Posted inAlberta Politics

The only hope for Alberta’s Tories now may be a call to Ghostbusters, or an exorcist!

The Ric McIver campaign balloon makes its way through downtown Calgary. Who ya gonna call? Kathleen Wynne? Some of the cast of the Gong Show, Alberta Edition, below: Former infrastructure minister McIver, Infrastructure Minister Wayne Drysdale, and actual acting infrastructure minister Dave Hancock. Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party is looking for a new leader, but what […]

Posted inAlberta Politics, Canadian Politics, Media

With floodwaters rising again, will Sun News Network renew its hysterical ‘gun grab’ attacks on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?

Sun News Network columnist Lorne Gunter is presented an award by National Firearms Association President Sheldon Clare for his commentary on the so-called “High River Gun Grab.” (Grabbed from the NFA’s website.) Below: Floodwaters roar through High River last year. (CBC Photo) Rain is falling and floodwaters are rising again in Southern Alberta. A year […]

Posted inAlberta Politics, Canadian Politics

Red in Central Canada, blue in Ottawa an immutable rule that favours Harper’s Tories? Don’t bet on it!

Is Justin Trudeau finished because Kathleen Wynne just won in Ontario, like the mainstream media’s pundits are telling you? Don’t be too sure! (Say, as one Twitter commenter asked, who is that old man with Mr. Trudeau?) Below: The same guy with NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. Weird! Below them: Lawrence Martin and Tim Harper. It’s […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Pride goeth before destruction: Tory leadership candidate Ric McIver’s already slim chances fall into a burnin’ Lake of Fire

Progressive Conservative leadership candidate opens the 2013 March for Jesus in Calgary. If he hadn’t gone back this year, he’d probably be OK. Below: King Solomon. He fell into a burnin’ Lake of Fire He went down, down, down and the flames went higher! And it burns, burns, burns … the Lake of Fire… The […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Rachel Notley makes Alberta NDP leadership bid official with Calgary and Edmonton announcements

Alberta NDP Leadership candidate Rachel Notley addresses her supporters in Edmonton yesterday afternoon. Below: Ms. Notley talks to the media. No surprise, then, as predicted yesterday, Edmonton-Strathcona MLA Rachel Notley made her entry into the Alberta New Democratic party leadership race official yesterday morning in Calgary. If anyone had any doubts Ms. Notley might not […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Rachel Notley will either enter the Alberta NDP leadership race today or hold the strangest news conference ever

About-to-declare NDP leadership candidate Rachel Notley with the author of this blog. Below: Already declared NDP leadership candidate David Eggen with the same guy; Grant Notley. Bottom: Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Ric McIver at the “March for Jesus” in Calgary yesterday, grabbed from Mr. McIver’s Twitter account. Good morning, everyone. Although you may not have […]

Posted inCanadian Politics

Waitin’ for the end of the world … Hear, O Ontario! Mr. Manning will be with you momentarily

Preston Manning readies himself before the mirror of his Seventh Floor office at the Prophetic Market Institute in Calgary, the Calgary skyline in the background obscured by a June rainstorm, one of those June rainstorms, as he ponders the frightening meaning of last Thursday’s Ontario election. Actual Alberta market fundamentalists and the names of their […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Ontario election: OK, that didn’t really work … can we get back to being New Democrats now?

Ontario’s victorious Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne last summer. Below: Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak. Well! That didn’t work out quite as well as we’d hoped, did it? Can we get back to being New Democrats now? I speak, of course, of the results of last night’s Ontario provincial election […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Opposition attack on Tory leadership frontrunner Jim Prentice a measure of how deeply Alison Redford wounded her party

“Diamond Jim” Prentice, at right, in a strategy session with Alberta Premier Dave Hancock, as described by the provincial NDP and seen by the Wildrose Party. Below: the real Mr. Prentice and former premier Alison Redford.  If you’re looking for a yardstick with which to measure the truly spectacular failure of the short, unhappy reign […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Wildrose Party remains far in the lead despite entry of Jim Prentice to Progressive Conservative leadership race, new poll says

The Wildrose Party with Danielle Smith holding the reins appears to continue to lead the Alberta Progressive Conservatives handily. Actual Alberta politicians and astonished onlookers may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: PC leadership candidates Jim Prentice, Thomas Lukaszuk and Ric McIver, none of whom seems to be making much difference to their foundering party’s […]

Posted inMedia

Newsprint ‘wraps’ – not good for fish and, as it turns out, not much good for newspapers either

The Edmonton Journal’s “wrap” Friday, showing the hidden front page inside. Below: The wrap’s uninspiring front page. Now that nobody sells fried fish wrapped in yesterday’s edition of the local daily any more, presumably for fear the ink will leak through into your liver, the term “wrap” has come to be faintly respectable in newspaper […]

Posted inCanadian Politics

The NFA is right about one thing: it’s time to talk about guns and mental health

The National Firearms Association’s logo and slogan. What do you think their message is? Below: NFL President Sheldon Clare and the organization’s Executive VP, Shawn Bevins. All photos grabbed from the NFA’s public Facebook page. Enough time has passed since the shocking murders of three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in Moncton, N.B., for Canadians […]