PHOTOS: A pollster asks a typical Albertan if she’d prefer to vote for a united Wildrose-PC Party … or the NDP. Actual Alberta pollsters and their subjects may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Pollster Quito Maggi, Alberta Prosperity Fund and Advocacy Ltd. spokesperson Dave Rutherford, and Preston Manning, who needs no introduction around this […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
George Clark’s parking lot putschists deliver an unintended compliment to Alberta’s NDP Government
PHOTOS: Alberta First Plebiscite Warriors leader George Clark, in a screen shot from a video interview shot not long before someone stepped on the hose from his media oxygen supply. Below: Donald Trump and Calgary’s own Ted Cruz, a couple of U.S. politicians who know how to do the Tea Party thing right. Don’t you […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta #Kudatah plan expires with a whimper as George Clark is abandoned by his erstwhile friends on the right
PHOTOS: George Clark explains Plan B to the media in a Calgary parking lot yesterday (CBC Photo). Below: Mr. Clark back in the day when his fair-weather friends from the right-wing vlogosphere used to interview him regularly; and the late U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, who had an explanation for this sort of thing. Abandoned […]
Posted inAlberta Politics, Media
Fallout from the ‘Rebel Media’ brouhaha: maybe it’s time to abolish Alberta’s anachronistic Press Gallery
PHOTOS: A screenshot of some of the partisan materials sold on Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media website. Below: Another image of a sale item from The Rebel, in this case a T-shirt with the website’s logo on the back and a slogan supporting the Conservative Party on the front. Below that: Alberta Legislative Press Gallery President […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Athabasca U report on moving IT staff to Edmonton area helps explain motivation for space discussions with City of St. Albert
PHOTOS: The road to Athabasca, well back in the day. Too far for Information Technology professionals to consider travelling nowadays? Below: The Athabasca University headquarters, which if I’ve got this right would be just to the right of where the wagon was; Alberta Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt. St. ALBERT, Alberta Athabasca University appears to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics, Media
Go figure! Ezra Levant, the Pied Piper of right-wing-nuttery, has the mainstream media singing his tune!
PHOTOS: Right-wing commentator Ezra Levant in a typical pose, photo by David Stobbe of the University of Saskatchewan. Below: stringer Sheila Gunn Reid in a screen shot of The Rebel’s approach to journalism; Mr. Levant in another familiar pose, a few months before Sun TV folded its tent; and Edmonton Sun-Journal political columnist Lorne Gunter, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Party City’s PR problem illustrates the need to be anticipatory about promoting tolerance
PHOTOS: The ugly message as relayed by mainstream media, in this case the CBC. Below: Shelley Bramhoff Sikorski’s original Facebook post. Party City is a huge chain of party supply stores based in Elmsford, New York, just five kilometres down the road from Sleepy Hollow, the setting for Washington Irving’s famous short story published in […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Doff hats to Don Getty, father of Family Day – too bad about that August holiday
PHOTOS: Don Getty, premier, celebrating the first Family Day in 1990. No! wait! That’s Don Getty, quarterback, celebrating the Edmonton Eskimos’ Grey Cup victory in 1956. Same guy, though. Who says actual Alberta politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated? Below: Mr. Getty’s 1999 Alberta Order of Excellence portrait and his official portrait in the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
It’s going to take more than Valentine cards and chocolate to unite Alberta’s fractious right
ILLUSTRATIONS: Hey Wildrose Party … the Tories send their love to you! But will this idea “bomb”? Actual Progressive Conservative strategists may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Former PC cabinet Minister Rick Orman, photographed during his most recent run for the Tory leadership in 2011, Wildrose Leader Brian Jean, photo grabbed from the Wildrose […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
B.C. politics as seen from Alberta: Christy Clark’s re-election strategy exposed
PHOTOS: B.C. Lieutenant-Governor Judith Guichon reads the notorious Throne Speech attacking Alberta on Tuesday. Below: B.C. Premier Christie Clark, NDP strategist Brian Topp, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and B.C. NDP leader John Horgan. You no longer have to live in British Columbia to know what B.C. Premier Christy Clark’s strategy is going to be when […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Go figure! Jim Prentice, failed former politician, resurfaces with sweet gig at Washington think tank
PHOTOS: Those were the days! This time last year, Jim Prentice was everyone else’s favourite Albertan, or so it seemed. Now look at him, already the last Conservative premier of Alberta. Below: Woodrow Wilson, the only American president with a PhD and Norman Levi, minister in the Dave Barrett NDP Government in British Columbia (photo […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Uniting the Right: Is Wildrose Leader Brian Jean starting to wonder, ‘With friends like these, who needs enemies?’
PHOTOS: It’s getting crowded on the Wildrose Party’s “unite the right” bandwagon … and not necessarily with the “right” people from leader Brian Jean’s perspective. Actual Alberta political bandwagons may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Alberta Prosperity Fund spokesperson Barry McNamar (grabbed from his Facebook page), Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and former PC justice […]