Alberta’s United Conservative Party, it turns out, is almost as bad at governing as it is good at campaigning. That’s probably a better place to be from a political party’s perspective than the opposite, as could credibly said of the Alberta NDP, which with 20/20 hindsight looks as if it was pretty good at governing […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Auguries aren’t auspicious for September amid UCP’s rush to reopen Alberta schools
Alberta has been relatively lucky up to now with the impact of the global coronavirus epidemic on its population. Premier Jason Kenney and his United Conservative Party Government are ready to bet your life that good luck will continue. Desperate to relaunch the economy but ideologically opposed to spending much money on government services to […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Little sister is watching: Was Jason Kenney’s Southern Alberta RV tour fake news?
“The premier of Alberta rolled into Fort Macleod last week with a message of hope,” the Fort Macleod Gazette reported enthusiastically in its July 8 edition. What’s more, the Gazette went breathlessly on, “Premier Jason Kenney held court at Stronghold Brewery on June 30 during his tour of southern Alberta in a rented motorhome.” Cool! […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Side deals with specialists emerge as latest UCP tactic in escalating war with Alberta Medical Association
The Kenney Government yesterday again escalated its continuing war with the Alberta Medical Association, indicating it would consider letting rival groups representing medical specialties quit the doctors’ collective bargaining association and negotiate directly with the government. In a statement obviously intended to rock the AMA, Health Minister Tyler Shandro commented favourably on a news release […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta now has the highest per capita rate of COVID-19 infections in Canada: this is nothing to be proud of
Today will be a significant day in Alberta’s struggle with the coronavirus. We will learn, this afternoon, just how bad things are. Will they be getting a little better after a worrisome statistical bump? If they aren’t, will they be they good enough that the present complacency can continue? Or will we have to look […]
Posted inBestsellers
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon tops bestseller list with a silver blaze
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 12, 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. The […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
What’s making Ottawa’s environment minister suddenly give the Vista coal mine proposal the fish eye?
Yesterday we learned that Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal environment minister, is reconsidering a decision he made in December to leave it up to the industry-funded Alberta Energy Regulator to decide if a huge coal mine expansion should be approved near Hinton, just east of the Jasper National Park gate. Even way back then, cynical observers […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Apparently desperate, health minister tells College of Physicians and Surgeons it can’t let doctors quit
Tyler Shandro’s on fire! Not in a good way, though. There was a strong signal yesterday that Alberta’s health minister has completely lost control of the fight he’s picked with the province’s physicians. It turns out that while the minister and the government’s paid social media trolls were disputing the results of a poll by […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
What’s it tell us that a couple of bad-boy Lethbridge cops almost got away with illegal surveillance of an NDP minister?
It’s tempting to write off yesterday’s big story about that pair of none-too-bright county mounties from the Lethbridge Police Service caught stalking an NDP cabinet minister as just a dumb cop comedy without much significance. But Sgt. Jason Carrier and Const. Keon Woronuk were no Gunther Toody and Francis Muldoon, and when they were conducting […]
Posted inCanadian Politics
From us to WE: The Dickensian ‘Big Society’ seems to be back again, if it ever left
Who can forget the “Big Society”? Just about everyone, it turns out. “The Big Society,” cooked up by a senior aide to former British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, was the ridiculous idea neoliberal governments could shuffle off their key responsibility for assuring the welfare of the people they govern by letting charities do it. […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Whether or not half of Alberta’s doctors are thinking of leaving, even a much smaller exodus would be a disaster
Publication by the Alberta Medical Association of poll results showing close to half the province’s physicians are thinking about leaving Alberta in response to the United Conservative Party’s War on Doctors seems to have enraged Premier Jason Kenney’s strategic brain trust. Leastways, the UCP’s immediate response — threatening to publish individual physicians’ compensation — suggests […]
Posted inBestsellers
A voice from the past, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, tops independent bookshops’ fiction bestseller list for week ended July 5
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 5, 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. To […]