Posted inCanadian Politics

In hot water for hiring private eye to shadow judge, social conservative litigator John Carpay exits, stage right

“Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me …”* Cock-a-doodle do! As a matter of fact, that was almost exactly how long it took for the board of directors of the so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms – perennial litigators on behalf of COVID-denying fundamentalist churches, fanatical […]

Posted inCanadian Politics

What possessed a prominent social conservative lawyer to hire a private investigator to follow a judge around?

What were John Carpay and the so-called Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms he heads trying to achieve when they hired a private detective to snoop on the chief justice of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench? The JCCF founder and president admitted yesterday it was his organization that hired the professional peeper to spy on […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

As Alberta opens for summer, hospital beds start to close – enjoy your flapjacks while they last!

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his cadre of new Cowtown cabinet ministers will be flipping pancakes and engaging in cowboy cosplay at a Stampede breakfast in Harley Hotchkiss Gardens in downtown Calgary this morning. The premier’s Stampede breakfast, according to the notice from his press secretary yesterday, “celebrates Alberta being open for summer.” But not […]

Posted inBestsellers

Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me is Alberta Bookshops’ Fiction Bestseller for week ended July 4

Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, July 4, 2021. 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. The Last Thing He Told Me […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Jason Kenney shuffles his cabinet – and criticizing the boss, or John A. Macdonald, will not be tolerated!

Premier Jason Kenney’s cabinet shuffle yesterday had very little to do with supporting Alberta’s economic recovery and renewal, despite what the government would have you believe. This is not to say the claim in the official press release that “Alberta’s government is focused on Alberta’s Recovery Plan, a plan to build, diversify the economy and […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

PM Justin Trudeau, boyish, beardless and in campaign mode, shows up to bestow $1.5B on Calgary Green Line LRT

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, boyish and freshly beardless as if a summer election is blowin’ in the wind, showed up in Alberta yesterday to bestow $1.5 billion in federal cash on Calgary’s Green Line LRT, a mega-project unpopular with many of the well-heeled donors who support Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party. Mr. Kenney, […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

In what looks like a classic case of bargaining in bad faith, UCP Government demands additional 3% pay cut from more than 30,000 nurses

Alberta Health Services returned to the bargaining table with Alberta’s more than 30,000 public sector registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses yesterday for the first time since March 2020 with a new demand for a 3-per-cent across-the-board rollback in wages. That’s on top of the more than 100 rollbacks to its collective agreement with United […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

There’s schadenfreude and irony aplenty in UCP outrage at anti-vaxxers’ Canada Day invective in Calgary

Most reasonable people would agree that getting up close and personal while shouting at a politician enjoying the sunshine with their spouse and young children on a national holiday is not an appropriate way to protest a government policy with which you disagree. Admit it, though, there was just a just a tiny tingle of […]

Posted inAlberta Politics

Something is dragging the federal Conservatives down in Alberta – is it Jason Kenney?

It sure looks as if Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s abysmal performance is not merely threatening the survival of his United Conservative Party Government, but is dragging down the federal Conservatives in Alberta as well.  Alberta’s Conservatives are too strong and too entrenched even for Premier Kenney to destroy them completely. Still, a poll published on […]

Posted inBestsellers

Sing, Unburied, Sing by American author Jesmyn Ward tops Alberta independent bookshops’ 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, June 27, 2021. 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. Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jesmyn Ward […]

Posted inCanadian Politics

While Jason Kenney promises the best summer ever, it’s hard to shake the feeling of apocalyptic foreboding this Canada Day

ST. ALBERT, ALBERTA – It’s Canada Day. The pickup trucks with their maple leaf flags may or may not be screeching around Edmonton’s Whyte Avenue tonight, laying rubber in celebration of the provincial government’s edict the masks must come off, Delta variant or not. But while Premier Jason Kenney insists the summer of 2021 is […]