Alison Redford

Portrait unveiling stands in for the fond official farewell former premier Dave Hancock never had from his PCs

| February 14, 2017

The unveiling of Dave Hancock's portrait in the Legislature yesterday may have been presided over by a New Democrat Speaker and featured a speech by an NDP premier, but it had the warm family quality one might have been expected from the official farewell the former premier never really got from his own Progressive Conservative Party.

Hancock was unexpectedly elevated the premiership by his caucus colleagues at the start of the summer of the Tories' discontent -- the date when he was sworn in was March 23, 2014, immediately after the PC caucus had for all intents and purposes fired his predecessor Alison Redford.

Former Alberta premier Dave Hancock to be the subject of a hanging Monday afternoon at the Legislature

David J. Climenhaga

| February 10, 2017

"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

As predicted in this space three years ago, it was only a matter of time before we Albertans had added to our premier provincial collection new portraits of first ministers Alison Redford and Dave Hancock.

Wildrose reaction to proposed raise for front-line health workers illustrates the party's rightward shift

David J. Climenhaga

| February 5, 2017

Unhappy Progressive Conservative traditionalists have termed the still theoretical united-right party PC leadership Jason Kenney hopes to create after he wins the party leadership in March, "Wildrose 2.0."

But surely this is incorrect. If the Danielle Smith led Opposition party ginned up by oilpatch operators unhappy with former PC premier Ed Stelmach's plan to get Albertans a slightly better return on the resources they own was Wildrose 1.0, surely the B-Team now headed by Brian Jean is already Wildrose 2.0!

That means that in the likely event Kenney succeeds in uniting the right on his radical social conservative terms, the new entity should be called Wildrose 3.0.

'Real leader' Brad Wall's government feeds the fluctuations of a boom-bust economy as Alberta stays the course

David J. Climenhaga

| January 18, 2017

What a pleasure it is here in the nation's capital to be the one from the only province on the Prairies where grownups are still in charge!

I speak, of course, of Alberta -- but I speak of my home province in the context of the goings on in Saskatchewan earlier today, where the premier according to the best-known candidate to lead Alberta's Progressive Conservative Party is "the real leader of Western Canada."

Saskatchewan adopts Alberta's single health region model, despised by Brad Wall supporters

David J. Climenhaga

| January 5, 2017

Premier Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party Government -- which all Albertans have been taught by the opposition conservative parties can do no wrong -- has decided to amalgamate their province's 12 localized health regions into a single massive province-wide health region this fall.

Since Alberta conservatives seem to believe everything Wall does practically amounts to earthly perfection -- Progressive Conservative uniter-o-the-righter candidate Jason Kenney calls him "the real leader of Western Canada" -- it's fair to wonder what they'll do now that the Saskatchewan premier has done something a lot of them fervently believe is perfectly wrong.

Is veteran Tory's bid to run as Liberal in byelection to replace ex-PM a sign of sagging Conservative fortunes nationally?

David J. Climenhaga

| December 22, 2016

Understanding history requires a long view, and the picture that is emerging from the Reform Party upheaval, which began with that party's formation by Preston Manning almost 30 years ago, is of a movement that has failed in its fundamental goals of eliminating the Liberal Party of Canada and replacing it with a U.S.-style two-party system that would push Canadian political discourse ever further to the right.

Manning founded the Reform Party in the fall of 1987, and it has been with us ever since -- although it was later known as the Canadian Alliance and, after its reverse hostile takeover of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003, as the Conservative Party of Canada.

Robo-gaffe: What do you do when caller-ID says it's a PC on the line and you get the NDP?

David J. Climenhaga

| November 25, 2016

Memo to politicians: Make sure -- really, really sure -- that when you send out a robocall alerting your constituents to something you’d like them to know about, it says it's from, you know, you.

On Wednesday, Alberta's New Democratic Party sent out an automated voice message on behalf of Edmonton-Castle Downs MLA Nicole Goehring inviting her constituents to take part in a "telephone town hall" about the government's planned cap on electricity prices and other issues.

What could possibly go wrong?

Smoke-Free Alberta asks: Why hasn't all of the Smoking Reduction Act been enacted?

David J. Climenhaga

| November 23, 2016

A letter Monday from the Campaign for a Smoke-Free Alberta to Health Minister Sarah Hoffman asks why the NDP Government continues to put off full implementation of the Tobacco and Smoking Reduction Act, passed three years ago by the Progressive Conservative government of Alison Redford.

The never-enacted sections include:

The twists keep coming: Stephen Harper joins the Alberta Progressive Conservative party to back Jason Kenney

David J.Climenhaga

| November 16, 2016

So let me get this straight: Stephen Harper, the former Conservative prime minister of Canada, has now joined the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party so that he can encourage members of the Wildrose Party to do the same thing, so that they can all elect Jason Kenney, who can then destroy the PC Party?

Have I got that about right?

Both women in the race to lead the Alberta PC Party drop out, one cites harassment and intimidation

David J. Climenhaga

| November 9, 2016

The story is not likely to get the attention it deserves amid the uproar inevitably surrounding the shocking results of the U.S. presidential election, but the two women campaigning to lead Alberta's Progressive Conservative party both withdrew from the race yesterday. Both were associated with the more socially progressive wing of the former governing party.

Sandra Jansen, sitting MLA for Calgary-North West and a former minister in premier Alison Redford’s cabinet, said in a news release she was quitting because of harassment and intimidation. Social conservatives associated with the campaign of former Harper Government cabinet minister Jason Kenney are said to be the culprits.

Alison Redford

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