Margaret McCuaig-Boyd

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Jeffery J. Nichols

Leduc No. 1 and Alberta's unluckiest lucky day

| 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!

NDP to release new energy royalty framework at week's end -- brace yourself for Apocalypse Friday!

David J. Climenhaga

| January 28, 2016

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Brace yourself for a storm of hostility from many of the usual suspects on Friday when Premier Rachel Notley finally releases the province's new royalty framework, based on the report and recommendations of the Royalty Review Advisory Panel headed by Dave Mowat, CEO of Crown-owned ATB Financial.

Sunshine, ice cream and a mellow multitude of 10,000 or so usher in the NDP era in Alberta

David J. Climenhaga

| May 25, 2015

If you want a measure of the true popularity of Alberta's New Democratic Party government just now, in Edmonton anyway, consider the multitude that assembled in the warm sunshine Sunday afternoon to watch Premier Rachel Notley and her 11 cabinet colleagues sworn in.

There had to be 10,000 people in front of the Alberta Legislature at least, all but a couple of them wearing smiles and no shortage clad in NDP orange as well as Notley and her cabinet members were sworn in one by one in the sunlight by Chief Justice Catherine Fraser on the steps of the building.

The Original NDP 4: Deron Bilous, Brian Mason, David Eggen & Rachel Notley

Picking a cabinet is never an easy job -- it'll be tougher, with higher stakes, for Rachel Notley

David J. Climenhaga

| May 19, 2015

If the transition to Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party government from Jim Prentice's Progressive Conservative government seems to be taking forever, presumably that's because for the first time in 44 years it really is a transition.

In other words, there's more transitioning than has been normal around here to do -- enough, it could be argued, to occupy every waking moment of an entire four-year government term.

Margaret McCuaig-Boyd

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