If “the Open for Summer Lottery is a once-in-a-lifetime response to a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic,” as Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro put it in a news release about vacation package prizes for Albertans willing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, what does that make Premier Jason Kenney’s $1.3-billion giveaway to TC Energy? It’s rude of me to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Never mind the evidence, Jason Kenney insists he never called for a niqab ban in his Ottawa days
“I’ve always said that Canada is a country that protects and respects religious freedom and pluralism, and the government has no business regulating what people wear…” — Jason Kenney, yesterday. “Whaaat?” — Everybody else, also yesterday. Is Jason Kenney’s constant gaslighting getting worse? Or were we just not paying sufficient attention when the man was […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Lotto Vaxx: Can the Kenney Government give away cash money without seriously messing up?
As a purely cynical effort to distract voters from the many failings of the Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government, it would be hard to top the decision announced yesterday to give away the first of three $1-million vaccination lottery prizes on the day the province drops most of its COVID-19 restrictions. Better, the Kenney Government’s […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
How the Kenney Government could push us back into another wave of COVID in the name of reopening
Will the Kenney Government lose interest in its vaccination campaign the instant Premier Jason Kenney’s arbitrary 70-per-cent vaccination threshold for allowing the Calgary Stampede to open is met? If past behaviour is a guide, this seems quite possible. Once Alberta has hit a first-dose vaccination rate of 70 per cent – we were at 67.8 […]
Posted inBestsellers
Five Little Indians by Michelle Good is Alberta Independent Bookshops’ fiction bestseller for week ended June 6
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, June 6, 2021. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. Michelle Good, author of the bestselling fiction title this week, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
About that cash lottery idea for Albertans who sign up to get their COVID-19 jabs – cognitive dissonance, anyone?
It sort of makes sense that a fellow who gambled away $1.3 billion of other people’s money on the U.S. presidential horserace last summer would like the idea of a lottery to get vaccine skeptical Albertans to roll up their sleeves for a COVID-19 jab in sufficient numbers to justify opening the Calgary Stampede next […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Keystone XL, the pipeline that just keeps dying, officially pronounced dead
Keystone XL, the pipeline that just keeps dying over and over again, was officially pronounced dead yesterday. After TC Energy Corp. issued a statement saying it was walking away for good from the project that has obviously been doomed for months, the U.S. business press declared the pipedream of successive Alberta and Canadian governments deader […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Worst news conference ever? Jason Kenney apologizes for Sky Palace patio party, touts silly equalization referendum
The rebellion that now has United Conservative Party Premier Jason Kenney looking as if his career is on the ropes is strongly reminiscent of the circumstances that brought Progressive Conservative Party premier Alison Redford’s political career to an end in 2014. Ironically, both feature the “Sky Palace” as a powerful symbol of a premier’s arrogance, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Buoyed by overwhelming leadership approval vote, Rachel Notley sketches outline of Alberta NDP’s 2023 campaign
Acting like someone with a serious chance of returning to the Premier’s Office in 2023, Alberta New Democratic Party Leader Rachel Notley received a 98.2-per-cent approval vote in the Opposition party’s leadership review Sunday. The former Alberta premier set out a hopeful vision of how her next government would “transform Alberta into the greatest powerhouse […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Two defiant UCP ministers tell Jason Kenney to apologize for breaking COVID-19 restrictions at Sky Palace patio party
The good ship United Conservative Party, the vessel carrying Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s ambitions, sprang a couple more leaks yesterday. This time it was two female members of the UCP cabinet who dared to criticize the boozy pandemic patio party last Tuesday on the roof of Edmonton’s notorious Sky Palace, during which a paparazzo in […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Jason Kenney’s chuckleheaded response to Sky Palace patio party uproar reanimates rebellion in UCP Caucus ranks
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s pandemic patio party at the Sky Palace and his chuckleheaded response to the inevitable criticism of it seems to have loosed the spirit of rebellion again in some of the Wildrosy corners of his United Conservative Party Caucus. Responding to constituents who mistook her in photos snapped by a mystery paparazzo […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Richard Van Camp’s Moccasin Square Gardens tops Alberta independent bookshops’ bestseller list for week ended May 30
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, May 30, 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. Moccasin Square Gardens – Richard Van […]