Danielle Smith’s controversial 2021 paper arguing how to introduce user fees and co-pays to Alberta health care is not a research paper and was not peer reviewed, a spokesperson for the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy said yesterday. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). This answers a
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The Daveberta Podcast: Episode 64: Pandemic, Partisanship, and Post-Secondary Education in Alberta
Melanee Thomas joined Dave Cournoyer for a deep dive into Alberta’s politics during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the relationship between the provincial and federal governments, and how Albertans’ political self-identification could be influencing Premier Jason Kenney’s decision to avoid serious public health measures including a province-wide mandatory mask mandate. Thomas
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Young Ben Harper gets a well-heeled start in politics, thanks to dear old dad’s former lieutenant
Give Ben Harper’s old man his due: he got his son a better first job in Alberta than the elder Mr. Harper’s pop got him. Readers with functioning short-term memories will recall that not so long ago much was made of the fact Stephen Harper’s father got the former Conservative
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Oddities: online term paper ‘ghostwriter’ site believes impersonator used UCP minister’s name and credentials
An online custom term paper writing service called UnemployedProfessors.com says it now believes a contract writer listed on its website under the name and credentials of Alberta’s minister of advanced education is an impersonator. After references to the “unemployed professor profile” in the name of Demetrios Nicolaides cropped up on
Continue readingAlberta Politics: State-supported academic research in Alberta should be about more than Making Oil & Gas Great Again
As Alberta launches its 10-year plan for “transformational change” in post-secondary education, a new study suggests the province’s universities and the government agencies that fund them are helping to prolong the worst aspects of the fossil fuel era. Alas, by trying to make oil and gas great again when there’s
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: Athabasca U: The redheaded stepchild of Alberta universities faces a Cinderella moment
Is Athabasca University, long the redheaded stepchild of Alberta’s universities, about to have its Cinderella moment? After years of financial insecurity and deep angst about a mission seemingly made redundant by the Internet that sometimes gave the impression of an existential crisis about to go critical, there are signs the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Freedom of information filing reveals supposedly independent ‘Blue Ribbon’ Panel had help from staff in Alberta premier’s office
It turns out Janice MacKinnon’s six-member “expert panel” was using a script cooked up in Premier Jason Kenney’s office at least part of the time it was supposedly taking its “deep dive” into Alberta’s books last year. Alert readers will recall that when freshly elected United Conservative Party Premier Jason
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rebranded ‘War Room’ aims for ‘measured tone’ in riposte to acerbic Medicine Hat News column, doesn’t quite succeed
All the Alberta Government’s rebranded Energy War Room is trying to do, pleaded Managing Director Tom Olsen yesterday in his much anticipated riposte to an acerbic column last week in the Medicine Hat News, is to bring a little civility to the debate about whether or not foreign-funded enviro-propagandists are
Continue readingThe Daveberta Podcast: Episode 43: The UCP’s pick-a-fight budget
David Climenhaga from AlbertaPolitics.ca joins Dave and Adam on this episode of the Daveberta Podcast to discuss the cuts in Alberta’s provincial budget and the United Conservative Party’s growing list of public enemies, the federal election fallout in Alberta, and how the mainstream media is reporting on the Wexit group
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Corporate Mapping Project names top fossil-fuel emitters, enablers and legitimators, unlocks online database
“The fossil fuel industry … is the biggest obstacle to real action on climate change today,” says the co-director of the Corporate Mapping Project, which this morning published an eye-opening list of the 50 most influential players in the industry and a publicly accessible database with information on more than
Continue readingAlberta Politics: University of Calgary acted like ‘Big Oil U’ in 2015 controversy, paper by B.C. academic researchers concludes
It’s not every day you see terms like “corporate obstructionism” and “institutional corruption” used to describe the way things are done at one Canadian university in a peer-reviewed academic paper written by scholars from two other institutions and published in a respected academic journal. This is one reason I think
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Peak Separatism has passed in Alberta, no thanks to Postmedia’s sly campaign to undermine the Trudeau Government
Happy Holidays! It may take a few days for its perpetrators to admit this, but Alberta has all but certainly already passed Peak Separatism. The current 2018 spasm of Alberta separatist sentiment peaked late last week, probably some time Thursday afternoon. By the time we’re all saying Happy New Year
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: Guess What De-Stresses Us and Increases Our Wellbeing All in One Go?
–> I’ve just finished co-writing a new book with Dr. Zachary White (of The Unprepared Caregiver Blog) – it’s titled The Unexpected Journey of Caring: The Transformation of Loved One to Caregiver and it will be out June 8, 2019! In our book, I’ve included a chapter on pets –
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Another weekend in Alberta politics: A new chapter for an Orange politician, and a Green one too
A new chapter? Using those words as a headline, Michael Connolly, the youthful NDP representative for Calgary-Hawkwood and one of the few openly gay MLAs in the provincial Legislature, announced Saturday in a Facebook post he’ll be quietly stepping out of politics when a provincial election is called next year.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: New Year’s bitter Twitter attacks on fact-checking economists suggest UCP will try to make 2018 the Year of the Big Chill
PHOTOS: University of Alberta economist and professor Andrew Leach. Below: Calgary-Fish Creek United Conservative Party MLA Richard Gotfried (Photo: Mr. Gotfried’s Facebook page), UCP Leader Jason Kenney, and University of Calgary economist and professor Trevor Tombe (Photo: U of C). New Year’s in Alberta blew in on a bitter winter
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Green Party leader stepping down; party plans fall leadership contest
PHOTOS: Outgoing Green Party of Alberta Leader Janet Keeping. Below: Leadership candidate Romy Tittel. Janet Keeping, leader of Alberta’s tiny Green Party, is stepping down and the Greens will embark on a leadership contest this fall. With most of our attention focused on the antics of the major parties in
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The puzzling legacy of Calgary mayor Rod Sykes: not even one pathetic cul-de-sac has been named after him!
PHOTOS: Former Calgary mayor Rod Sykes sometime during his heyday between 1969 and 1977 (Glenbow Museum photo). Below: The cover of Thin Power, How Former Calgary Mayor Rod Sykes Stamped His Brand on the City … And Scorched Some Sacred Cows, and its author, retired Alberta journalist Andy Marshall. Rod
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Annals of Cybercrime: U of C pays ransom to cyberbandits, argues it’s OK because data was at risk
PHOTOS: Don’t worry, now that the ransom has been paid, Calgary Police are on the job investigating the cybercrime at the University of Calgary. Actual Calgary Police Service personnel may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: University of Calga…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It’s official: Departure of oil sands and hockey billionaire Murray Edwards had nothing to do with taxes
ILLUSTRATIONS: Alberta’s terrifying Temple of Tax, found on the media midway. So scary it even frightens billionaires away. Really! Below: Dr. Samuel Johnson, noted wit, N. Murray Edwards, oil sands billionaire (CBC photo), and Mr. James Boswell, bio…
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