Has Naheed Nenshi just had his reverse chicken salad moment?  NDP leadership candidate Gil McGowan, who is president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). It was future U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson, then the Senate Majority leader, who astutely observed of Richard Nixon in 1958 that “in politics you’ve got to learn that, overnight, chicken shit can turn to chicken salad!” Of course, the transformation can occur in reverse as well, as Mr. Nenshi, who until yesterday at least was the clear frontrunner in the race to replace Rachel Notley as leader of the Alb ..read more

RED DEER – Alberta has struck a new committee “to help reclaim tailings ponds” in the province’s oilsands, says the headline on a news release published yesterday. Former Alberta environment minister Lorne Taylor (Photo: Screenshot of video found at alchetron.com). There’s something about the wording of that headline that reminds one of that hoary old Ronald Regan line that right-wing bloviators so love to repeat about how the most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” “Alberta’s new Oil Sands Mine Water Steering Committee will look at o ..read more

Alberta’s United Conservative Party MLAs are likely to soon get a hard lesson in what the late Colin Powell supposedly called the Pottery Barn Rule.  The late Colin Powell, U.S. secretary of state, the guy who gets credit for mentioning the Pottery Barn Rule, whether he did or not (Photo: U.S. Department of State). To wit: If you break it, you own it.  In Canadian politics, there is a relevant corollary to the Pottery Barn Rule, which Mr. Powell, a career soldier who rose to be a general of the Army and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is said to have used when he was secretar ..read more

What can you say nine years after we all woke up and realized that the night before Albertans really had elected a majority NDP government? Well, it was a great night, a great morning after, and, despite some disappointments, the government run by Rachel Notley wasn’t a bad one by any measure. To know that, all we have to do is look in the rear-view mirror and then look ahead at where the second of Ms. Notley’s Conservative successors is trying to take Alberta. Ms. Notley is still at the helm of the NDP, now in Opposition, but not for much longer. A new NDP leader is to be chosen by the end o ..read more

Alberta has a plan to create a “master plan” for a huge passenger rail network around the province! Really. OK, the unidentified man on the left above is Devin Dreeshen, who nowadays is the minister of transportation and economic corridors in Ms. Smith’s Government – if anyone spots an economic corridor, let me know (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). The central showpiece will be a high-speed super-train whizzing between Calgary and Edmonton – powered by mighty engines that, presumably, generate steam produced by coal from the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains.  I jest. They’ll r ..read more

Less than 24 hours after the Alberta’s United Conservative Party Government pulled the plug on low-income transit programs in Edmonton and Calgary, Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon executed a screeching bootlegger turn this morning and completely reversed course. Seniors, Community and Social Services Minister Jason Nixon, who executed a screeching course reversal this morning (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). It must have been a hell of a reaction UCP MLAs got yesterday – especially from voters in the crucial electoral battleground of the City of Calgary. I can’t ..read more

Having announced Monday it would spend $9 million cooking up a fanciful provincial railway “masterplan” that includes a public transit component, the United Conservative Party Government yesterday informed Edmonton and Calgary it is ending its contribution to their low-income transit pass programs.  Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek (Photo: Calgary.ca). The mayors of both cities appear to have been gobsmacked by the unexpected notice they received of cuts of $9 million to Edmonton and $6.2 million to Calgary for the subsidized transit passes for seniors, students and residents living in poverty ..read more

The worst thing about the seemingly endless Alberta NDP leadership race isn’t that it’s boring, although it is.  NDP leadership candidate Kathleen Ganley (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). It’s that the NDP Caucus in the Legislature appears to be totally distracted by it at a time the United Conservative Party Government led by Danielle Smith is running out of control, introducing anti-democratic bills almost daily, and pursing a range of dangerous and destructive anti-Canadian policies.  Naturally, the NDP’s leadership race may be part of the reason the UCP is out of control right now ..read more

When then municipal affairs minister Danielle Larivee fired three Thorhild County councillors in 2016, the county’s reeve accused the Alberta NDP of “Soviet-style government.”  Former NDP MLA Deron Bilous, who served as municipal affairs minister immediately before Ms. Larivee (Photo: David J. Climenhaga). Under the circumstances, this hardly seems fair.  Still, Reeve Dan Buryn’s anger can be understood, if not sympathized with. He was one of the trio of councillors who had been sacked by Ms. Larivee for what an inquiry report termed “irregular, improper and improvident” actions and ..read more

We may be living in the 21st Century, but Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Government is apparently still suffering from the 19th Century distrust of voters and democracy that convinced the Fathers of Confederation to give us that unelected Senate.  Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). So, yesterday, Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver introduced Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, legislation clearly intended to get voters, especially in Alberta’s two biggest cities, to stop electing progressive city councillors who ar ..read more