Rachel Notley

Canada's Conservative Party, a once-great national organization, is being overwhelmed by its own extremists

| February 17, 2017

The refusal by Conservative MPs to agree to an anti-Islamophobia motion and their mockery of an Edmonton Liberal MP for having once worked as a bus driver are both additional evidence their once-great national party, like its Republican counterpart in the United States, is increasingly controlled by an extremist, offensive fringe.

Not that additional proof was really needed. The blowhards and bigots crowding the Conservative Party of Canada's interminable leadership race should be evidence enough.

Appalled maybe, but no one should be surprised by the ugly threats against Rachel Notley

David J. Climenhaga

| February 15, 2017

No one should be surprised that Alberta's NDP premier, Rachel Notley, has been subject to constant and often serious threats of violence.

New statistics from the Alberta Justice Department have revealed what everybody who's paying attention already knew: Premier Notley receives more threats of physical harm than any of her predecessors in Alberta's top political job.

She reacts with remarkable aplomb as many of the people who contribute to this problem shrug their shoulders and say, "Who? Me?"

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

David J. Climenhaga

| 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.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Jeffery J. Nichols

Leduc No. 1 and Alberta's unluckiest lucky day

David J. Climenhaga

| February 14, 2017

February 13 is the 70th anniversary of the day Alberta simultaneously won the lottery and started to watch everything go to hell in a handcart. February 13...Alberta's unluckiest lucky day.

In other words, 70 years ago, with memories of the Great Depression and the Second World War still very fresh in the minds of the province's population of about 800,000 souls, Leduc No. 1, a few miles south of Edmonton, struck oil and the whole world changed.

Cars didn't have seat belts back in 1947, so no one thought to say: "Fasten your seat belts!" But by gosh, they should've!

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.

Alberta public employees, subject to constant Wildrose and media vilification, win national award for effective service

David J. Climenhaga

| February 7, 2017

Just guessing, but you probably won't read much news coverage about the national award the Alberta Public Service received yesterday for its effective response to last spring's Fort McMurray fire.

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.

Trump's hateful campaign paved the way to Keystone XL's rebirth -- while Trudeau applauds

Michael Stewart

| January 25, 2017

Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared U.S. President's decision to allow Trans Canada to re-apply for a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline was "a great moment for Alberta."

Support by Rachel Notley for Donald Trump's Keystone XL Pipeline decision may be unnerving, but it's politics

David J. Climenhaga

| January 25, 2017

Premier Notley just pledged to work with Trump administration on Keystone XL. WTF?
-- Environmentalist Mike Hudema, Tuesday afternoon on Facebook

It's hard not to feel Mike Hudema's pain.

Hudema is a Greenpeace Canada campaigner, well known for his anti-tar sands activism in Alberta. I suppose some people in the oilpatch don't like him very much, but he's generally viewed with respect. God knows, he's consistent.

Hudema ran for the Alberta NDP in the Edmonton-Meadowlark riding back in 2001. He was 25 at the time.

Others sure to suffer as Sudden Apocalyptic Deficit Syndrome strikes affluent, older, white males from Saskatchewan

David J. Climenhaga

| January 24, 2017

Saskatchewan appears to be suffering from a serious economic malady.

Nobel Prize-winning economist and journalist Paul Krugman calls it "Austerity Fever."

Canadian economist and journalist Toby Sanger calls it Sudden Apocalyptic Deficit Syndrome (SADS).

Call it what you will, a new case has now been diagnosed in Manitoba, and conservatives here in Alberta appear to have been afflicted as well -- although, thankfully, not our social democratic NDP government.

As a result, for the time being at least, we will likely be spared the worst symptoms of this tragic condition, which Sanger noted in correspondence with your blogger is "mainly a disease of affluent older white males, in which the 'cure' is inflicted on others, and is far worse than the disease."

Rachel Notley

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