WASHINGTON, D.C. – I see Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, is also in town tonight, so if I happen to see meet her strolling on the National Mall or enjoying a beer at Kramer’s Books, I’ll say hi for you-all. I’ll also have some advice for her, worth what she paid for it, that […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
NDP will need to choose carefully as Linda Duncan decides not to seek re-election as Edmonton Strathcona MP
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Not to be negative, but the federal New Democrats might want to hold off scheduling the nomination to choose Linda Duncan’s successor until just after next spring’s provincial election. Then again – given the fraught relationship these days between the federal NDP and the Alberta branch of Canada’s social democratic party – […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
The Day We Burned Ole DC Down? It was today, actually … 204 years ago
WASHINGTON, D.C. The Day We Burned Ole DC Down? It was today, actually. But if this was big news 204 years ago, when the fire was actually lit by the Royal Marines and sundry British Army regiments – revenge for the Americans burning down York, now part of Toronto, as a matter of fact – […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Notice to readers: AlbertaPolitics.ca is closed … sort of
Notice to readers: I expect to be on the road for a few days and so AlbertaPolitics.ca is officially closed for vacation. Which, as regular readers of this blog will understand, doesn’t necessarily mean there will be no posts whatsoever. There may well be a few – mood and WiFi permitting – although it’s certainly […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Hard to believe it’s been seven years: Looking back to 2011, and Election Eve 2008, with happy memories of Layton, Jack
Don’t mourn! Organize! — Joe Hill, Swedish-American union organizer As happens each year at this time, I’m rendered almost speechless by the loss of Jack Layton, seven years ago today. The piece below, with my own fond memory of Mr. Layton, was published on this date in 2011, just hours after we had heard the […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Conservatives defend racist heckler who tried to sandbag the prime minister … so how’s that working out for them?
Hmmmmmmm … Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives appear to have picked defending a racist heckler who tried to sandbag Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with a string of tendentious questions about immigration and refugees as the hill they want to die on! I wonder how this will work out for them? Not well, I imagine. The Conservatives apparently […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Guy Kerr can’t be blamed for the Alberta WCB’s troubles, but his resignation is an opportunity to get it back on track
Guy Kerr cannot be blamed for the tragic wrong turn the Alberta Workers Compensation Board took nearly 30 years ago under the Conservative governments of premiers Don Getty and Ralph Klein. Under those premiers, Alberta’s effective workers’ compensation system was subverted and undermined. The victims have been injured workers. By the time Mr. Kerr was […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
U.S. and Canadian right-wing politicians march in lockstep as they dismiss facts as conspiracy, disagreement as criminality
Apparently infected by the decline of political discourse in the United States, the Canadian right is increasingly moving toward defining the use of facts that run counter to its narrative as conspiracy and policy disagreement criminality. If you doubt this, consider recent Tweets by the likes of Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel, who accused the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta Government and AUPE sign tentative agreement for three-year public service contract
The Alberta Government and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees both announced yesterday they’ve signed a tentative agreement on a new collective agreement covering the union’s approximately 23,000 members who work directly for the provincial government. This is the group of public employees the union accurately calls “front-line government service employees,” right-wing ideological enemies of […]
Posted inBestsellers
My Sundays with Normand by Adele Fontaine tops Audreys Books Edmonton Bestseller List
Here is the list of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold in Edmonton for the week ended Aug. 12, 2018, compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. My Sundays with Normand – Adele Fontaine * 2. This Wound is a World – Billy-Ray […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Doomsayers, Chicken Littles and Conservatives get it wrong on the impact of minimum wage increases
Now there’s a surprise! Ontario’s minimum wage increase behaved exactly as predicted by most mainstream economists. That is, the 21-per-cent wage increase implemented by the former Liberal government that took effect on Jan. 1 this year did none of the terrible things Conservative politicians, right-wing think tankers, Astro-Turf “tax watchdog” organizations, business groups, and the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Shape of the Planet; Both Sides Have a Point* … Alberta’s UCP helps make flat-eartherism respectable again!
Surprisingly, as far as we know, neither Opposition Leader Jason Kenney nor any members of his United Conservative Party Legislative Caucus made it to the Flat Earth International Conference at the appropriately named Fantasyland Hotel in Alberta’s capital city Thursday and yesterday. “Flat-earthers from around North America came to listen to speakers such as Indiana […]