Alberta Politics: Court’s decision to turn off Alberta’s turn-off-the-taps law should surprise no one

Alberta’s so-called turn-off-the-taps law was pretty obviously unconstitutional when Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party passed it and it continued to be unconstitutional when Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party had it proclaimed into law. So yesterday’s ruling of the Federal Court of Canada granting British Columbia a temporary injunction blocking application

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Alberta Politics: ‘Inauthentic activity’ on social media, abuse of progressive women in politics … is there a common thread here?

Is there a common thread running between reports Friday that a spike in “inauthentic activity” on social media just before the Alberta provincial election came from unidentified backers of the United Conservative Party and news stories Saturday about harassment of federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna? It would

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Alberta Politics: Conservative mismanagement of health care, which we’re about to see return to Alberta, is a feature, not a bug

Last Thursday, Tyler Shandro advised Albertans that the promised United Conservative Party review of Alberta Health Services is rolling ahead. Well, he did once tell us that things tend to happen in due course. This is pretty much the first we’ve heard from Alberta’s baby-faced health minister since he famously demonstrated

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Alberta Politics: UCP Government, with no apparent short-term Plan B, seeks leave to appeal injunction suspending Bill 9

Unsurprisingly, the United Conservative Party Government has filed notice of appeal on the temporary injunction granted by the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench that halted application of Bill 9, playing havoc with Premier Jason Kenney’s strategy for putting off a crisis with the province’s public sector unions until after the

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Alberta Politics: Former Alberta immigration minister asks federal immigration minister for investigation of UCP candidate’s alleged immigration practices

Former Alberta employment and immigration minister Thomas Lukaszuk has written federal immigration minister Ahmed Hussein urging him to open a formal investigation into serious allegations a temporary foreign worker was improperly treated by a business person who is now a United Conservative Party candidate in Calgary. Mr. Lukaszuk, who was

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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: Blown off by Jason Kenney’s UCP last fall, former Wildrose MLA Rick Strankman heads for the Independent benches

When this blog’s entirely fictional Vegas oddsmaker Jimmy “The Geek” Porcospino celebrated the first birthday of the United Conservative Party last summer by setting the next year’s resignation odds for each of the party’s remaining caucus members, he gave Drumheller-Stettler MLA Rick Strankman only 20-1 odds of heading for the

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Alberta Politics: Enough already! It’s time for the NDP to implement the Bighorn park plan immediately

Were provincial officials taking part in town hall meetings on the Alberta Government’s plan to create a park in west central Alberta’s Bighorn Country really harassed and threatened by all-terrain-vehicle enthusiasts opposed to restrictions on their motorized activity in the environmentally sensitive Rocky Mountain Foothills between Banff and Jasper national

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Alberta Politics: ‘Has Trudeau committed treason?’ The answer is no and the question is completely bonkers!

Donna Kennedy-Glans, by all accounts an intelligent and accomplished Alberta Conservative, recently posted and pinned a Tweet asking, “Has Trudeau committed treason?” If her intention was to grab the attention of Alberta’s chattering classes, she succeeded. If she was out for attention, though, I’m not sure she really wanted the

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Alberta Politics: Professors protest Moe Government plan to shutter archives in four locations, including University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon

SASKATOON, Sask. No sooner did the government of Saskatchewan oh-so-discreetly announce it is about to close four branches of the provincial archives and consolidate it all in one location in Regina than more than 30 Canadian scholars had an open letter of protest circulating on the Internet. When the branch

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