Posted inAlberta Politics

Report calling for big changes to Workers Compensation in Alberta is a step toward ending WCB’s ‘culture of denial’

PHOTOS: Alberta Labour Minister Christina Gray. Below: Alberta Workers Compensation Board CEO Guy Kerr and the members of the WCB Panel, labour relations consultant Mia Norrie, labour lawyer John Carpenter, and Covenant Health labour relations consultant Pemme Cunliffe. Perhaps the two most symbolically important and potentially beneficial changes to Alberta’s Workers Compensation system contained in […]

Posted inAlberta Politics, Canadian Politics

Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s position on Khadr case exposes the group’s partisan inclinations

PHOTOS: Omar Khadr, left, with his Edmonton lawyer, Dennis Edney, at right. Mr. Edney’s wife, Patricia Edney, is in the middle. (Photo: CBC) Below: Mr. Khadr at age 14, not long before his capture by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in July 2002, and Aaron Wudrick, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. If you have […]

Posted inAlberta Politics, Canadian Politics

Conservative politicians’ reaction to PM’s missing-Alberta gaffe suggests they suffer from world-class insecurity

PHOTOS: Are the hillbillies above what our conservative politicians want the rest of Canada to think of when they hear the word Alberta? They should just stop! Below: Calgary Nose Hill MP Michelle Rempel (Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Robert Thivierge), Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean, and Alberta’s grownup premier, Rachel Notley. Bad luck for Prime Minister […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Big Tobacco will be pleased as Derek Fildebrandt’s ‘liberty’ video assails restrictions on flavoured cigarettes

PHOTOS: Young smokers, circa 1910. Below: A screenshot of Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt’s social media video, Mr. Fildebrandt himself, former Wildrose Party leader Danielle Smith, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose marijuana-legalization strategy Mr. Fildebrandt appears to endorse. Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt is continuing his party’s tradition of supporting Big Tobacco’s right to […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Will deficit hysteria finally pave the way for a sensible Alberta sales tax? Ummm … don’t count on it

PHOTOS: Never mind the political stuff, this is the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory, where astronomer Max Wolf discovered the Minor Planet Climenhaga in 1917. Below, not in the order in which they appear: Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci, British Columbia Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon, B.C. New Democratic Party Leader John Horgan, and Professor Wolf himself. Judging from […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Guest Post: Whither Alberta’s NDP in the face of extreme, desperate, chaotic right and resurgent ‘centre’?

PHOTOS: Contingents from the Centre Right, the Far Right and the Further Right mix it up in the Alberta Legislature’s commissary. Actual Alberta conservatives may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Guest post author Barret Weber, Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt and Goldilocks, exiting, pursued by […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Damning ‘carding’ statistics can’t be explained away – they’re evidence of systemic racism

PHOTO: Bashir Mohamed of Black Lives Matter Edmonton speaks in front of the Edmonton Police Service downtown headquarters yesterday. Below: Some powerful charts showing carding practices in Edmonton. It’s too much. The numbers are just too high, the discrepancies in treatment too wide. It’s just too difficult to credit the very high numbers of black […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Alberta Liberal David Khan’s call for election spending laws to include PACs strikes a chord

PHOTOS: Alberta Liberal Leader David Khan, who is worried about the activities of the province’s Political Action Committees. Former premier Ed Stelmach is visible behind him. Below: Progressive Conservative Leader Jason Kenney, whose party’s activities are supported by PACs, and a United Farmers of Alberta gas station in Lacombe, grabbed from the UFA Archives online. […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

With three right-wing political parties now possible instead of one, has Jason Kenney’s roll of the dice crapped out?

PHOTOS: Jason Kenney, as he may see himself, gets ready to roll the unite-the-right dice. Actual Alberta conservative politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated. (Photo: Publicity shot for Sky Full of Moon, 1952.) Below: The real Mr. Kenney, plus the real Katherine O’Neill, Greg Clark and Stephen Mandel. Snake eyes? Jason Kenney rolled the […]