PHOTOS: Your blogger, David Climenhaga, with CBC Edmonton morning drive show host Mark Connolly in the network’s downtown studio. Below: Canadian Taxpayers Federation Prairie Director Colin Craig frozen in a video screenshot and City of Edmonton Chief Economist John Rose (CBC photo). So it turns out the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is concerned about the poor […]
Posted inGeopolitics
Those Canadian troops in Ukraine? The Minsk II Agreement says they need to be pulled out right now
PHOTOS: The main protagonists in the Minsk II Agreement negotiations, from left to right, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (Wikipedia Commons). Below: Canada’s former defence minister, Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson; Defence Minister Jason Kenney; former foreign affairs minister […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Are there any progressives left in Alberta’s Progressive Conservative caucus?
Sorry, boys, you’re all getting a haircut, and it won’t necessarily be a good one! Below: Premier Jim Prentice, Robin Campbell and Ralph Klein. Not a clue in the whole carload! A year ago, Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Government apparently had no idea there would be a revenue shortfall today. Now they’re confidently predicting we’ll have […]
Posted inMedia
BREAKING DRIVEL! Mud on its face, a big disgrace, Sun News Network perishes from the earth
PHOTOS: For sale, news truck, like new, barely used to cover news. Below: Sun News commentator Ezra Levant in Sun News mode. I suppose this means my complaints about Sun News Network’s offensive attacks will never be resolved. Oh well, I guess I can live with my objections being rendered moot by the disappearance of […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A Tale of Two Cities: Where’s former Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel now that his city really needs him?
PHOTOS: Premier Jim Prentice, far left, and Finance Minister Robin Campbell, centre, thank Health Minister and Edmonton MLA Stephen Mandel for becoming invisible. Actual Prentice Government cabinet ministers may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Mr. Mandel, looking like he’s getting ready to ream out a senior government, just before he disappeared into the ether; […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Eve & Dimitri’s defection: Will it play in Pickering? You bet it will!
Faintly nauseating, maybe, but it’ll likely work. Eve Adams with Liberal Party of Canada Leader Justin Trudeau at the scene of yesterday’s floor crossing. (CBC photo) Below: The hairpluggy Dimitri Soudas; H.A.R. “Kim” Philby, from a Soviet stamp; and the Langevin Block, where the lights, and possibly some of the files, are going to be […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta v. Libya: No danger of regime change in ‘broke’ Alberta, now collecting plus or minus zero from petroleum extraction
PHOTOS: A Western pilot, Italian in this case, bombs Libya … regime change without end. Nothing like that’s needed here in Alberta, though. Below: Premier Peter Lougheed in his prime, collecting 40 per cent on Alberta’s petroleum revenues; Col. Muammar Gaddafi in his, getting even more; Premier Jim Prentice, getting plus or minus nothing. Political […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta premier meets rich and powerful guys in New York, feels right at home
PHOTOS: Gaudeamus igitur! Veritas non sequitur? A crowd like this listened intently in this very room when Alberta Premier Jim Prentice popped into the Harvard Club of New York for chuckles and chat last Friday. Below: Mr. Prentice, in a suit very much like the one he wore to the club; Ambassador Gary Doer in […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Free advice for opponents of the term ‘tar sands’ – take a Valium
PHOTOS: An environmentalist, left, leads a discussion about whether the term “tar sands” or “oil sands” is more accurate. At right, a Calgary Herald columnist. Actual participants in this debate may or may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: The offending “Alberta Tar Sands” sign, which could have been Photoshopped, I guess; the Spanish Inquisition. […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Whither Liberal Laurie Blakeman? Will she become the first Alberta Party MLA actually elected to that role?
Edmonton-Centre Liberal (but maybe not for long) MLA Laurie Blakeman in a recent photo grabbed from her Facebook page. Below: Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark and the party’s executive director, former Wildrose candidate Tim Grover. Whither Laurie Blakeman? The more I think about Ms. Blakeman’s offer just a week ago to lead the foundering post-Raj-Sherman […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta roundup: press conferences, photo ops, on-line surveys, not to mention a body in the back of a pickup truck!
PHOTOS: Alberta Finance Minister Robin Campbell shows off the government’s new on-line survey, which is so simple even a monkey can fill it out and provide the results the government is looking for, at today’s news conference. Actual Alberta politicians and their animated props may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: The real Mr. Campbell, […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Supreme Court of Canada ruling on Saskatchewan public service labour law has huge implications for Alberta
PHOTOS: The Supreme Court of Canada. Below: Queen Elizabeth signs the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau looks on smiling on April 17, 1982; the Charter. The Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling last Friday that Saskatchewan’s “essential services” law is unconstitutional because it interferes with the Charter-protected right of public […]