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Fort McMurray-Cold Lake Conservative MP David Yurdiga. Image credit: David Yurdiga/Facebook
Alberta MP launches petition to make House of Commons stop calling assault rifles 'assault rifles'
David J. Climenhaga | You can mock Alberta Conservative politicians, but it is nearly impossible to parody them. Fortunately, they do that themselves without prompting. Sometimes twice in one week.
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Alberta Premier Jason Kenney at his news conference in Calgary yesterday. Image credit: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr -- Photography by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta
No fiscal reckoning for health care -- just yet, anyway -- Alberta premier says
David J. Climenhaga | Cabinet ministers at Premier Jason Kenney's news conference about health-care spending yesterday behaved themselves. Some government MLAs, not so much.
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Former Rocky Mountain House MLA Ty Lund with Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. Image: Facebook
Ty Lund, 23-year PC MLA and holder of four cabinet portfolios, dead at 82
David J. Climenhaga | One of the hardy perennials of the Progressive-Conservative dynasty, Ty Lund held the Rocky Mountain House riding from 1989 to 2012.
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University of Alberta campus. Image credit: Janusz Sliwinski/Flickr
University of Alberta faces more than half of budget's post-secondary cuts
David J. Climenhaga | In the 2021 Alberta budget, the University of Alberta's grant has been slashed by 11 per cent, or $60.1 million. Also: another tiki-torch march; former MLA Janice Sarich remembered.
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Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews reads his budget speech in a COVID-19-safe Legislature as Premier Jason Kenney looks on. Image credit: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr - Photograph by EPIC Photography/Legislative Assembly Office
Alberta budget delivers sweeter language, same old 'fiscal reckoning,' and no path to balance
David Climenhaga | If you want to know how quickly front-line pandemic heroes turn into back-of-the-line zeroes in Jason Kenney's Alberta, the answers are in Thursday's provincial budget.
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A fine pair of cowboy boots like these, hand-made in Alberta, can be hell to break in, but it's worth the effort, especially if you're a finance minister. Image credit: David J. Climenhaga
Alberta finance minister's break with tradition followed by run of bad fortune for UCP. Coincidence?
David J. Climenhaga | The more likely explanation is hubris, incompetence, and an ideology that clearly doesn't work. Still, it wouldn't be the worst thing if finance ministers got the idea they'd better buy new shoes.
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Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews. Image credit: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr
Don't expect UCP to follow Business Council's progressive advice in Alberta's budget
David J. Climenhaga | The big business guys never quite come out and advise Jason Kenney and the UCP to run Alberta like Rachel Notley's NDP did. But that's what they're doing.
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Calgary street preacher Artur Pawlowski addresses supporters at Saturday's tiki-torch march in Edmonton. Image: Artur Pawlowski/Facebook
Extremist rally at Alberta legislature met with silence from UCP
David J. Climenhaga | Jason Kenney's commentary about Saturday's tiki-torch protest in Edmonton wasn't quite a full-throated Trumpian defence of "very fine people," but surely boils down to the same thing.
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Pastor James Coates preaching to his congregation recently. Image: Screenshot of GraceLife Church video
Enforcement of Alberta's pandemic restrictions no threat to defiant pastor
David J. Climenhaga | The religious right in Canada and the U.S. is painting Pastor James Coates as a Christian martyr. Verily, I say unto you, his willingness to go to jail has nothing to do with religious freedom.
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Inquiry Commissioner Steve Allan. Image credit: Government of Alberta
Judge hopes to rule on Ecojustice challenge to Alberta inquiry by May 31
David J. Climenhaga | Whether or not Ecojustice is winning in court is impossible to say. But the group is certainly well ahead in the Canadian court of public opinion.
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An Alberta Health Services ambulance. Image credit: Mitchell Smith/Flickr
Is Alberta's EMS dispatch consolidation plan a prelude to ambulance privatization?
David J. Climenhaga | The only way the UCP's stubborn persistence with this policy really makes sense is if it sets the stage for something else, to wit, privatization of the provincial ambulance service.
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You just can’t make this stuff up. Image: United Conservative Party/Twitter
The Annals of Alberta poetry: United Conservative Party sends out a Kenney Valentine
David J. Climenhaga | Roses are red, violets are blue, stay for the ratio, what else can you do?