When you learn music, your hemispheres fire off together, and since you’re not just sitting there listening to a lecture, you’re also doing some fine motor function (and/or gross motor function if you’re on percussion or canon), a bunch of those lobes are on fire too.
Continue readingTag: Saskatchewan politics
Alberta Politics: Splish-splash! Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe channels UCP frontrunner Danielle Smith’s cynical Sovereignty Act performance
CALGARY – Is there something in the water in Saskatchewan? Or has Premier Scott Moe’s government just been paying too much attention to the success of the separatist pish-posh served up by Danielle Smith that seems to have set the narrative for the United Conservative Party’s leadership race here in
Continue readingcentre of the universe: School’s Out
I was going to make this big ranty post about the SK provincial government’s attitude toward education, citing the absolute farce of our premier scolding school divisions for instituting or increasing school fees for parents while at the same time his government has been underfunding primary and secondary education (and
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Separate and Distinct?
The Premier of this province has been bumbling around, talking about how his party wants to create a distinct “nation within a nation” in Saskatchewan, and that they want to somehow create a more autonomous province. There’s media out there today about how a good chunk of folks who live
Continue readingAlberta Politics: What was Saskatchewan’s media doing when it wasn’t reporting on Scott Moe’s driving record?
Seriously, what was the media in Saskatchewan doing when it wasn’t investigating Scott Moe’s history of drunk and, on one occasion, deadly driving? Wednesday morning, the province’s Saskatchewan Party premier got up on his hind legs at a campaign event and “spoke to an impaired driving charge he faced following
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Is the Conservative Opposition a national government in waiting or a separatist bloc? Andrew Scheer must decide
Who said, “At time of global economic instability, Canada’s government must stand unequivocally for keeping the country together”? I won’t tease you. It was Stephen Harper, on Dec. 3, 2008. Former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper (Photo: Prime Minister of Greece). Prime minister Harper, desperate to avoid a non-confidence vote
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Blue-Ribbon Panel’ report sets stage for full-blown austerity, private health care, soaring tuition and much more
The recommendations of the Kenney Government’s “blue-ribbon panel” on Alberta’s finances yesterday went further over the top than you’d even have expected from a report ginned up by a couple of Fraser Institute ringers, a former bank president, and a few additional followers of the government’s low-tax, market-fundamentalist ideology. As
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The UCP health platform: mostly spin, some two-tier medicine, and scraps of red meat for the base
Jason Kenney’s health care policy announcement yesterday was a typical conservative political speech – a mish-mash of anodyne sentiment, misleading spin, market-fundamentalist nostrums, scraps of red meat for the base, cheap shots at the federal government, terrible ideas he’ll implement if he gets the chance, and even a couple of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney’s ‘Public Health Guarantee’ isn’t worth much, but that may be good enough for many voters
No one ever said Jason Kenney isn’t a shrewd politician who knows how to run a campaign, so give the man some credit for his clever effort yesterday to look strong on a weak file for his party and make the NDP look a little weaker on its strongest. The
Continue readingAlberta 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
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Much Ado
There’s little doubt that cannabis and cannabinoids (not an alien race of green-skinned interstellar travellers, but the compounds that comprise the active ingredients in cannabis, like THC (which makes you loopy) and CBD (which does not)) will be big business in the coming years, although it’s uncertain whether legal weed
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Saskatchewan, Ontario have no constitutional case against Ottawa’s carbon tax, only a political strategy
By vowing to go to court to fight the federal government’s carbon tax, Saskatchewan and now Ontario are rejecting the most cost effective way to reduce carbon pollution, the Pembina Institute complained yesterday. “It is deeply irresponsible of the Saskatchewan and Ontario governments to reject carbon pricing,” said Isabelle Turcotte,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Saskatchewan Catholic school funding case likely to drag on despite deadline; cabinet shuffle today in Alberta
You’d think the province of Saskatchewan would be almost out of time to figure out how to deal with a judge’s ruling last year that non-Catholic students may not receive public funding if they attend separate schools. After all, the bombshell decision by Mr. Justice Donald Layh of the Saskatchewan
Continue readingAlberta Politics: UCP policy list controversies will disappear in a puff of smoke as Jason Kenney performs his best-known magic trick
Alberta’s Opposition United Conservative Party has distributed to its members a list of 782 policy proposals to be considered at its founding convention in Red Deer this weekend. Inevitably, the list was immediately handed over to media and the blogosphere by Conservatives unknown. Much was immediately made by the UCP’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brad Wall out! Jason Kenney not yet sworn in! Is Rachel Notley now the Real Leader of Western Canada?
PHOTOS: Brad Wall, the former premier of Saskatchewan, offers his farewell attack on the Alberta NDP to enthusiastic Saskatchewan Party supporters in Saskatoon last night. (Photo: Screenshot from Saskatchewan Party video.) Below: New Sask Party Leader Scott Moe, NDP Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Manitoba Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister, B.C.
Continue readingcentre of the universe: Keep ’em separated
Recently the Government of Canada included on its summer student funding program a check box that asks whether the business (non-profit/agency/charity/etc.) applying for federal tax funding complies with Canadian law. Normally, that’s not a problem. Normally, if you apply for federal funding, you’re all, hells yes we comply with federal
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Brad Wall hoist with his own petard as Saskatchewan climbs down from its embarrassing licence plate war
PHOTOS: Brad Wall, Saskatchewan’s cranky premier and Canada’s answer to Basil Fawlty. (Photo: Saskatchewan Party, grabbed from Facebook.) Below: Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, Alberta Trade Minister Deron Bilous, and Saskatchewan Trade Minister Steven Bonk (Photo: Saskatchewan Party). Devotees of slapstick political humour will be disappointed to learn Saskatchewan’s Monty Pythonesque
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Happy New Year! It wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve without AlbertaPolitics.ca’s Top Ten political predictions for 2018
PHOTOS: Will U.S. spear hunters like this guy still be able to come to Alberta after 2018? Your blogger predicts they’ll have to find ursine victims elsewhere. (Photo: Youtube screengrab, grabbed by the CBC and re-grabbed by me.) Below: Demonstrators on Cambie Street in Vancouver protest against the Kinder Morgan
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Saskatchewan’s War on Licence Plates: Is Brad just mad because he’s been upstaged by a woman, and an NDP woman at that?
PHOTOS: No press releases about Texas plates? Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall didn’t used to have a problem with out-of-province tags on work trucks, at least when they were being used to undermine publicly owned Crown corporations, as this photo posted on social media by Saskatchewan Federation of Labour President Larry
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It was wall-to-wall Brad Wall as premier exits, stage right, before wheels fall off Saskatchewan Party bus
PHOTOS: Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, smiling like old times, says farewell in this video screenshot to an adoring media on his last day in the provincial Legislature in Regina yesterday. Below: U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and Alberta Trade Minister Deron Bilous. Political coverage was wall-to-wall Brad Wall yesterday as mainstream
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