A smiling Brian Jean, Alberta’s energy minister, posted photos on social media yesterday of his visit last week “to check out the future home of Canada’s first grid-scale small modular reactor.” Mr. Jean with what looks like a model of a nuclear reactor’s cooling rods in his hands and a
Continue readingTag: Brian Jean
Alberta Politics: What’s driving Brian Jean, whose enthusiasm for politics waxes and wanes? Just Monday’s election, or something more?
Brian Jean – once upon a time the leader of the Wildrose Party Opposition and more recently twice an unsuccessful candidate to lead the United Conservative Party – seems to be as energized as that famous battery-powered bunny these days. Danielle Smith and the late Progressive Conservative premier Jim Prentice
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith’s dead political career? It’s alive … with a vengeance! But what fresh disaster looms?
This week politically attentive Albertans began to realize that Danielle Smith really is likely to win the United Conservative Party leadership race and will soon be sworn in as premier of Alberta. Travis Toews, still in the game, but barely (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). If that gives you a bad feeling
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: CTV News – Supporting Female Erasure in the Name Gender Identity – RPOJ Revived!
Well here we be in 2022 and for some reason the news media seems to have forgotten some very basic facts about the human species. Humans are exclusively a sexually dimorphic species – that is males produce small motile gametes and have their physiology arranged around that aspect of reproduction
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Launching UCP leadership bid, Brian Jean promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, Alberta style
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Bonnyville-Cold Lake-St. Paul MLA Dave Hanson (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). That sure sounded like what former Wildrose Party leader and UCP co-founder Brian Jean was promising Albertans last night as he launched the formal part of his campaign to take back leadership of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Awkward family portraits: Travis Toews and his supporters try to give an impression of unity and inevitability
Talk about your awkward family portrait! Brian Jean, the last time he announced he was running to lead the UCP, in 2017 (Photo: Brian Jean/Flickr). Former finance minister Travis Toews, the United Conservative Party establishment’s choice to replace Jason Kenney as Alberta’s premier, lined up with 14 of the party’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What do you do about a problem like Shane Getson, the UCP MLA whose Facebook post appeared to call for the PM to be lynched?
With apologies to the Sound of Music, what do you do with a problem like Shane Getson? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Photo: Justin Trudeau/Flickr). More specifically, what should the Alberta Legislature do about a member like Shane Getson, the United Conservative Party MLA for the rural riding of Lac Ste.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: For a high-profile minister, UCP’s first official leadership candidate, Travis Toews, has flown under the radar
Despite his high-profile job as Alberta’s finance minister and soaring political ambitions, Travis Toews has kept a remarkably low profile. Mr. Toews schmoozing supporters in the Alberta Legislative Building Rotunda (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Just look at the uninformative media coverage of the announcement when Mr. Toews, Alberta’s minister of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With Jason Kenney seemingly foundering, Alberta’s No. 2 Jason, Nixon, finds himself in the spotlight
With Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s survival in the ongoing United Conservative Party leadership review vote far from assured, the spotlight was bound to shift onto some of his more obvious potential replacements. How tall is he? Taller than his former Wildrose MLA colleague Kerry Towle, that’s for sure (Photo: David
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Pundits pivot to theory UCP orchestrated leak to media of recording of Jason Kenney’s ‘lunatics’ speech to political staffers
Much of the Alberta commentariat pivoted Friday to the theory Premier Jason Kenney himself was behind the leak of a recording of his speech to political staffers in which he accused the right wing of his United Conservative Party of bigotry and lunacy. “I did not think that Kenney orchestrated
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Desperate times call for desperate measures: Kenney labels the UCP’s rightward fringe ‘lunatics,’ ‘kooky people’
In a secret pep talk to his troops Tuesday, revealed yesterday by the CBC, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said he’s only sticking around as leader of the United Conservative Party to keep the “lunatics” from “trying to take over the asylum.” In May 2020, Mr. Kenney’s social media flying monkeys
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Calling UCP leadership review rule change illegal, unethical, and ‘a travesty,’ Jason Kenney’s rival Brian Jean vows legal response
Alberta’s United Conservative Party hasn’t even held the vote yet in its review of Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership and his chief rival is threatening legal action. Yesterday the party board, dominated by Mr. Kenney’s supporters, changed the rules for the April 9 leadership review vote to make it easier for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: United Conservative Party factions – Jason Kenney’s Mods and Brian Jean’s Rockers – square off over premier’s future
Are rival gangs of UCP Mods and Rockers* heading for Red Deer spoiling for a fight? If you thought the recent opposing demonstrations by outlaw truckers, most of whom don’t seem to own trucks, and local residents in Calgary’s Beltline neighbourhood were rough, imagine how ugly it could get if
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stolen data: Respected pollster refuses to publish private poll to suit Kenney Government; UCP leaks it anyway
Janet Brown is an independent Alberta pollster with a solid track record for accurate polling, so when a couple of media reports appeared this week saying one of her recent polls showed the United Conservative Party leading the New Democratic Party, political observers paid attention. For one thing, other recent
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brian Jean, Jason Kenney’s rival, wins Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election in a walk for UCP; turnout was disgracefully low
No surprise, it was Brian Jean in a walk. The well-heeled local lad, former Conservative Member of Parliament and former leader of the Wildrose Party of Alberta didn’t even have to break into a sweat to capture an overwhelming majority of the votes for the United Conservative Party in yesterday’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: At a fraught moment for Jason Kenney, just before a crucial by-election, new poll shows NDP with solid provincial lead
On the eve of today’s Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election and less than a month before the review of Premier Jason Kenney’s leadership by United Conservative Party members, a new poll shows the NDP Opposition strongly leading the UCP in decided-voter support. If the findings of the online survey of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Poll says almost everyone’s sick of Jason Kenney as he disqualifies UCP nomination candidates and more drama looms
Hard on the heels of new a poll indicating a majority of United Conservative Party voters want Jason Kenney gone, the premier was busy defending his decision to disqualify a couple of candidates tipped to beat pro-Kenney MLAs in a party nomination votes. Meanwhile, the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Beware the Ides of March: Date set for by-election in which all candidates will campaign against Alberta’s premier
After dragging his feet for weeks, Jason Kenney yesterday named a date for the Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche by-election in which his long-time rival Brian Jean will run for the United Conservative Party on a platform of firing and replacing the premier. The date of election – the Ides of
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 83: Take care, stay safe, be kind, and see you next time.
We got the band back together for the final episode of the Daveberta Podcast. That’s right, folks. We are going on a semi-permanent hiatus. And to help mark this announcement, our good friend Ryan Hastman joined Dave Cournoyer and Adam Rozenhart for a trip down memory lane, reminiscing and reflecting
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Kenney’s New Modus Operandi: Goodbye Peter Lougheed; Hello Donald Trump
There was a time when Jason Kenney pretended to be the modern-day manifestation of Peter Lougheed, notwithstanding his conviction that Lougheed’s programs were akin to “neo-Stalinist make-work projects.” He’s since dropped the charade. He no longer pretends to be anything other than what he is. A Trump admirer. Recently he’s
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