It would have been a remarkable accomplishment for any group to summon a throng the size of the multitude that enthusiastically greeted 16-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg in Edmonton yesterday afternoon. To do it on three days’ notice in the capital city of Canada’s fossil fuel heartland where everyone supposedly holds the same rosy […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Edmonton Strathcona voters should vote for NDP’s Heather McPherson, says former Alberta leader Brian Mason
No name was mentioned, but it was pretty clear exactly whom former Alberta New Democratic Party Leader Brian Mason had in mind Wednesday when he posted a social media comment stating he will be voting for the federal NDP candidate in his own riding on Monday. In case that message wasn’t clear enough, a relaxed […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Gretamania strikes Alberta! Be afraid! Be very afraid!
Be afraid. Be very afraid. Gretamania appears to have struck Alberta! Yesterday, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who is apparently the environmental movement’s answer to St. Joan of Arc with a planetary mass following to suit, was spotted in Calgary. This wasn’t like your usual Alberta Elvis sighting, either. There was an actual photograph taken and circulated […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Green Party candidate drops out in Edmonton Strathcona, urges supporters to switch to NDP
Michael Kalmanovitch, the Green Party of Canada Candidate in the tight Edmonton-Strathcona race, told an all-candidates’ forum at the riding’s King’s University College yesterday that he is dropping out and asking his supporters to vote strategically for the NDP’s Heather McPherson. “Based on polling projections, it has become clear that success is unlikely under our […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Doug O’Halloran, 66, Alberta union leader for more than 30 years, never shied from tough fights for his members
Doug O’Halloran, a pillar of the labour movement in Alberta and one of Canada’s last old-style union leaders, died peacefully yesterday. Mr. O’Halloran, who was 66, succumbed to cancer after a long illness. “It is fitting that he chose to leave us on Thanksgiving, a day for celebrating the two things he valued most: family […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Those elusive Liberals of Edmonton Strathcona: Where did Mainstreet’s pollsters find them?
Volunteers for NDP candidate Heather McPherson’s campaign in the federal Edmonton-Strathcona riding are asking themselves, where the heck are those mobs of Liberal voters one pollster claims to have identified in the riding? Door-knocking in 2019 in the progressive-leaning riding on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River feels much the same as it […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta Government opts to use sophomoric sarcastic tweets to counter visit by teenaged environmental activist
Apparently uncertain how to respond to news Greta Thunberg will soon visit Alberta, the Kenney Government seems to have opted for adolescent sarcasm as an appropriate counter to the 16-year-Old Swedish environmental activist’s message. “We trust that Ms. Thunberg will recognize Alberta’s leading human rights and environmental standards,” said Premier Jason Kenney’s spokesperson, Christine Myatt, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Greta Thunberg heads for Wild Rose Country: first chance for the UCP’s War Roomers to mess up big time!
Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who seems to have turned the world upside down by mobilizing young people to do something about global climate change, tweeted last night that she is on her way to Alberta. At this is written, while there was lots of excited chatter on social media, no one here in […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Want to bust your Alberta union? Your government will give you one hour’s free legal advice!
Credit where credit is due, the Kenney Government’s new Employee Labour Relations Support Program does answer questions from union members who write in and ask them. Leastways, the nascent Bust-Your-Union Line that was announced by United Conservative Party Labour Minister Jason Copping on Oct. 1 did respond to my query about how it was different from […]
Posted inBestsellers
Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments leads Audreys Books Edmonton Fiction Bestsellers List for week ended Oct. 6
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton during the week ended Oct. 6, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. The Testaments – Margaret Atwood 2. The Eater of Dreams – Kat Cameron * 3. The […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta’s UCP Government sets up Energy War Room as private corporation to dodge freedom of information requests
It turns out the so-called Canadian Energy Centre, as the Kenney Government’s $30-million subsidized lobbying campaign for the petroleum industry is now to be known, has been set up as a private corporation. Previously commonly referred to by both friends and foes as the Energy War Room, the new corporation is supposedly intended to target […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Tom Olsen and the Wreckage: Jason Kenney’s ‘War Room’ is going to need more than just hurtin’ songs!
Former journalist Tom Olsen, for much of the past decade a self employed PR man who rarely strayed far from the gravitational field of Conservative power in Alberta, was named yesterday by Energy Minister Sonya Savage as the successful candidate to lead the United Conservative Party’s “War Room.” Perhaps Mr. Olsen was the only candidate […]