PHOTOS: Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark, the party’s sole MLA in the Alberta Legislature. Below: Then-Wildrose leader Danielle Smith during the campaign leading up to the October 2014 “mini-election” and Alberta Party President Pat Cochrane (photo grabbed from her Twitter account). It’s a mystery why the Alberta Party would choose not to run a candidate […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Wherever there’s Alberta unite-the-right chatter, Preston Manning’s name keeps popping up
PHOTOS: Preston Manning, looking right as usual, photo taken at the 2013 Manning Conference in Ottawa. Below: Alberta PC leader Ric McIver, Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean Wildrose Party photo), federal Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose (CBC photo) and Wildrose Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt. He’s really sorry about the last time, but it sure seems as […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Don Getty, premier who battled economic downturn much like today’s, among the last of Alberta’s Red Tory leaders
PHOTOS: Don Getty and Peter Lougheed, going places politically back in the day. Below: Mr. Getty again, and Mr. Lougheed , as professional football players with the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1950s, the former in an Eskimos photo, the latter in a shot snapped for the Edmonton Journal; Ralph Klein, another Alberta premier in a […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Appointment of Michael Phair as chair U of A Board of Governors sends exactly the right message
PHOTOS: Newly appointed University of Alberta Board of Governors Chair Michael Phair, left, with Advanced Education Minister Marlin Schmidt at yesterday’s announcement (photo grabbed from MLA David Shepherd’s Twitter feed). Below: Former U of A Board Chair Douglas Goss and Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson. Bottom: Interim PC Leader Ric McIver. The appointment of Michael Phair […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Unite-the-right poll results ring alarm bells and raise interesting questions, none of which are asked by the media
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 […]