You'd think it would be easy to run a petroleum-soaked, cash-rich jurisdiction like Alberta, but a day seldom seems to pass out here on the western edge of the Great Plains without our governing Progressive Conservative Party suffering another pratfall or embarrassment.

But how many Albertans know that so many of these scandals bedevilling our permanent governing party have been uncovered by the same guy -- a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. investigative reporter named Charles Rusnell?

No one can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory quite like the New Democrats in my native British Columbia.

Still, while Tuesday's upset B.C. election victory by Premier Christy Clark and her un-liberal Liberals is inevitably going to be, well, upsetting to a lot of New Democrats, it is not really bad news for Thomas Mulcair and the federal NDP.

This, we might say, is the social democratic truth that dare not speak its name: an NDP government in a large province like British Columbia would inevitably have enacted policies that upset voters elsewhere in Canada and would have provided excellent targets for attacks by the ever-negative Stephen Harper Tories on Mulcair and the NDP.

Who leaked the Alberta government's response to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees' unfair labour practices complaint to an Edmonton Journal political reporter, and why?

This is an important question because at the time the leak took place, the government document questioning AUPE President Guy Smith's personal honesty in harsh and colourful terms was being kept confidential by the Alberta Labour Relations Board.

This was done as a fairly routine part of the board's effort to effect a settlement of AUPE’s complaint that the Alberta government had broken an agreement it made to end the illegal strike by about 2,500 jail guards on May 1.

In Alberta, it appears you now have more power as the president of a neighbourhood community league than as a duly elected member of a school board!

With province-wide municipal elections scheduled to take place in October, that's something would-be candidates for school trustee might want to think about.

Albertans had a small but significant demonstration of this axiom yesterday, when Education Minister Jeff Johnson announced that if members of elected school boards won't co-operate with the government and vote the way they have been instructed, the results of their mistaken votes will be made to reflect the decision they were supposed to make.

It took Athabasca University's rubber-stamp board less than 48 hours to tell the university's faculty association to forget about its suggestion an interim president be appointed to get the distance-learning institution back on track while a replacement is found for President Frits Pannekoek.

Alert readers will recall that Dr. Pannekoek, the subject of an overwhelming non-confidence motion last year by the university's faculty and another by a staff union, has announced his intention to resign, but not until his replacement is found -- a process professors fear could take up to two years, with potentially disastrous results for Athabasca.

Advice to anyone who tries to negotiate a deal with Alison Redford, Thomas Lukaszuk or any member or official of their government: take witnesses with you, and make sure you also bring a tape recorder.

You might want to bring a piece of paper, a pen, a Bible and a notary public as well. One-on-one meetings ending in "handshake deals" with these people? I don't think so!

It's a conundrum!

What should Alberta's Tories do? A study by the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute released yesterday demonstrates something almost everyone already knew anyway -- that most Albertans strongly support limits on election spending.

So not setting limits on donations from corporations and unions, or enforcing the rules about how donations are made -- Hey, Daryl Katz, c'mon down! -- potentially spells big trouble for the Progressive Conservative Party of Premier Alison Redford.

Athabasca University's Faculty Association called yesterday for the institution's president to be replaced by an interim president chosen from among senior staff.

On the face of it, this idea makes a lot of sense, since the president in question -- Dr. Frits Pannekoek -- announced back in December 2012 he's going to retire anyway, although a date has never been set for a departure that is certain to be greeted with relief by staff and faculty whenever it comes.

Am I the only one who sees irony in the leader of Alberta's ultra-conservative Wildrose Party working up a full head of steam because the merely very conservative government of Premier Alison Redford plans to mail a colourful budget brochure to every household in the province -- at taxpayer expense, of course?

We have learned, courtesy the news media, that membership in the National Rifle Association has surged past five million souls since the Sandy Hook Massacre of little children in Connecticut last December.

It would seem that a significant minority of our American cousins will let nothing stand in the way of their right to massive firepower, which they insist is protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.