Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s Opposition United Conservative Party, calls the Trudeau Government’s renewal of Canada’s current equalization formula for an additional five years “a slap in the face to Alberta.” “It means we will continue to be forced, even when times are bad in Alberta, forced to subsidize public services in other parts of […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
U.S.-based Atlas Network, which has ‘reshaped political power in country after country,’ a ‘partner’ of Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a self-described non-partisan tax watchdog and taxpayer advocacy group once headed by Alberta Opposition Leader Jason Kenney, has always been tight-lipped about the sources of its own funding and support. This may be mildly ironic, given its vocal demands for transparency in government policy, but as a private organization that aggressively fund-raises […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Money from wealthy right-wing ideologues helps fuel group challenging Alberta’s protections for GSA members
The so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms achieved its first goal yesterday, generating plenty of publicity for itself and its social conservative supporters at the first day of its court bid to overturn the Alberta NDP Government’s legislative effort to protect students who join gay-straight alliances. By the sound of media reports from the southeastern […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Group making incendiary ‘ideological sexual clubs’ claim about Gay-Straight Alliances has history of backing social conservative causes
As was widely reported yesterday, a judge of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench will begin hearing arguments in Medicine Hat today in a legal effort by a social conservative group to upend the Alberta law that prevents schools from informing parents when students join a gay-straight alliance. The claim by the Justice Centre for […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Calgary MLA Brian Malkinson joins NDP cabinet as Alberta shuffle unfolds as more micro than macro
Alberta Premier Notley runs a pretty tight ship when it comes to her cabinet. So, as expected, there wasn’t much shuffling in the cabinet shuffle announced on the weekend and smoothly executed yesterday morning. Changes were minimal. So minimal, indeed, that mainstream media were calling it a “mini-shuffle.” One new cabinet member is in: Brian […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Saskatchewan Catholic school funding case likely to drag on despite deadline; cabinet shuffle today in Alberta
You’d think the province of Saskatchewan would be almost out of time to figure out how to deal with a judge’s ruling last year that non-Catholic students may not receive public funding if they attend separate schools. After all, the bombshell decision by Mr. Justice Donald Layh of the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench back […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
If F. W. de Klerk’s apartheid comparison to the fossil fuel economy is OK, why is David Suzuki’s slavery analogy an outrage?
A speech in Calgary last week by the last white president of South Africa in which F. W. de Klerk suggested the challenges faced by Alberta in the waning days of the petroleum industry may not be dissimilar from those facing his country in the last days of apartheid seems to have prompted barely a […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Trump’s anti-Canadian antics are good news for Alberta pipeline advocates – whether or not that was the plan
U.S. President Donald Trump may not actually have intended to deliver a blow to West Coast environmentalists opposed to the completion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project, but he has done so with his recent dubious allegations about Canada’s trading practices. Building a pipeline capable of carrying diluted bitumen from Alberta to Vancouver Harbour, […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer boots Maxime Bernier, self-appointed chief party ideologue, from Opposition front bench
It’s hard not to feel some sympathy for federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, what with right-wing purists jumping all over him for canning Maxime Bernier from the Opposition party’s front bench. In addition to being the normally ineffectual Mr. Scheer’s chief rival for the hearts and minds of the country’s Conservatives, who are agitated and […]
Posted inGeopolitics
Artificial unintelligence: Tiny computers in tiny hands are the real threat to civilization as we know it
It’s not big computer brains empowered by artificial intelligence that are going to destroy civilization as we know it. It’s little tiny computers, even if they’re pretty dumb, that are small enough to put in the tiny hands of unsupervised children, hopped-up frat boys and shallow narcissists like the 45th president of the United States. […]
Posted inGeopolitics
Who loves ya, baby? Canada’s conservatives urgently need to reassess their dalliance with Donald Trump
A photograph of last weekend’s G7 conclave in Quebec showing several national leaders apparently trying to persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to act like a grownup was doing the rounds on social media in the aftermath of the post-summit trainwreck. With the G7 gathering in La Malbaie already nearly universally acknowledged as a debacle thanks […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
No Progressives Allowed! No entry without secret decoder! UCP serves up private Pride pancakes only
While thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, were taking part in Pride events throughout Edmonton today, Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party held a private, conservatives-only “Pride Breakfast” a few blocks from the route of the parade along fashionable Whyte Avenue on the city’s south side. This reflects the unique problem Mr. Kenney and the UCP have […]