Am I the only Canadian outside Ottawa who thinks this bullshit in our national capital has gone on long enough? Am I the only Canadian who recognizes that the mob now occupying the area around Parliament Hill does not have the interests of Canadians or Canadian democracy at heart? Am I the only one who […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Convoys, COVID and Conservative discord dominate Jason Kenney’s return from Washington governors’ clambake
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, back from an ill-timed and seemingly mostly fruitless trip to Washington D.C., pleaded for federal Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole’s political life yesterday at a typical Alberta Government news conference about nothing in particular. “I would just say this to my friends in the federal Conservative party, I don’t think in […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
A not-so-bold prediction: that $9.5-million GoFundMe pot will be a tempting target for Ottawa civil lawyers
The mysteriously sourced “Freedom Convoy 2022” account on the GoFundMe crowd-funding site sat at more than $9.5 million yesterday. Its fund-raising goal, which has been repeatedly ratcheted up over the past two weeks, is now $10-million. Meanwhile, as the occupation of their city by far-right “freedom convoy” anti-vaccine-mandate protesters continues into its fourth full day […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Did Jason Kenney’s support for Ottawa anti-vaxx-mandate convoy protest encourage copycat Coutts blockade he now condemns?
It would be ironic if Premier Jason Kenney’s baseless claim a week ago that Ottawa’s vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers had led to empty shelves in Alberta grocery stores ended up causing real shortages. Mr. Kenney’s tweets of photos of empty grocery shelves and his tendentious assertions that “with a quarantine rule for unvaccinated truckers, […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
We are judged by the company we keep: a harsh lesson Michael Cooper and many other Conservative MPs are about to learn
ST. ALBERT, Alberta – Michael Cooper, Member of Parliament for this small suburban city and a part of Edmonton next door, is going to wake up to a big problem this morning that’s unlikely to go away any time soon. Mr. Cooper’s problem is a microcosm of the troubles now facing the entire Conservative Party […]
Posted inBestsellers
Perennial favourite Five Little Indians by Michelle Good returns to top of independent bookshops’ Alberta fiction bestseller list
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. ALBERTA FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. Five Little Indians – Michelle Good […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Very fine people on both sides? Jason Kenney defends convoy participants; says NDP welcomes ‘eco-terrorists’ to protests
Yesterday, the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons warned Members of Parliament that individuals associated with the anti-vaccine-mandate truck convoy nearing the nation’s capital have been trying to suss out the location of their Ottawa residences. Also yesterday, Jason Kenney used a news conference supposedly about COVID-19 to defend the demonstrators. Sergeant-at-Arms Patrick McDonell, whose […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
UCP MLAs on Legislature committee refuse to receive Auditor General’s reporting findings on how government handled COVID-19
Alberta’s Auditor-General has completed six performance audits of the United Conservative Party Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the Legislature’s Public Accounts Committee, dominated by UCP MLAs, has refused to receive Doug Wylie’s reports – so the committee will never do its job of reviewing his recommendations and calling on the affected departments to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Maverick Party obviously has no problem with its party secretary’s role in anti-vaccine-mandate truck convoy protest
The Medicine Hat woman who is the public face of the GoFundMe campaign that has now theoretically raised more than $5 million to support the “Freedom Convoy 2022” motorcade protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates remains a senior officer of the separatist-leaning Maverick Party. The Maverick Party website identifies Tamara Lich as secretary of the party’s […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
With ‘red alerts’ plaguing Alberta ambulance calls, health minister Jason Copping forms advisory committee to search for a fix
With EMS “red alerts” spiking in Alberta and both Calgary and Edmonton running out of ambulances to respond to emergencies roughly every 90 minutes, Health Minister Jason Copping yesterday announced he’s forming an advisory committee to study how to improve ambulance services in Alberta. To be fair, Mr. Copping also announced a “10-point plan” he […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Is the UCP suggesting it’s time to show Russia a thing or two by halting the TMX pipeline expansion?
Will members of all Canadian political parties soon demand that we halt the TMX pipeline expansion project? I ask because, with the current great power tension in Ukraine likely to reach some kind of a climax soon, we are already hearing fierce calls in Canada for severe and even warlike sanctions against Russia for any […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Online fund-raising campaign for rolling truck blockades to protest vaccine mandates linked to right-wing separatist groups
An online fund-raising campaign organized by a person associated with the Maverick Party and other western separatist causes now indicates it has raised close to $2 million in the week to bankroll highway disruptions by truckers angry at Ottawa for imposing a vaccine mandate on cross-border essential workers. The “Freedom Convoy 2022” campaign’s GoFundMe page […]