The Kenney Government has quietly moved to ensure that Alberta’s friends and business partners in the government of Saudi Arabia are free from the complications of inconvenient foreign land ownership rules. Now, many readers are doubtless thinking, “Say what?” After all, isn’t the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia the land of “dictator oil,” regularly reviled by […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
The appalling discovery in Kamloops is irrefutable evidence of a crime against humanity
The appalling discovery of the bodies of 215 Indigenous children hidden in unmarked graves at the site of the Residential School in Kamloops, B.C., is irrefutable evidence of a crime against humanity. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Band confirmed Thursday that ground-penetrating radar had detected the remains of the children on the grounds of the former […]
Posted inBestsellers
The clocks are striking thirteen and there’s something in the air – Albertans seem to be reading George Orwell’s 1984 again
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, May 23, 2021. The lists are compiled by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, and include sales at Audreys Books and Glass Bookshop in Edmonton. As I’ve said in this space before, there’s something refreshing […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
The Gaslighters: Premier Kenney gins up an unlikely ‘strange alliance’ of anti-vaxxers and advocates of cautious reopening
It would be hard to find a purer example of gaslighting than Premier Jason Kenney’s straight-faced claim during yesterday’s COVID-19 news conference that the New Democratic Party Opposition and other advocates of a more cautious approach to reopening Alberta have formed a “strange alliance” with anti-vaxxers to undermine public confidence in vaccines. Gaslighting, an increasingly […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Kenney rolls the dice on COVID-19: We’re going to have the best summer you can imagine even if it kills us
Only pure political calculation can be driving Premier Jason Kenney’s COVID-19 reopening strategy now. Science? Prudence? Caution? Second vaccine doses? Forget about ’em. We’re going to have the best little ole summer you can imagine even if it kills us. And it just might. Premier Kenney and his two sidekicks at yesterday morning’s news conference […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
A Twitterer’s tale: Kenney scores an own goal with tweet that ‘reads like a Beaverton headline’
At 4:02 o’clock on the afternoon of Sunday, May 23, 2021, somebody pressed the “tweet” button on Jason Kenney’s Twitter account, sending an enigmatic message about the government’s response to COVID-19 whizzing into cyberspace. Perhaps it was Mr. Kenney himself who clicked the click. Perhaps, since he is the premier or Alberta, ex officio the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Teachers give Education Minister Adriana LaGrange a 99% non-confidence vote – but it’s Jason Kenney who’s driving the school bus
Ninety-nine per cent of the delegates to the Alberta Teachers Association’s virtual annual representative assembly voted Sunday to affirm a motion of non-confidence in Education Minister Adriana LaGrange. There’s no question that as education minister Ms. LaGrange has possessed a sort of reverse Midas touch – virtually every policy the former Catholic school trustee from […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
What does the UCP do now that its favourite researcher says she never thought Canadian environmental groups were being used by U.S. interests?
What is the United Conservative Party’s position, pray, about Vancouver blogger Vivian Krause’s bombshell assertion she always understood the environmental conspiracy to landlock Alberta’s oilsands she promoted so energetically had nothing to do with the U.S. oil industry advancing its interests at Canada’s expense? Wherever it came from, the notion big American corporations and foundations […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
State of the Media: Postmedia, looking for a future, post media as it were, wants to deliver your parcels!
Let’s give ourselves some respite from the horror of living in Alberta under Jason Kenney and his United Conspiracy Party. Instead, here’s an inspiring, upbeat story about an old business we all thought was on its last legs that is thinking outside the box about how to grab the low-hanging fruit by pro-actively finding new […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Foundering public inquiry gets another two months to find evidence; UCP gets even more time to figure out what to do with it
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has announced his government’s foundering “public inquiry” into the supposed conspiracy by American interests to bankroll environmental charities to help landlock Alberta’s fossil fuel resources will get another two months to come up with some evidence. After that, the government will give itself an additional three months to figure out what […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
If you like going to the bottle depot, you’ll love the Conservative carbon tax, says Calgary MP Ron Liepert
I hear that Calgary Signal Hill Conservative MP Ron Liepert – who the Canadian Press kindly described as an experienced Alberta politician – has been using the deposit you pay on a bottle of beer to explain party Leader Erin O’Toole’s carbon tax proposal. This is a flawed metaphor, but first a word or two […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Jason Kenney, speaking directly to rural COVID skeptics, tries an end-run around his rebellious caucus
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney used the daily COVID-19 briefing yesterday to send a message directly to the supporters of his opposition in the Legislature. Not the official NDP Opposition. Those guys aren’t the premier’s biggest problem just now, especially with the Legislature still shuttered, supposedly to reduce the threat to politicians from the coronavirus pandemic. […]