David J. Climenhaga

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

djclimenhaga — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 06:25:44 +0000

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.

What you should worry about when you worry about President Trump (Hint: not where Ivanka sits!)

djclimenhaga — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 07:02:19 +0000

It's actually pretty hard to know who to root for in the emerging war between U.S. President Donald Trump and the mainstream media.

I mean, seriously people, I find Mr. Trump as scary as the next sane person -- although apparently not for the same reasons as the MSM, which seems to think he hates Russia with insufficient fervor.

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

djclimenhaga — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 06:06:50 +0000

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

djclimenhaga — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 06:18:17 +0000

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.

Leduc No. 1 and Alberta's unluckiest lucky day

djclimenhaga — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 05:32:15 +0000

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!

Advocates of more choice in education unite to condemn school board chair's call for more choice in education

djclimenhaga — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 05:55:11 +0000

Conservative politicians, their vocal supporters, private school operators, separate school system officials, charter school advocates, administrators from such institutions, and parents of home schooled children have all been chanting the mantra of "competition is good" for so long most of us can hardly remember hearing anything else.

So the reaction to Edmonton Public School Board Chair Michael Janz's suggestion last week that the public system should offer its own Roman Catholic education specialty program has been interesting, to say the least.

They hate it!

It turns out that competition is always good … except when it isn't! Who knew?

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

djclimenhaga — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 05:59:56 +0000

"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.

Brian Jean makes it clear, any new Alberta conservative party will be the Wildrose Party

djclimenhaga — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 05:57:07 +0000

In case you're still wondering how this unite-the-right thing is supposed to work, Wildrose Leader Brian Jean has clarified matters for you.

The party that emerges when the dust has settled will be the Wildrose Party, he told the world earlier this week. The Progressive Conservatives will be no more -- although, certainly, the "new" Wildrose party (which will not be new at all, of course) will soon try to rebrand itself "conservative."

In subversive move, Edmonton school board chair calls for optional Catholic programs in public schools

djclimenhaga — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 05:42:39 +0000

In a brilliantly subversive move, Michael Janz, chair of the Edmonton Public School Board, has publicly wondered in a blog post if the board he leads should set up its own optional Catholic program.

After all, the Edmonton Public School Board has a pretty long and successful record of running faith-based programs under its auspices, Janz noted mischievously on Monday in the personal blog he publishes online. There's a Protestant Christian program, a Jewish program and a Muslim program, all operating under the board's auspices with proper attention to standards and curricula.

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

djclimenhaga — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 06:13:08 +0000

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.

Why Canadians are lucky Rona Ambrose was hanging around the Caribbean with a billionaire

djclimenhaga — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 06:03:02 +0000

Anyone can yacht. It takes a certain boldness, though, to excoriate someone for hanging around an island in the Caribbean with a billionaire while you're yachting around the Caribbean with another billionaire.

Well, it's nice to have assistants to send out the press releases and do your Tweeting for you, I guess, when you're soaking up the sun on deck at an undisclosed location somewhere in the Caribbean Sea.

I know, I know … Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke a rule on his way to hanging around with the Aga Khan, who is also a family friend. Whereas Opposition Leader Rona Ambrose broke no rules on her way to hanging around with N. Murray Edwards, late of Calgary, who is also a family friend.

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

djclimenhaga — Sun, 05 Feb 2017 06:29:53 +0000

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.

This feels like it's happened before … it's Groundhog Day and the Liberals have just broken a promise!

djclimenhaga — Thu, 02 Feb 2017 06:56:27 +0000

So long, electoral reform! Welcome back, first-past-the-post!

Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party, said yesterday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement that his clear promise of electoral reform back in the 2015 federal election campaign was going over the side left her feeling "more deeply shocked and betrayed by my government today than on any day of my adult life."

Those of us who are old New Democrats, or old Tories for that matter, may not feel quite so much shock.

It is Groundhog Day, after all, and we've seen this movie before -- over and over and over. Every time we're persuaded to vote Liberal for one reason or another, as a matter of fact.

For a mild-mannered guy, Stephen Khan's farewell to the PC leadership race was remarkably blunt

djclimenhaga — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 06:33:39 +0000

What's remarkable about Stephen Khan's farewell to the Progressive Conservative leadership race -- and almost certainly from the Progressive Conservative Party as well -- is the passion of his fierce critique of both the state of the party and fellow candidate Jason Kenney.

Khan is a Progressive Conservative and there will be no Progressive Conservative Party if Kenney wins the leadership race, he told me bluntly yesterday. "He has been clear. He doesn't want to be the leader of the PC Party. He wants to form a 'unity' party."

'I have as much interest in joining the Wildrose 2.0 Party as you do."

A Tale of Two Traitors: Or, does President Donald Trump even get this betrayal thing?

djclimenhaga — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 07:22:55 +0000

Harold Adrian Russell Philby, better known as "Kim," the British spymaster who turned out to have been working all along for the Soviet Union, denied that he had betrayed his country.

In My Silent War, the 1968 autobiography Philby may or may not have written himself during his residency in Moscow, with or without the assistance of a KGB minder, he made the point he did it, if not quite for England, for mankind then, because of what he called "my persisting faith in Communism."

Philby died in Moscow in 1988, where he was given a hero's funeral. He was awarded posthumous medals by the Soviets, and a nice grave marker was erected in his memory.