Edmonton’s police chief and the UCP ministers there to support him on his plan to clear Edmonton’s parks and avenues of hundreds of tents housing homeless people seemed antagonistic, annoyed and agitated at yesterday’s government news conference. Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). This is evident if you
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Alberta Politics: Letter implores Edmonton mayor and council to intervene to halt ‘violent and disruptive decampment’ planned today
With Edmonton Police Services ready to start breaking up some of the homeless camps in downtown Edmonton this morning, opponents of the mass clearances will circulate a letter to Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi and City Council imploring them to intervene to seek a moratorium on the rousts. An EPS mobile
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Edmonton mayor appears to have been blindsided by city police plan for Christmas roust of eight homeless encampments next week
What is the goal of this week’s intended Christmastime mass roust of downtown Edmonton homeless encampments by city police, and why did they unilaterally spring it on city officials and social agencies while ignoring the city’s encampment response strategy? Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). The EPS plan
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Justice Minister Tyler Shandro gives Edmonton City Council two weeks to solve a problem decades in the making
Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro used a provision of the Police Act yesterday to order Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi to come up with a new public safety plan for Alberta’s capital city that would boost the presence of police in the city’s crumbing downtown and on public transit. Downtown Edmonton
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Small group of Edmonton counter-protesters manages to hold up noisy pro-convoy parade for close to an hour
A small group of counter-demonstrators in Edmonton yesterday managed to blockade a parade of “Freedom Convoy” supporters on their way to the city’s downtown for the better part of an hour mid-day yesterday. When Edmonton Police and Alberta Sheriffs arrived at the intersection of River Valley Road and Fortway Drive
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 56: Police problems and what meaningful accountability could look like in Alberta
Calls to defund and abolish the police have become a mainstream conversation in reaction to the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police officer and countless other murders and examples of systematic racism and violent behaviour by police forces against Black, Indigenous and People of Colour across Canada and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: No need to lose much sleep over yesterday’s firearms ownership announcement by the UCP
If you’re worried by the announcement Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is seeking ways of “respecting law-abiding Albertans’ long history of responsible firearms ownership,” there’s no need to lose much sleep just yet. The premier’s press conference and news release about how he’s setting up a panel of firearms enthusiasts to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney to Edmonton: Drop dead!
When the New York Daily News published its famous FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD headline on Oct. 30, 1975, all president Gerald Ford had done was deny a federal bailout to Gotham, which was nearly bankrupt. It shows the power of a great headline that Oct. 29, the day President
Continue readingAlberta Politics: On the streets of Edmonton with Dale the Street Preacher: ‘It’s really tough’
Dale the Street Preacher is doing the Lord’s work. We can acknowledge this, even if we don’t share his idea of whom the lord is, or accept his view about what’s going to happen when we die. In addition to standing on a soapbox containing an electronic amplifier and preaching
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP leader’s tweet fumbles response to Islamophobic group’s harassment of worshipers at Edmonton mosque
Perhaps United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney needs to engage someone new to compose his tweets for him. Mr. Kenney is a bright guy, so I’m assuming for reasons that will soon become apparent he doesn’t come up with his own contributions to Twitter, the antisocial medium. Last fall, when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Highwood Conservative discloses past conviction for failure to provide breath sample; UCP seems untroubled
With an investigation by the Alberta Elections Commissioner under way into allegations of irregularities in the United Conservative Party’s conduct of its nomination vote in the Highwood Constituency last fall, the winning candidate published a statement Friday admitting he was convicted and fined for failing to provide a breathalyzer sample
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP candidates’ reaction to storm over photos with ‘Soldiers of Odin’: We had no idea!
They crashed the party, did they? But I wonder why they picked a United Conservative Party affair to crash? I speak, of course, of the “Soldiers of Odin,” the unsavoury anti-immigrant group founded by a Finnish white supremacist whose Edmonton chapter’s members dress like bikers and have been making a
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Damning ‘carding’ statistics can’t be explained away – they’re evidence of systemic racism
PHOTO: Bashir Mohamed of Black Lives Matter Edmonton speaks in front of the Edmonton Police Service downtown headquarters yesterday. Below: Some powerful charts showing carding practices in Edmonton. It’s too much. The numbers are just too high, the discrepancies in treatment too wide. It’s just too difficult to credit the
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Terror is in the Eye of the Beholder: Alberta’s Counterterrorism Unit to Protect Oil and Gas Industry
Picture 2.png In January, during the week before Canada’s federal hearing on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline, the Harper government and Ethical Oil Institute launched an unprecedented attack on environmental organizations opposed to the pipeline and accelerated expansion of the tar sands. Resurrecting Cold War-style ‘terrorist’ rhetoric, conservative politicians like
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