CALGARY – In what had to be a humiliating climbdown, Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen issued a joint statement this morning with Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek explaining that the Green Line LRT project is back on again, sort of. On Sept. 2, the feckless thirtysomething MLA for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake wrote a rude letter to Mayor […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Jennifer Johnson, the deplorable poop-cookie lady, is welcomed back into the bosom of the UCP
CALGARY – If the United Conservative Party Caucus in the Alberta Legislature were cookie dough, I suppose the addition of Jennifer Johnson wouldn’t significantly change the flavour of the cookies that came out of the oven, if you know what I mean. As predicted more than once in this space, Ms. Johnson, the “Independent” MLA […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
What happens to the controversial ‘Alberta Recovery Model’ now that its architect and chief advocate is said to be out?
What will happen to the “Alberta Recovery Model” now that the chief advocate of the province’s much-criticized abstinence-only approach to addiction treatment in Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government is leaving his job? That’s the question policy wonks are sure to be asking today in the wake of the report that Marshall Smith, 53, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Danielle Smith’s promised ‘new day for health care in Alberta’ is here – and, yikes, is it ever awful!
When she opened her news conference on Nov. 8 last year, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith began: “Welcome to a new day for health care in Alberta!” Did she get that right, or what? It’s a new day alright, although not the better one the premier promised when she announced the United Conservative Party’s plan to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
How is it possible Alberta can’t find a distributor to ship flu and COVID vaccines to family docs?
How is it possible Alberta’s Health Department “has not been successful in contracting a distributor to ship vaccines to community medical and nurse practitioner clinics,” as a memorandum leaked to the CBC informed family doctors and nurse practitioners? “As a result, a vendor for vaccine distribution will not be in place by October 15 for […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
When we see red tape in Alberta, we cut it, right? Fuhgeddaboudit! No booze in Alberta grocery stores!
When it comes to wrecking public health care and undermining public education, Alberta’s United Conservative Party is prepared to act boldly in pursuit of its ideological goals. But what about when it comes to something really important, like retail liquor sales? Fuhgeddaboudit! Yesterday, the UCP published a news release stating: “After a comprehensive review, the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Chemtrails, moon men, and United Conservative Party 2.0 – nope, this is not your father’s Conservative Party!
A political party that has completely lost its mind is no laughing matter, but I’m going to start with a dad joke. Since my late dad was an astrophysicist and one of the founding members of the University of Victoria faculty, his dad jokes could sometimes take a scientific turn, like the one he used […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Another day, another overwrought UCP screed – this one defending fossil fuel companies’ ‘right’ to greenwash
Another day, another overwrought screed from the United Conservative Party, this one a repeat, screeching that the federal government’s changes to the Competition Act “are undemocratic, extreme and will hurt hardworking businesses and families.” None of these things are true. The changes are democratic both in the sense they were passed by Parliament and that […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Danielle Smith’s statements on federal labour disputes signal intent to attack workers’ rights, CUPE leader warns
There’s a reason that Danielle Smith publishes an angry statement demanding Ottawa interfere with the collective bargaining process practically every time there’s a labour dispute in federal jurisdiction, and it goes beyond the conservative movement’s urgent desire to score points against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Alberta’s premier is sending a signal her United Conservative Party […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Danielle Smith announces performative changes with little legal significance to ‘Alberta Bill of Rights’
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith generated a huge amount of virtual ink yesterday yakking about her planned amendments to Alberta’s Lougheed-era Bill of Rights, passed by the Legislature in 1972 and not thought about very much ever since for good reason. In tune with the zeitgeist, Ms. Smith announced her planned changes in a three-and-a-half minute […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The Danielle Smith Chronicles: Still picking fights and wasting other people’s money
Last June, Naheed Nenshi began his campaign to lead the Alberta NDP by observing that Premier Danielle Smith and the United Conservative Party “only know how to do two things: They know how to pick fights and they know how to waste money.” About the same time, Calgary-Varsity NDP MLA Luanne Metz refined that concept […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Out of control spending on for-profit nursing agencies to surpass $1.5B in Canada this year: report
Spending on so-called “agency nurses,” nurses employed by for-profit nursing agencies whose services are contracted out to short-staffed public health care employers to fill temporary staffing needs, is out of control and expected to surpass $1.5 billion in Canada in the current fiscal year. That’s not a typo. That’s billion with a B – as […]