Daryl Katz

Evil twins: Alberta Tories assail Wildrosers, and vice versa

| May 27, 2013

I'll admit I laughed out loud when I read in the Calgary Herald that Alberta Premier Alison Redford had accused her far-right opposition, the Wildrose Party, of being an organization ready to break any rule to win.

Not that I doubt Redford for a moment on this one, which she delivered in a speech Friday night at the start of her Progressive Conservative Party's policy conference in Edmonton. Indeed, I reckon she pretty much nailed it as far as the Wildrose Party and Opposition Leader Danielle Smith are concerned.

Albertans want election-spending-limit law but are unlikely to get one from Redford PCs

David J. Climenhaga

| May 10, 2013

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.

All lawbreakers will be punished … unless they happen to be Alberta Conservatives

David J. Climenhaga

| May 2, 2013

In Alberta, lawbreakers must be punished, and they will be punished -- unless, of course, they happen to be supporters of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party.

So, the government announced yesterday, it will be going after the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees for the full cost of the wildcat strike by 2,500 jail guards -- a figure the government ministers were somewhat fancifully suggesting yesterday will be about $6 million.

Despite a lot of distraction, illegal political donations still stink up Alberta

David J. Climenhaga

| February 17, 2013

OK, we're all enjoying a nice quiet Family Day long weekend. This gives us an opportunity to look back at the interlocking illegal political contribution eruptions that until recently plagued the Progressive Conservative government of Alberta Premier Alison Redford.

The past couple of weeks have been a busy time for Alberta political commentators, with daily events that might have been a scandal in some places, but somehow just didn't make the grade here on the western edge of the Great Plains.

A tsunami of Tory troubles? Naw, the Alberta universe is unfolding as it should…

David J. Climenhaga

| January 9, 2013

Alberta media are portraying the return to the news this week of three pre-Christmas political scandals as a tsunami of trouble for the governing Tories of Premier Alison Redford.

In fact, serial news stories yesterday and the day before about a conflict-of-interest investigation, an election-financing investigation and the resumption of testimony in the so-called health care queue-jumping inquiry indicate the opposite.

Timing, as they say, is everything, and the swift disposition of all three embarrassing stories early in the new year and relatively early in the Redford Government's mandate strongly suggest that all three issues are being managed in a way that will make them disappear long before they present an electoral threat to the government.

With the NHL back on the ice, why not let Chinese taxpayers subsidize Canada's billionaires?

David J. Climenhaga

| January 7, 2013

Change the conversation, support rabble.ca today.

It's a moment of such perfect convergence that it's astonishing Alberta's Wildrose Party, which last week proposed paying for professional sports arenas through the risky tactic of encouraging vulnerable citizens to gamble, didn't think of it.

Wildrose rink lotto scheme: A new tax on the prodigal and the poor

David J. Climenhaga

| January 4, 2013

It was almost a relief yesterday when Danielle Smith, leader of Alberta's right-wing Wildrose Opposition, announced the scheme her party had come up with to finance the millionaires and billionaires of professional hockey through the use of … wait for it … keno!

Bill C-377 can be just the start -- let's shine a light on some corners that are really in the dark!

David J. Climenhaga

| December 13, 2012

Change the conversation, support rabble.ca today.

Well, you can't fight a call for transparency, so why bother? I say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

The so-called Conservative Party of Stephen Harper quietly whipped its troops in the privacy of their caucus rooms and managed to squeeze Bill C-377 -- social-conservative B.C. MP Russ Hiebert's amateurish and unconstitutional piece of anti-union mischief -- through the House of Commons last night.

They'll say that they didn't whip it -- that is to say, impose party discipline to enforce the vote the Prime Minister's inner circle wanted -- but they'll be lying, notwithstanding a few conveniently symbolic Tory holdouts.

Everythinggate: Perfect storm lands Alberta premier in shark-infested waters!

David J. Climenhaga

| December 4, 2012

As the political gong show continued yesterday in Edmonton, it was becoming increasingly apparent Premier Alison Redford is the Paul Martin of Alberta.

Don't scoff at this suggestion! Alert readers will recall that Martin was the last Liberal Prime Minister of Canada, the fellow whose idea of dealing with a scandal was setting up that Royal Commission led by Justice John Gomery to "get to the bottom" of things.

Well, we all know how that ended!

Wildrose leader to Albertans: You're gullible and stupid!

David J. Climenhaga

| November 25, 2012

Despite an amusing Pierre Poutine moment before it started, the Wildrose Party's one-day annual general meeting in Edmonton yesterday seems to have gone swimmingly for Leader Danielle Smith, whose key messages were transmitted uncritically by media and apparently accepted in a similar spirit by members.

Reading between the lines of the media coverage, Smith's three main points to her right-wing supporters were as follows:

1) Bozo eruptions by bad candidates, not Wildrose policies, caused the party's election loss on April 23

2) Nothing substantive in the Wildrose economic agenda needs to change, but the party may have to be sneakier about some of its members' social conservative views

Daryl Katz

Top Picks On rabble