When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau observed back on April 16 that the Ontario provincial government led by Premier Doug Ford was throwing roadblocks in the way of Ontario municipalities accessing federal money for needed transportation infrastructure, Conservatives responded with angry denials, and not just in Ontario. The prime minister had told a news conference Kitchener, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
More questions than answers in last week’s fallout from 2017 UCP leadership campaign
Eight Alberta United Conservative Party MLAs, five of them cabinet ministers, now admit they’ve been interviewed by the RCMP in the federal police force’s ongoing investigation into the curious goings on during the party’s 2017 leadership race, from which Premier Jason Kenney emerged victorious. Every time another UCP Caucus member is interviewed by the Mounties, […]
Posted inBestsellers
Laini Giles’ Bathing Beauty: A Novel of Marie Prevost tops Audreys Books Edmonton fiction bestseller list
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton during the week ended July 14, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Bathing Beauty: A Novel of Marie Prevost – Laini Giles * 2. The Empress of Idaho […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The Lesson of the Beaver: Something for Alberta’s fossil fuel boosters to think about
If you forget everything else, just remember this about our country’s incessant and often bitter debate about fossil fuels: “Canada is never going to run out of oil, just like we never ran out of beavers.” We owe this pearl of insight to Canadian economist Jim Stanford, late of the Canadian Auto Workers Union and […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Advice to Jason Kenney’s cabinet: curb your enthusiasms, one conspiracy theory at a time!
It’s sound advice in private and public life to restrict yourself to one nutty conspiracy theory at a time, lest folks start to wonder if you’re the one who’s, well, nutty. Take Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party Government in the context of this sensible and widely held rule of thumb. The Kenney cabinet could almost […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Yet another annual message to the Calgary Stampede: real men don’t hurt animals for entertainment
There will be a “thorough review process surrounding chuckwagon safety” after the deaths of six horses during the 2019 Calgary Stampede, which is now mercifully over. Oh, please! There will be no meaningful review of the safety of the horses that are abused for fun at the Stampede, just as there will be no meaningful […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
OK, he said nothing new, but why did Justin Trudeau’s pipeline presser make Conservatives so angry?
Conservatives’ faux shock at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s relatively news free pipeline construction announcement in Edmonton last week was a thing to behold. The tone generally was, “there oughtta be a law,” to wit, a law against making announcements when you have nothing to announce. Only with considerably harsher language, of course, because nowadays the […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Andrew Sheer would let Canadians rot in foreign jails before giving up an electoral edge!
I rarely paid much attention to John McCallum during his years as a federal Liberal cabinet minister under three prime ministers and, on the few occasions I did, he never left much of an impression one way or the other. But I was shocked last week both by the specious and dishonest attacks by Conservative […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
My Eyes Are Dim Part II: AlbertaPolitcs.ca must take another short break from publication
Actually, it’s no longer true that my eyes are dim – one of them is pretty darned clear now. But eyes, like some other body parts, come in pairs and work best that way, so the restoration of my eyesight must now continue to its second act. Accordingly, as was the case back on June […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta’s foreign-funded-fossil-fuel defamation inquisition: Stand by for an expensive gong show
Here are three predictions about Jason Kenney’s inquiry into that “foreign-funded defamation campaign” against Alberta’s fossil fuel industry. It will be a gong show It will cost far more than $2.5 million It will end up harming the industry, and Alberta The roots of this likely debacle are found in the Public Inquiries Act, an […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Stephen Harper’s proposed restrictions on bitumen exports caused no uproar – so why the fury at Justin Trudeau?
Late last week, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer was once again accusing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Government of wanting to phase out the oilsands, as he put it, and passing laws to put that putative plan into action. Notwithstanding a lack of persuasive evidence, the popularity of this refrain here in Alberta […]
Posted inBestsellers
Five Red Sentries, poetry by Raye Hendrickson, tops Audreys Books Edmonton Bestseller List
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton during the week ended June 30, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Five Red Sentries (poetry) – Raye Hendrickson 2. Trickster Drift – Eden Robinson 3. Kingdom of […]