PHOTOS: Dr. Phillip van der Merwe, the brave Calgary physician the NDP has lined up to run against United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney in the Calgary-Lougheed by-election scheduled for Dec. 14. (Photo: Screenshot of Dr. van der Merwe’s Primary Care Network video.) Below: Mr. Kenney, who is widely assumed to be far in the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Bill 24 passes, making it hard for Alberta schools to obstruct gay-straight alliances and illegal to out members to their parents
PHOTOS: Alberta Education Minister David Eggen, whose Bill 24, An Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances, was passed by the Alberta Legislature yesterday. Below: UCP Leader Jason Kenney, former Alberta Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman, and social conservative activist John Carpay. Bill 24, An Act to Support Gay-Straight Alliances, passed third and final reading by 42 votes […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Tzeporah Berman pulls no punches to say what she really thinks about development of Alberta’s Bitumen Sands
PHOTO: Vancouver-based environmental activist Tzeporah Berman, author of a powerful attack on oilsands tailings ponds in Britain’s Guardian newspaper yesterday. Is it possible that the Alberta NDP wishes they’d never heard the name Tzeporah Berman? Ms. Berman is the outspoken Vancouver-based environmentalist and public advocacy tactician appointed by the Notley Government in 2016 to be […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Counting up the Alberta Party’s leadership candidates, real and imagined, so far: a partial list, no doubt
PHOTOS: Former Morinville mayor Lisa Holmes. Below: Doug Griffiths, Thomas Lukaszuk, Stephen Khan and Chima Nkemdirim. These photos were chosen completely arbitrarily, mainly because they came from the author’s own collection and hadn’t been used a bunch of times before. If it weren’t for the takeover of the once-rather-liberal Alberta Party by political aliens associated […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Who benefits more from the PC takeover of the Alberta Party – the governing NDP or the Opposition UCP?
PHOTOS: Opposition members in the Alberta Legislature as seen by many of their critics. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons.) Actual UCP Caucus members may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Outgoing Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley, and UCP Leader Jason Kenney. Having been the victims of Jason Kenney’s double reverse hostile takeover […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark goes over the side, almost certainly with a helpful shove from someone
PHOTOS: Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark … soon to be former Alberta Party leader Greg Clark. Below: NDP Premier Rachel Notley, UCP Leader Jason Kenney, Alberta Together PAC Executive Director Katherine O’Neill (Screenshot of TV broadcast), and political operative Stephen Carter. Give Greg Clark his due. He did manage to get elected to the Alberta […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Abandon hope, all UCP who enter here? Ted Byfield may have opened the gates to Lake of Fire 2.0
PHOTOS: Social conservative publisher and ideologue Ted Byfield (Photo: Screenshot of Youtube Video). Below: United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney, NDP Education Minister David Eggen, and Calgary-West UCP MLA Mike Ellis (Photo: Screenshot of CBC broadcast). It’s fair to suggest Ted Byfield always dreamed of being able to direct Alberta’s political agenda. Now, perhaps, he’s […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Which way will the wedge slice? Alberta NDP and UCP adopt opposite strategies on gay-straight alliances
PHOTOS: Jason Kenney may be the UCP’s leader now, but he’s still doing his best to appeal to his red-meat social conservative base. (Photo: Dave Cournoyer, Daveberta.ca.) Below: NDP Education Minister David Eggen, NDP Premier Rachel Notley, and UCP House Leader Jason Nixon. The impassioned, at times bitter, tone of the debate over the latest […]
Posted inBestsellers
2017 Short Story Advent Calendar 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 Oct. 29, 2017, compiled by Audreys Books and provided by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. EDMONTON FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. The 2017 Short Story Advent Calendar – Michael Hingston, Ed.*+ 2. The Dark and Other Love […]
Posted inAlberta Politics, Canadian Politics, Geopolitics
One year has passed since Donald Trump’s election and, here we all are, still in Crazytown!
PHOTOS: Donald J. Trump. (Photo: Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons.) He’s President of the United States, you know! Below: Hillary Clinton (Wikimedia Commons), who won the vote but lost the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who promised to fix Canada’s electoral system, and didn’t. Today is the first anniversary of the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
So long, Denis; Hello Valérie … Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
PHOTOS: Just-defeated Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre (Photo: City of Montreal.) Below: Montreal Mayor-elect Valérie Plante, who defeated Mr. Coderre in the city’s civic election Sunday, and Saskatchewan Senator Denise Batters, both photos from their Twitter accounts. I’ve got some advice for those right-wingers from Western Canada cheering the political demise of Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Where are they now? Well-known Tories, including former justice minister and former police chief, have ‘gone to pot’
PHOTOS: Jonathan Denis, during his tenure as premier Alison Redford’s Progressive Conservative Justice Minister. Below: Former Calgary Police Chief and PC candidate Rick Hanson (Photo: CBC), former PC culture minister Lindsay Blackett, and Conservative activist Piotr Pilarski (Photo: Twitter). A couple of high-profile Progressive Conservative candidates swept away by the NDP sweep in May 2015 […]