Longtime labour leader joins the Daveberta Podcast to explain why he’s running for the Alberta NDP leadership Labour leader Gil McGowan joins the Daveberta Podcast to share why he’s running to succeed Rachel Notley as leader of Alberta’s NDP. The full interview with Gil McGowan is available to paid subscribers of the
Continue readingTag: Alberta Politics
Alberta Politics: May 6, 2015: Alberta awakes to the realization it’s just elected a majority NDP government, surprising everyone, including the NDP
What can you say nine years after we all woke up and realized that the night before Albertans really had elected a majority NDP government? Well, it was a great night, a great morning after, and, despite some disappointments, the government run by Rachel Notley wasn’t a bad one by
Continue readingAlberta Politics: High-speed rail in Alberta: STILL a terrible idea that won’t go away!
Alberta has a plan to create a “master plan” for a huge passenger rail network around the province! Really. OK, the unidentified man on the left above is Devin Dreeshen, who nowadays is the minister of transportation and economic corridors in Ms. Smith’s Government – if anyone spots an economic corridor,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP executes screeching reversal of plan to stop funding low-income transit pass program
Less than 24 hours after the Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government pulled the plug on low-income transit programs in Edmonton and Calgary, Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon executed a screeching bootlegger turn this morning and completely reversed course. Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon, who
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Edmonton and Calgary mayors appear gobsmacked by unexpected UCP move to slash funds to low-income transit pass program
Having announced Monday it would spend $9 million cooking up a fanciful provincial railway “masterplan” that includes a public transit component, the United Conservative Party Government yesterday informed Edmonton and Calgary it is ending its contribution to their low-income transit pass programs. Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek (Photo: Calgary.ca). The mayors
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The NDP leadership campaign so far: pretty boring, and seriously distracting when the UCP is running wild
The worst thing about the seemingly endless Alberta NDP leadership race isn’t that it’s boring, although it is. NDP leadership candidate Kathleen Ganley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). It’s that the NDP Caucus in the Legislature appears to be totally distracted by it at a time the United Conservative Party Government
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Municipal Government Act already gives the government power to fire councillors – so why fix what ain’t broke?
When then municipal affairs minister Danielle Larivee fired three Thorhild County councillors in 2016, the county’s reeve accused the Alberta NDP of “Soviet-style government.” Former NDP MLA Deron Bilous, who served as municipal affairs minister immediately before Ms. Larivee (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Under the circumstances, this hardly seems fair.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP’s legislation sets stage for municipal political parties, arbitrary nullification of bylaws, and firing of councillors by cabinet
We may be living in the 21st Century, but Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Government is apparently still suffering from the 19th Century distrust of voters and democracy that convinced the Fathers of Confederation to give us that unelected Senate. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). So, yesterday, Alberta
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Plan to have patients at Calgary clinic pony up ‘membership fees’ might have had a chance if the UCP’s War on Ottawa had heated up sooner
Timing is everything, so Dr. Sally Talbot-Jones must have been kicking herself yesterday for launching her effort to charge patients as much as $4,800 a year up front to see a doctor in a timely fashion when she did. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). It must have been
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Busted! Globe outs Danielle Smith’s unpublicized pandemic data ‘task force’ headed by physician who attacked COVID restrictions
When Alberta Premier Danielle Smith mused in the midst debate over her government’s new funding turf war with Ottawa that “we could also establish our own research programs” to ensure ideological balance in academic research, many Albertans suspected they understood precisely what she had in mind. Dr. Gary Davidson, the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Once upon a time Danielle Smith told Marco Van Huigenbos, ‘Coutts must win!’ Now she can’t even find the poor guy’s phone number
Now that the chickens are coming home to roost for some of the would-be Canadian colour revolutionaries of 2022, a certain amount if schadenfreude in social media was inevitable given the rhetoric of the Coutts blockaders and Ottawa occupiers. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, in whom Mr. Van Huigenbos once put
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How did Danielle Smith know about an anonymous letter alleging dirty deeds at the city of Edmonton before it arrived?
Albertans are being asked to believe the provincial government doesn’t keep copies of every piece of correspondence it receives, including some it formally acts upon. Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). To say this strains credulity understates the matter considerably. Yet this is precisely what Alberta Premier
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Planned provincial police to be called Alberta Rangers? Brace yourselves for more Conservative cowboy cosplay!
Did a little birdie just chirp in my ear that the United Conservative Government has already picked out a name for the new provincial police force it claims it hasn’t yet decided whether or not to set up? Officers of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police in 1900 – slated along
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Inflation? Never heard of it! Finance Minister Nate Horner weighs in on public service bargaining
To hear Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner tell it Monday, you’d almost think there’s been no inflation in Alberta since the pandemic. Alberta Union of Provincial Employees President Guy Smith in a typical pose (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Well, Mr. Horner is a scion of Alberta’s enduring and (mostly) Conservative
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith sets out to ensure the ideological purity of federally funded university research in Alberta
It must seem unfair to the United Conservative Party base that flat-earth researchers consistently get the short end of the stick when it comes to federal research funds while the spherical-earth crowd so obviously favoured by Ottawa gets all the dough! CBC Power & Politics host David Cochrane (Photo: BroadcastDialogue.com).
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith picks Alberta’s hill to die on: No to heat pumps, solar panels, and pharmacare
Alberta’s hill to die on? Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault (Photo: Government of Canada). According to Premier Danielle Smith it’s our God-given right to gas-generated electricity, diesel-powered buses, and gas-heated homes. You want our forced-air gas furnaces, our diesel buses, Guilbeault? Come and take ’em! This is Wild Rose Country
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Recovery War Room: Best practices if ideologically acceptable, but not necessarily best practices
Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government tabled legislation yesterday to establish its previously announced Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence, which appears to be the drug-treatment equivalent of the UCP’s notorious Alberta Energy War Room. Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence CEO designate Kym Kaufmann (Photo: Kym Kaufmann/Eden Health Services). According to the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith squirms at thought of Jason Kenney’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act used against her allies
You might be tempted to think Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was on the right track with her obvious discomfort at the thought of her predecessor’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act being used to prosecute the so-called anti-carbon-tax protesters impeding traffic alomg the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary. A few of the
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Let’s Go Back To The DSM III !
Apparently there is a belief held among certain members of the trans community that we should go back in time … back to the days of the DSM III in particular – at least for what is now referred to as Gender Dysphoria. (If you wish to read the DSM
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Some amusing thoughts on Wexit, Wexitry, and Wexiteers in a potentially confusingly united Western Canada
Let’s imagine a scenario that even a year ago would have seemed all but impossible but is now within the realm of possibility. Participants in a pre-pandemic pro-Wexit demonstration at the Alberta Legislature in December 2020 (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). First, let’s assume that the NDP Government of British Columbia
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