A recent meeting of the Wildrose Party Legislative caucus. Actual members of the official Opposition party may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: NDP Leader Rachel Notley and Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith. Monday’s bombshell that the rickety coalition of ideological market-perfection fanatics and social-conservative religious fundamentalists called the Wildrose Party was coming unstuck may turn […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Wildrose Party endures its cruelest day as two MLAs quit to join Jim Prentice’s PC government
Ian Donovan, Alberta Premier Jim Prentice and Kerry Towle at yesterday afternoon’s floor-crossing news conference in the Legislature Building. (Ici Radio-Canada photo.) Below: Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith and quotable former prime ministers Harold Wilson, Brian Mulroney and Winston Churchill. There was the cruelest sort of irony in the battering suffered yesterday by Alberta’s Wildrose Opposition, […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
WTF? Canada votes against UN resolution condemning glorification of Nazism! Have we taken leave of our senses?
United Nations headquarters in New York City, apparently as good a place as any for Canada to make an international fool of itself. Below: Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Russian President Vladimir Putin shirtfront a pair of arboreal herbivorous marsupials in Brisbane. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper does the same thing. Can someone please […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Tory income-splitting tax policy: It’s about creating and preserving gender inequality and making rich guys richer
Whew! This income splitting is a killer. Actual perfect families as seen by the Harper Government may not appear exactly like Canadian reality. Below: Queen’s University tax law professor Kathleen Lahey. A fundamental purpose of the Harper Government’s ideologically driven income-splitting tax scheme is to undermine women’s equality, Queen’s University tax law professor Kathleen Lahey […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The bloom is off the (Wild)rose – Opposition Leader Danielle Smith assailed by doubts, dissent and departures
Are the wheels falling off the Wildrose bus, which may or may not look exactly as illustrated any more? Below: Beleaguered Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, Taber-Warner-Cardston MLA Gary Bikman and Wildrose House Leader Rob Anderson. These may be happy days for the Progressive Conservatives under Premier Jim Prentice, but the bloom is definitely off Alberta’s […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Hockey millionaires and pharmacare tell you everything you need to know about who the Canadian Taxpayers Federation really works for
The Montreal Canadiens in 1912-13. Now the highest-taxed hockey players on the continent, they’re still the best and likely to stay that way. Below: Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions President Linda Silas; U.S. anti-public-health-care fruitloop and Canadian Taxpayers Federation ally Grover Norquist. For a while now it’s seemed as if the so-called Canadian Taxpayers Federation […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Boring conservatism trumps bold conservatism in Premier Jim Prentice’s dull but confident Throne Speech
Are you bored yet? Alberta’s PC’s aren’t going to be happy till you feel like this fellow. Below: Alberta Lieutenant-Governor Donald Ethell (Government of Alberta); Premier Jim Prentice (CBC). Welcome to the new-old politics of Alberta, in which boring conservatism trumps bold conservatism. Yesterday’s Alberta Throne Speech may have been one of the more boring […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Maybe fake soldier didn’t understand only Tory politicians and TV stars are allowed to play military dressup in Canada
Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans were outraged when this man allegedly passed himself off as a Forces member at the scene of a flood in Calgary, Alberta. As you can see, he seemed to have a couple of civilians fooled. However, his weird haircut gave him away to keen observers familiar with military regulations. […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Two political general meetings in one weekend: Wildrosers conduct gloomy post-mortem while PCs flirt with characteristic hubris
Steady as she goes! Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith, centre, works to keep party stalwarts, on either side, on the right course, which would be not too far to the right, of course. Alberta Premier Prentice, at the wheel above, tries to get the earnest Wildrosers to take a wrong turn. Actual Alberta conservative party leaders, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Why libraries – and library users – need their librarians and other library workers to be union members
Maureen O’Reilly, president of the Toronto Public Library Workers Union, speaking in Toronto last weekend. Below: Renowned author Margaret Atwood on an Alberta union picket line, circa 2000, Doug Ford and his Brother Rob. Doug Ford? Doug Ford? Who is Doug Ford again? I think he’s Rob Ford’s brother? OK. Who is Rob Ford? Didn’t […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Revolving door still spinning at Alberta Health Services executive suite in wake of $3-billion ‘Sonic boom’
Former Alberta Health Services VP and interim co-CEO Rick Trimp, who left the massive health care agency on Halloween, in a screen grab. Below: AHS CEO Vickie Kaminski, blogger and political candidate Susan Wright, Health Minister Stephen Mandel and former health minister Fred Horne. Rick Trimp, who most recently was Alberta Health Services’ vice-president of […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Alberta’s big problem is the same as Russia’s – so what’s Stephen Harper doing about it?
Keep those wells a-pumpin! Keep those oil prices low! Squeeze those Russkies! Uh … just a minute. … isn’t that bad for Alberta’s many varieties of Conservative? Below: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Mr. Harper’s hero, Margaret Thatcher. The Globe and Mail, tireless cheerleader for the Harper Government, was gloating […]