Alberta Premier Jason Kenney stepped up to the rostrum at his hastily scheduled 6:02 p.m. “news conference” yesterday, reeled off what he proposes to do about the fact Alberta now has the worst collective case of COVID-19 in North America, and skedaddled. The whole affair took roughly nine and a half minutes, if you don’t […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Jason Kenney edges closer to blaming Albertans for the province’s COVID-19 predicament
Considering his performance at yesterday’s COVID-19 briefing, it seems Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is working himself up to a look-in-the-mirror moment. In Canadian politics, that’s not something that involves looking in the mirror and contemplating the mistakes you’ve made to get yourself into a mess. Premier Kenney wouldn’t accept the premise of that approach. It’s […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
When the going gets tough, tough-guy Jason Kenney gets going – this time leaving the Legislature padlocked behind him
With COVID-19 out of control, the United Conservative Party Government clueless and divided, ordinary citizens increasingly frightened, and defiant covidiots organizing super-spreader events like that no-more-lockdowns rodeo in Bowden Saturday, Premier Jason Kenney adopted his crisis response of choice. Cut and run. This time, though, instead of heading to Vancouver to fund-raise for the B.C. […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Drew Barnes is calling the shots for Alberta and any way you look at that, it’s not healthy
It looks like Drew Barnes calling the shots for Alberta! By any measure, Jason Kenney is a pretty bad premier. But he’s not the worst we could have in the midst of a deadly global pandemic that just won’t quit. No, that would be someone like Mr. Barnes, the COVID-denying, separatist leaning MLA for Cypress-Medicine […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Happy May Day! Justice thunders condemnation … and a podcast looks at the sad state of Alberta’s media …
Happy May Day! Today is the International Day of the Worker. Normally there would be big parades in the capitals of Europe, a few smaller ones in North America and even a measly procession or two here in Wild Rose Country. This year, presumably, it’ll be a rather restrained affair most places, owing to the […]
Posted inBestsellers
Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code tops Alberta independent bookshops’ fiction bestseller list for week ended April 25
Here are the lists of the top 10 fiction and non-fiction titles sold by independent booksellers in Alberta during the week ended Sunday, April 25, 2021. 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 Rose Code – Kate […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Premier’s news conference shows little change in Alberta’s inconsistent, indecisive, confusing, unsuccessful approach to COVID-19
If there was an obvious takeaway yesterday afternoon from Premier Jason Kenney’s announcement Alberta is reimposing “targeted regional measures to bend the curve,” it was that his government’s inconsistent, indecisive and confusing approach to COVID-19 will continue. With the third wave of the pandemic smashing Alberta infection records yesterday and leaving the province embarrassingly exposed […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Alberta heads into record-breaking territory as new COVID-19 cases surpass second-wave record set in December
Pandemic cases in Alberta are breaking records. CBC reporter Robson Fletcher’s daily accounting of the latest Alberta Health Services estimates indicated that probable and confirmed new cases of COVID-19 reached 1,888 yesterday – surpassing the previous single-day record, set on Dec. 4 during the second wave, of 1,874. Yesterday’s official tally, which you may have […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Kenney Government hastily cobbles together ‘working parents’ advisory panel’ to seek ways to undermine federal child care proposal
On April 19, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced the Trudeau Government plans to spend $30 billion on a national child care plan with a target of reducing parents’ costs to $10 a day per child in five years. On April 22, Alberta Children’s Services Minister Rebecca Schulz announced that the Kenney Government had cobbled together […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Kenney’s surrender to COVID: Has the Great Barrington Declaration become the Great Edmonton Declaration?
Did the Great Barrington Declaration just transition into the Great Edmonton Declaration? Remember that thing? The now discredited notion – with the thinnest veneer of transitory scientific respectability – that everything would be OK if we just shielded the old folks from COVID-19 and ignored almost everyone else while the coronavirus pandemic ripped around the […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Kinney versus Kenney: Can a progressive gadfly offer unhappy Albertans a way to send their premier a message?
Progressive gadfly Duncan Kinney, executive director of the progressive news and advocacy organization behind the Progress Report newsletter and podcast, is the first Albertan to file his papers with Elections Alberta to run in the Kenney Government’s “Senate Nominee Election.” Such Senate votes – they’re not really elections as electing senators is not a provincial […]
Posted inAlberta Politics
Small donors, potential election volunteers, flock to Alberta NDP as disillusionment with Jason Kenney grows
Alberta’s New Democratic Party raised twice as much as the ruling United Conservative Party in the first quarter of 2021. And we’re not just talking about chicken feed here, people. The first-quarter report on political donations by Elections Alberta shows the NDP, led by former premier Rachel Notley, raised $1,186,245.03 in the first three months […]