This and that for your Thursday reading. – Stephanie Soucheray examines how COVID-19 can cause lasting damage to the brain even without causing severe initial symptoms, while the British Heart Foundation points out the soaring rates of cardiovascular disease during the course of the ongoing pandemic. And Lisa Lundberg-Morris et al.
Continue readingTag: Preston Manning
Alberta Politics: Manning to Alberta Conservative MPs (and 1 Liberal): Supposedly non-partisan pandemic report ‘could be used by the CPC’
In case you were looking for another reason to want Preston Manning’s preposterous politicized pandemic panel report to be spiked, there’s this … Calgary Skyview Liberal MP George Chahal (Photo: Mahmoud Alshall, Creative Commons). Yesterday morning, George Chahal, the Liberal Member of Parliament for the Calgary Skyview riding, took to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Preston Manning’s pandemic panel report wants more politicians, fewer docs calling public health shots
Have I got this straight? Preston Manning just made a recommendation to give politicians absolute authority over public health that was so excellent the Alberta government accepted it a week before they got it? Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Can someone remind me why we gave the superannuated
Continue readingAlberta Politics: That interim report of the Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel? Nothing to see here, folks
Having promised back in January that an interim report of the COVID-19 review panel for which former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning was to be paid $235,000 would be handed over to the Alberta government by the end of June, the UCP government had to say something. Alberta Premier Danielle
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Posted in obvious haste to distract UCP foes and appease party’s base, Manning panel survey asks only 1 question!
Other than geriatric former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, 80, Premier Danielle Smith’s “Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel” hasn’t even been appointed, or if it has the public hasn’t been informed. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). And even this assumes Mr. Manning is not in fact the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s hard to believe Danielle Smith didn’t know her staff was emailing prosecutors about Coutts border blockade charges
How many more clarifications will be required to explain the latest news report about Premier Danielle “Calamity” Smith’s interest in what Alberta’s Crown prosecutors have been working on? Who was the Premier’s Office staffer who emailed the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service last fall? (Image: WorldCollectorsNet.com). Quite a few, by the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: National convoy inquiry not going as hoped? Preston Manning plans partisan pandemic panel
Now that the national inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act has turned its spotlight on the organizers of last February’s occupation of Ottawa and various border blockades, and they’re not lookin’ all that good, Preston Manning says he wants to have an inquiry of his own. Mr. Manning
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Preston Manning, godfather of the Canadian right, charts a plan for dealing with another Liberal government
Neoliberals, like rust, never sleep. So we shouldn’t be surprised Preston Manning already seems to be looking ahead to a post-election go at the new Liberal government, same as the old Liberal government. Of course, nobody knows for sure what’s going to happen on tomorrow. Maybe all those People’s Party
Continue readingAlberta Politics: U.S. election exposes ‘Triple-E’ Senate myth once and for all as a democratic disaster
Does anyone recall the Reform Party of Canada’s campaign starting in the late 1980s to impose on our country a “Triple-E Senate” – that is to say elected, effective, and, above all, “equal”? Pushed by the likes of Calgary-area farmer Bert Brown and would-be philosopher king Preston Manning, this call
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The morning after the night before: Meet America’s Alexander Lukashenko, Donald J. Trump
If what is happening in the United States were taking place in another country, the American foreign policy and media establishment would now be denouncing the behaviour of President Donald Trump as that of a tyrant. As is well known, Mr. Trump did better than the polls had suggested he
Continue readingAlberta Politics: As predicted, ‘Fair Deal’ Panel reheats the Firewall Manifesto to manufacture consent for policies Albertans don’t want
Consider the report of Alberta’s “Fair Deal” Panel, released yesterday by Premier Jason Kenney with considerable fanfare. It strongly suggests the Harper-Kenney wing of the Canadian Conservative movement is made up of people who purport to be Canadian patriots when they’re in power in Ottawa but are Prairie separatists when
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Government puts ‘Fair Deal’ report on the shelf after panel hands in its homework late
Alberta’s so-called Fair Deal Panel, which might have seemed like a good idea when Premier Jason Kenney announced it last fall, presents something of a political problem for a government that has more often than not let Ottawa do the heavy lifting throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Premier Kenney pitched the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Simply Ghoulish
Vampire. https://t.co/oGRr8I2HhD — Gord Perks (@gordperks) May 6, 2020 Recommend this Post
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Should we welcome Michelle Rempel Garner home with a festive serving of Oklahoma’s official state meal?
Did you know Oklahoma has an official state meal? The State Legislature in Oklahoma City designated the repast as an official state symbol in 1988. And, I must say, it sounds delicious: fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbecued pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, black-eyed peas, chicken-fried steak, strawberries and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney lays out the bad news on COVID-19 capably enough, then wanders into the economic weeds
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney actually sounded pretty good on TV last night as he laid out the hard facts about COVID-19, what it’ll probably do, and what might do if too many of us act like jackasses and don’t stay close to home for the next couple of months. Mr.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta government to strike new Blue Ribbon Panel on Blue Ribbon Panels
Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government plans to strike a Blue Ribbon Panel on Blue Ribbon Panels. With the global coronavirus pandemic and the worldwide collapse of oil prices, the United Conservative Party Government believes it will need even more “expert panels” to justify potentially unpopular policies it intends to enact,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s self-selecting separation survey — unscientific, biased, tendentious, and a poor use of tax dollars
Is the Kenney Government trying to persuade Albertans, one step at a time, that separation from Canada would be a good idea? How else do we explain the gratuitous inclusion of a question giving respondents the opportunity to express support for Alberta’s separation from Canada in an online questionnaire published
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Peter MacKay may be One Candidate to Rule Them All — but can he save the party of Preston, Stockwell & Steve?
There are those who say we should be bracing ourselves for the return of President Steve. Say it ain’t so! Stephen Harper (Photo: Remy Steinegger, Creative Commons). We can expect know today if Stephen Harper is going to re-emerge to make a re-run to re-lead the Conservative Party of Canada
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Harper and Preston Manning, joined at the hip by history and not particularly liking it, make changes
On Wednesday, former prime minister Stephen Harper abruptly quit the Conservative Party of Canada’s fund-raising board, supposedly to give himself time to prevent Jean Charest from becoming leader of Canada’s Conservatives or prime minister of Canada. Yesterday, we learned that Preston Manning would quit his eponymous market-fundamentalist call centre in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Loudest message from Fort Saskatchewan ‘Fair Deal Panel’ town hall? Hands off our CPP!
The visit of Premier Jason Kenney’s “Fair Deal Panel” to Fort Saskatchewan, an industrial oil town just northeast of Edmonton, may have been intended to be a separatist open-mike night when it was added as a stop on the travel itinerary by the UCP’s brain trust. Whatever they expected when
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