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Dear B.C. Liberals: Your budget priorities need fixing.
By
Lizanne Foster
| February 12, 2017

Dear B.C Minister of Finance Michael De Jong,

Thank you for your voicemail message expressing your regret that I was not home to share with you my priorities for a balanced budget. Perhaps it was a good thing that I was not available for your call because I have a feeling you don’t really want to hear what I have to say about your government’s fiscal management record.

Firstly, I don't think we could even agree about the topic of our conversation since I see a balanced budget as an oxymoron, like fresh-frozen or pretty-ugly. A budget is a forecast, not a fixed entity. It's a projection that is at best an estimation of what spending will be.

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Redeye
Redeye

Christy Clark gets $50,000 stipend by fundraising for her own party

February 1, 2017
| Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch says British Columbia's rules on political donations amount to a system of legalized bribery. The province's conflict of interest commissioner doesn't agree.
Length: 17:46 minutes (16.28 MB)
B.C. Women's Marches should spark a movement for justice here, too.
By
Lizanne Foster
| January 22, 2017

Yesterday it felt good to be one of thousands marching in B.C. to challenge the misogynist rhetoric of a narcissistic president. It was cathartic to walk with so many whose protest was displayed on signs philosophic and poetic all around the planet, from Alaska to Antarctica.

But today, when I think about what is happening in our own province, I wonder when we will see thousands take to the streets to protest the egregious actions of the B.C. Liberal government and Christy Clark?

While big money gets to feast at her table, children with learning disabilities struggle to keep up with lessons in mouldy portables, waiting for the crumbs she was so "excited" to promise.

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Jason Kenney
The Jason Syndrome: Conservative candidate melts down over Hollywood star in bid to derail NDP strategy that's working
By
David J. Climenhaga
| January 13, 2017

Albert Einstein's purported definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result -- has become a political cliché: Consider Jason Kenney, a man who believes so fervently in a failed strategy for developing Alberta's resources that he bitterly rejects all other approaches as heresy -- especially ones that work!

Kenney is like the guy who says the earth is flat, but always has an instant scientific explanation for why that ship just sailed over the horizon.

This would be amusing were Kenney not the front-running candidate to lead Alberta's conservatives (and therefore, unfortunately, quite possibly the rest of us as well) to market-fundamentalist nirvana. He is, so it matters.

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Image: Wikimedia Commons
Happy New Year! Here are Alberta Diary's top 10 political predictions for 2017
By
David J. Climenhaga
| January 2, 2017

Happy New Year!

This New Year we're going to keep it simple and start off 2017 with Alberta Diary's Top 10 political predictions for the year ahead of us. Here they are:

1. Thanks to whomever replaces him -- Charlie Angus, c'mon down! -- Thomas Mulcair will start to look pretty good as federal NDP leader. It'll be too late, of course.

2. Jason Kenney will win the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party on the first ballot in Calgary on March 18. The PC Party is not doomed, however, despite Kenney's plan to dismantle it and merge it with the Wildrose Opposition, because many Wildrosers will be unconvinced by his rhetoric and that of his backers that resistance is futile.

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Redeye
Redeye

Christy Clark government wastes budget surplus on debt repayment

December 19, 2016
| British Columbians are in desperate need of affordable housing, higher social assistance rates and public school funding. Instead the government is spending a budget windfall on paying down the debt.
Length: 13:31 minutes (12.38 MB)
Brian Topp
Topp spin: Alberta premier's departing chief of staff gives his final report to media with an eye to history
By
David J. Climenhaga
| December 15, 2016

It would be fair to say Brian Topp is a person quite concerned about his place in history.

So when the moment came yesterday afternoon for the unexpected departure of Rachel Notley's chief of staff from the Alberta premier's office to be announced, it should surprise no one a couple of well-known mainstream media political columnists were near at hand to get the story directly from Topp's own lips.

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Photo: Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta
Former B.C. NDP premier's pro-pipeline sentiments boost Rachel Notley's 'social license' strategy
By
David J. Climenhaga
| December 14, 2016

There's more evidence out of British Columbia this week that Rachel Notley's social licence approach to pipeline development continues to work -- this time on the province's New Democrats, who up to now have been taking a hard line against the idea of more pipelines from Alberta.

This is speculative, of course, but if it turns out to be true, you can expect Alberta's political right, increasingly dominated by hysterics, to react with fury, not a more appropriate emotion such as, say, gratitude.

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Image: Flickr/Province of British Columbia
B.C. will miss its climate targets by a mile unless it accepts the national carbon pricing plan
By
Matt Horne
| December 9, 2016

With Canada's first credible national climate change plan within reach, now is not the time to be watering down core policies that would help reduce emissions. That's why the federal government should reject Premier Christy Clark's posturing on carbon pricing and stick to the pan-Canadian carbon price committed to in October.

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Image: Flickr/Province of British Columbia
Despite COP 22 award, not yet time to celebrate B.C. climate action
By
Josha MacNab
| November 21, 2016

British Columbia's carbon tax is once again being lauded on the international stage. On November 16 in Marrakech, Morocco, the government of B.C. received the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's Momentum for Change award for its revenue-neutral tax.

As a climate policy that saw carbon pollution decline while the province's economy grew, the carbon tax deserves the plaudits. Until it was frozen in 2012, the carbon tax served as an effective example of carbon pricing, and it remains a model that can and should be replicated across Canada and internationally.

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