It’s not actually true that that everything was just copacetic in Alberta when COVID-19 kicked down the door and started smashing up the dishes. But you’ve got to give Travis Toews some credit for his acting ability. Alberta’s finance minister sure made it sound as if that were so for a couple of minutes during […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Public service managers’ return-to-workplace guide outlines plan to return public employees to government offices
With talk that managers of Alberta’s public service are likely to be back in their offices next Monday preparing for the return of most of the rest of the government’s direct employees to their workplaces by July 20, the public service has prepared a 41-page “Government of Alberta Return to the Workplace Manager Guide” to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Ecojustice vows to press ahead with legal action against Kenney Government’s environmental funding inquiry
While a date has not yet been set for a hearing, Ecojustice Canada Society is pressing ahead with the legal action it announced last September against the Kenney Government’s secretive “public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns.” The fact the Alberta government has given Inquiry Commissioner Steve Allan another million dollars and four extra months to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Kenney’s controversial speechwriter listed as CEO of federal Conservatives’ Edmonton Strathcona constituency association
Given the uproar over an article widely perceived as expressing racist sentiments by Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s speechwriter, it will be interesting to see how the Conservative Party of Canada reacts to the fact Paul Bunner is also chief executive of its Edmonton Strathcona constituency association. As of the close of business Friday, Elections Canada’s […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
It seems Alberta’s inquiry hasn’t found any foreign-funded anti-energy campaigns yet, but it’ll keep looking!
I’m sorry to have to report, Alberta, that the inquiry into foreign-funded campaigns targeting Alberta’s oil and gas industry apparently hasn’t found any foreign-funded campaigns targeting Alberta’s oil and gas industry. Don’t worry, though, they’re pretty sure that if they keep looking they can find something. After all, everyone involved acknowledges some money crosses the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Referenda are ‘a device for dictators and demagogues’ — but never mind about that, Alberta, or who said it …
Referenda, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher once observed, “are a device for dictators and demagogues.” I mention this in light of Alberta’s new referendum legislation — Bill 26, the Constitutional Referendum Amendment Act — which our province’s United Conservative Party Government introduced yesterday. Mrs. Thatcher, normally a hero to the UCP, wasn’t right about much, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
State-supported academic research in Alberta should be about more than Making Oil & Gas Great Again
As Alberta launches its 10-year plan for “transformational change” in post-secondary education, a new study suggests the province’s universities and the government agencies that fund them are helping to prolong the worst aspects of the fossil fuel era. Alas, by trying to make oil and gas great again when there’s plenty of reason to conclude […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta Union of Provincial Employees goes to court to challenge UCP law that criminalizes public protest
It was inevitable that sooner or later someone would challenge the United Conservative Party Government’s so-called Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, which appears on its face to include patently unconstitutional attacks on fundamental rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In the event, the challenge was sooner and the challenger was the Alberta […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
The federal Conservative leadership race takes a turn both sinister and juvenile
Probably the last thing the Conservative Party of Canada needs right now is a side battle over allegations of dirty tricks and data theft between the campaigns of the two leading candidates in an already uninspiring leadership race. I mean, it’s not as if frontrunners Peter MacKay or Erin O’Toole are the sort of leaders […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
If he loves his country as he says, Jason Kenney needs to dump rebel MLA for peddling dangerous separatist twaddle
Jason Kenney can mildly admonish Drew Barnes for spouting separatist twaddle if he wishes, but the Alberta premier’s protestations of Canadian patriotism won’t be very persuasive if he lets the Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA remain in his United Conservative Party Caucus. I know, Mr. Kenney has a problem with the loony right wing of his caucus, […]
Posted inBestsellers
Sally Rooney’s Normal People returns to top of Alberta independent booksellers’ 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, June 14, 2020. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books in Edmonton and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. ALBERTA FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Normal […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
As predicted, ‘Fair Deal’ Panel reheats the Firewall Manifesto to manufacture consent for policies Albertans don’t want
Consider the report of Alberta’s “Fair Deal” Panel, released yesterday by Premier Jason Kenney with considerable fanfare. It strongly suggests the Harper-Kenney wing of the Canadian Conservative movement is made up of people who purport to be Canadian patriots when they’re in power in Ottawa but are Prairie separatists when they’re on the outs with […]