Happy New Year, Alberta! And welcome to the first United Conservative Party Government scandal of 2021: Municipal Affairs Minister Tracy Allard has been caught vacationing in Hawaii, mid-pandemic. Even before the New Year’s fireworks started going off last night, the CBC had reported that Ms. Allard, MLA for Grande Prairie and the minister responsible for […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Social media abuzz with reports of UCP staffers, MLA vacationing abroad despite pandemic travel warnings
Social media is abuzz with reports of United Conservative Party staffers and at least one UCP MLA enjoying vacations abroad notwithstanding the federal government’s pleas for Canadians to cancel all travel during the coronavirus pandemic. Most mainstream media in Alberta, however, seem to be engaging in an anguished internal debate about whether what’s a major […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
More than 1,000 Albertans have died from COVID-19, half of them in the past month
Albertans learned yesterday the grim toll from COVID-19 in the province has now passed 1,000 deaths. This is a terrible tragedy but it need surprise no one, given humanity’s extensive knowledge of the science of infectious disease and the way the Kenney Government nevertheless dragged its feet each step of the way to avoid taking […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
AlbertaPolitics.ca marks its 13th anniversary today as 2020, annus horribilis, nears its end
Today marks the 13th anniversary of the first post published on this blog, known at the time as St. Albert Diary, and later, for a spell, as Alberta Diary. So, by the standards of the Internet, this makes AlbertaPolitics.ca an institution. There’s no question that here in Alberta, as pretty much everywhere else, the dominant […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A Christmas contemplation of Cows, COVID, and shots — on goal and at cattle
Merry Christmas! Normally in the wee hours of Christmas morning, your blogger would have been trudging home from midnight mass, his mild annual winter rebellion against a Protestant upbringing. So let’s talk about agriculture and hockey! After all, both are important to our supposedly unique culture out here in Wild Rose Country, and it turns […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A thought on what the UCP’s elected members should find in their Christmas stockings tomorrow morning
It’s Christmas Eve. What should Santa Claus leave tonight for a government that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing? The aphorism is Oscar Wilde’s, but the great wit of the 19th Century certainly could have been describing the United Conservative Party Government of Alberta in the early 21st – not so […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
When it comes to COVID-19, our premier talks like Churchill but walks like Chamberlain
Alberta’s efforts to respond to the coronavirus pandemic with Jason Kenney in the driver’s seat are a lot like stand–up comedian Billy Connolly’s iconic routine about union negotiations, only without the profanity and without actually being funny. What’s going to happen tomorrow? The plans will all be changed then … so stay awake! Having implemented […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Calgary judge makes short work of bid for injunction to block COVID-19 restrictions
A Calgary superior court judge yesterday made short work of the bid by the so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms to get an emergency injunction blocking public health restrictions on activities likely to exacerbate the spread of COVID-19 during the holiday season. In a hearing that could be watched online, Madam Justice Anne Kirker of […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
Leo Panitch, intellectual pillar of the Canadian left, dead at 75 of COVID-19
Leo Victor Panitch, one of the intellectual pillars of the Canadian left and a leading scholar of the global depredations of neoliberalism, died Saturday from COVID-19. He was 75. Born into a working class Jewish family in Winnipeg in 1945, Dr. Panitch was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and Distinguished Research Professor […]
Posted inBestsellers
Sounds like Souvankham Thammavongsa’s How to Pronounce Knife and Barack Obama’s A Promised Land are the holiday books of 2020
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books in Edmonton and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. ALBERTA FICTION BESTSELLERS 1. How to Pronounce Knife – Souvankham […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
When is a rule not a rule? When a maskless minister from Alberta’s United Conservative Party is breaking it
COVID-19 has now killed at least 790 Albertans. It fell to Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw to break the dark news yesterday that 30 COVID-19 deaths had been reported in the previous 24 hours. While not all had taken place in that time frame, it was the largest toll to be reported in […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Brace yourself, Alberta, Toyota’s plan to build electric cars with solid-state batteries sounds like the real thing
Word about solid-state batteries out of Toyota City last week created a buzz in the automotive press and got some headlines on social media, but I doubt very many people out here in Wild Rose Country paid much attention. They probably should’ve. Because when the world’s largest automaker – which has been very quiet about […]