One of the unusual features of the past four years in Alberta has been the remarkable calm that has prevailed in our normally tumultuous, shambolic, sometimes chaotic health care system. Under the NDP Government, for the first time in the past 30 years at least, health care hasn’t been a continual gong show, spinning ever […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Yesterday marked a century of public sector trade unionism in Alberta
There will be no update on the Alberta election campaign today; your blogger was at church last night. Let me explain: 100 years ago last night, a small gathering of people met in the basement of Edmonton’s First Presbyterian Church to do something pretty brave. To wit, they founded a staff association to represent them […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
NDP promises 13,000 $25-a-day child care spaces; UCP would remove protections for LGBTQ youth
As she hinted at her Edmonton rally Sunday, Premier Rachel Notley announced yesterday in Calgary that if her NDP government is reelected it will move to help families with children by introducing 13,000 more $25-a-day child care spaces across Alberta. Making safe, quality, affordable child care what Premier Notley called “the medicare of the 21st Century” […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Rachel Notley drops hint about affordable child-care plan, mocks recent UCP bozo eruptions
It sure sounds as if Alberta Premier Rachel Notley will announce an affordable child-care plan for Alberta today. At any rate, at a rally in downtown Edmonton’s Polish Hall yesterday afternoon, she boldly told more than 1,000 enthusiastic supporters – who sounded like an Oilers crowd back in the days this place was known as […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Has former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith become a (not so) secret admirer of NDP Premier Rachel Notley?
Danielle Smith nearly became the first woman to be elected premier of Alberta. As leader of the Wildrose Party, which despite her efforts was never quite successful at portraying itself as a party of the centre right, she came close, tantalizingly close. Alas for Ms. Smith, the Wildrose Party’s opportunity to form government foundered in […]
Posted inBestsellers
Disintegrate/Dissociate, poetry by Arielle Twist, 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 March 17, 2019. The lists are compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Disintegrate/Dissociate – Arielle Twist 2. The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides 3. The Tattooist of Auschwitz […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The Prodigal Roughneck returns – Bernard the Roughneck throws his hardhat into the ring for FCP in Grande Prairie
The good news for Alberta’s Freedom Conservative Party is that it’s recruited a national figure as one of its candidates. The bad news for the FCP may be the national figure in question is Neal Bernard Hancock, better known as “Bernard the Roughneck.” A three-paragraph news story on Mr. Hancock’s nomination appeared on the Everything […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta Election Day 2: Will UCP scandals keep traction once parties start rolling out their policies?
Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP clearly hopes to make Opposition Leader Jason Kenney’s character the ballot box issue for voters in the April 16 provincial election, but will the United Conservative Party’s scandals have as much traction now that the election writ has been dropped? The risk for the NDP strategy, even if daily reminders of […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The medium is the message: Rachel Notley calls an election for April 16
The medium is the message. And in March and April 2019, the medium and the message will be Rachel Notley. Rachel Notley, premier of Alberta, personally popular but leading a New Democratic Party that has trailed its conservative rival in recent polls, called an election this morning. Albertans will go to the polls on April […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Never mind the Throne Speech, yesterday’s excitement was still about the Kamikaze Campaign
Never mind the Throne Speech. Yesterday’s excitement all took place in the basement media room of the Alberta Legislature Building an hour afterward. The afternoon Speech from the Throne by Alberta’s NDP Government was pretty much what you’d expect under the circumstances, which are that Premier Rachel Notley is expected to call an election any […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Rachel Notley accepts nomination; accuses Jason Kenney of coolly lying about ‘Kamikaze Campaign’
Based on what we’ve learned in the past 24 hours, it’s hard to dispute Premier Rachel Notley’s blunt assessment at her nomination meeting in the Edmonton-Strathcona riding yesterday that Opposition Leader Jason Kenney has been coolly lying about the role of his 2017 leadership campaign in the so-called “Kamikaze Mission” to sink his rival to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
CBC exposé about Jason Kenney’s campaign has echoes of Richard Nixon
Perhaps it’s just me, but with each passing day Jason Kenney reminds me a little more of Richard M. Nixon, the talented but deeply flawed American president who in 1973 resigned from office rather than be impeached by the House of Representatives and sent packing by the Senate. Last night’s exposé by the CBC’s Edmonton […]