Alberta Politics: As Edmonton activist Michael Kalmanovitch sees it, with the planet afire, he had no choice but to raise a ruckus at the Legislature

The way Michael Kalmanovitch sees it, he had no choice but to raise a ruckus inside the Chamber of the Alberta Legislature moments after Monday’s Throne Speech. The moment on Monday when Mr. Kalmanovitch started shouting in the Legislature (Photo: Screenshot of Legislative Assembly of Alberta video). The world is

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Alberta Politics: The mystery of Bill 5: Is it part of the UCP’s covert ‘Free Alberta’ agenda or just a bit of administrative housekeeping?

Members of Alberta’s labour relations community were scratching their heads Monday and yesterday about Bill 5, the Public Sector Employer Amendment Act, 2023, last on the list of the first five bills to be introduced by the United Conservative Party in the new session of the provincial Legislature that began

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Alberta Politics: Alberta’s Throne Speech was long, boring, unpersuasive, evasive, unoriginal, and defiantly aspirational

There were two speeches at the Alberta Legislature yesterday!  Lieutenant Governor Lakhani (Photo: Legislative Assembly of Alberta/Flickr). The Speech from the Throne was long, boring, unpersuasive, evasive, unoriginal, and weirdly aspirational in a way that defies the growing international consensus about the role of fossil fuels in global climate change. 

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Alberta Politics: MLA Dan Williams’ beer guzzling in the Legislature is just another episode in the UCP’s sophomoric obsession with alcohol

Peace River MLA Dan Williams’ distasteful display of beer guzzling on the floor of Alberta’s Legislature last week is just another embarrassing episode in the United Conservative Party’s sophomoric obsession with consumption of alcohol that seems to date back to the selection of Jason Kenney as the party’s first leader. 

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Alberta Politics: Sorting fact from fiction in Allan Inquiry commentary and coverage: That $1.3-billion fib explained

The United Conservative Party and its allies are not being truthful when they say, “The public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns has confirmed that foreign donors gave $1.3 billion to Canadian environmentalists to harm Alberta’s energy sector.” It confirms no such thing.  I pulled that particular quote from a tweet

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Alberta Politics: Speaker Nathan Cooper, who signed complaint about COVID-19 rules, cites pandemic ‘health concerns’ to extend Legislature shutdown

Alberta Speaker Nathan Cooper, one of the United Conservative Party MLAs known as the COVID 18 who last month signed a controversial letter opposing their own government’s COVID-19 restrictions, has issued a memorandum saying the Alberta Legislature will stay closed “due to the ongoing public health concerns arising from the

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Alberta Politics: Jason Kenney shut down the Legislature, but debate on Alberta’s dismal COVID-19 record migrates to House of Commons

Not only is the Kenney Government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic a spectacular failure, its strategy for suppressing public awareness of just how bad things have become in Alberta dramatically unravelled yesterday. Having used the wildfire spread of COVID-19 in Alberta as an excuse to unilaterally shut down debate in

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Alberta Politics: Unveiling of portrait of Jim Prentice, premier of Alberta, accompanied by warm words and a non-partisan moment

A dignified official portrait of Jim Prentice, last Progressive Conservative premier of Alberta, was unveiled in the Alberta Legislature yesterday. It’s a very nice piece of official portraiture that does justice to the beautiful third-floor hallway of the Alberta Legislature’s Rotunda where portraits of the province’s former premiers hang. Its

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Alberta Politics: Former UCP MLA alleges ‘suspicious donations’ from PAC associated with Jason Kenney used in 2017 to undermine Brian Jean

Calgary-Greenway MLA Prab Gill used the final Question Period of the fall 2018 session of the Alberta Legislature Thursday to allege that “more than $40,000 in very suspicious donations” was given to a United Conservative Party leadership candidate to undermine candidate Brian Jean. Mr. Jean was the former leader of

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Alberta Politics: Nothing new under the Prairie sun as Alberta Conservatives ratchet up their faux outrage about equalization and Quebec

Jason Kenney, leader of Alberta’s Opposition United Conservative Party, calls the Trudeau Government’s renewal of Canada’s current equalization formula for an additional five years “a slap in the face to Alberta.” “It means we will continue to be forced, even when times are bad in Alberta, forced to subsidize public

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Alberta Politics: Climate change, climate denial and climate ironies in the wake of Alberta Legislature’s pipeline demand vote

PHOTOS: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Below: Soon-to-retire Alberta Liberal MLA and former party leader David Swann, Shannon Daub of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and United Conservative Party MLAs Grant Hunter, Drew Barnes and Rick Strankman. Happy Ides of March. On Tuesday, the Alberta Legislature passed a motion declaring

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