighted in Calgary – if it’s really Jason Kenney, he’s got some ’splainin’ to do!
After managing to stay completely off the radar for a two-week vacation that stretched to at least 23 days, there was a credible sounding Jason Kenney sighting in Calgary last night. If the man spotted at a southeast Calgary shawarma restaurant while a dark SUV full of bodyguards idled nearby really was Alberta’s elusive premier, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The silence of Premier Jason Kenney, out of sight since Aug. 9, keeps Alberta’s rumour mill churning
Now and again, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un or some other foreign dictator disappears for a spell and international media spins up a whirlwind of wild speculation. Academic experts think the leader’s dead, or maybe just in “a vegetative state.” Experts theorize he’s hiding out from a coup attempt, or has been arrested by coup […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Fasten your seatbelts, Alberta! No one’s in charge, the Delta variant’s surging, and kids go back to school starting Wednesday
Alberta’s pandemic strategy continues to move deeply into full-blown implementation of the Great Barrington Declaration – the discredited notion the best way to respond to COVID-19 is to infect almost everyone except the vulnerable elderly and thereby achieve herd immunity. The latest sign that the United Conservative Party has tacitly adopted Great Barringtonism as its […]
Posted inBestsellers
The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King leads independent bookshops’ non-fiction bestseller list for week of Aug. 22
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Aug. 22, 2021. 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
In Alberta this week, COVID’s surging and there’s no sign of the premier – but, fear not, we have a chief firearms officer!
Alberta’s premier hasn’t been seen in public since Aug. 9. But he’s just on holiday, Jason Kenney’s spokesperson says. “He is of course still able to fully communicate with his Cabinet and senior officials as required,” Jerrica Goodwin said in a statement yesterday that, seemingly, was intended to reassure us someone’s still in charge. “In […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Noisy ‘bitcoin mining’ operation near Edmonton shut down – but cryptocurrency speculators keep eyeing Alberta
So-called “bitcoin miners” operating without permission just north of Edmonton have been told to stop their environmentally unfriendly and, it turns out, noisy activity – for now. A company called Link Global Technologies Inc. last year set up four natural-gas powered generators near an upscale estate community in Sturgeon County to power a “bitcoin mining” […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta premier unseen since Aug. 9 as COVID counts rise; Opposition assails inaction and media starts to grumble
With COVID-19 case counts in Alberta marching higher by the day, now closing in on 8,000 active cases, the chorus of grumbles about what’s become of Premier Jason Kenney is increasing in volume. Mr. Kenney was last seen on Aug. 9 at a press conference called to announce expansion of an Edmonton brewery that promised […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Erin O’Toole’s promise he’d put workers on corporate boards is meaningless at best, harmful at worst, unlikely to be implemented
Federal Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole has launched a charm offensive to win over unionized workers normally treated as lepers or enemies by modern North American “conservative” parties. A key policy in the Conservative Party of Canada’s platform, Mr. O’Toole insisted yesterday, will be to require about 100 corporations under federal jurisdiction to have at least […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
That Delta variant COVID-19 scenario that Jason Kenney just didn’t see happening? As summer ends, it’s happening
Delta variant or no variant, Alberta would be pulling the plug on almost all COVID-19 restrictions on July 1, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney confirmed on June 18. “On July the first, on Canada Day, Alberta’s public health measures will be lifted and our lives will get back to normal,” he asserted as Health Minister Tyler […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
On the 10th anniversary of his death, from the vantage of Election 2021, happy memories of Jack Layton and the campaign of 2011
Don’t mourn! Organize! — Joe Hill, Swedish-American union organizer Canadians still mourn the loss of Jack Layton, Joe Hill’s wise strategic counsel to social activists notwithstanding. I first made that observation on this date in 2011, when we learned the terrible news that Mr. Layton had been struck down by cancer at the age of […]