Dec 8 2022 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Would you like Joe Ceci in charge of your retirement money? OK, now I’ve your attention, the next order of business is apologizing to our former provincial treasurer under the previous NDP government. Ceci, the current MLA for Calgary-Buffalo, took enough stick from the likes of me when he was actually looking after Alberta’s books, […]
Feb 3 2020 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — All the pleasant stories and thrilling statistics about our province’s energy industry don’t stack up against one dead kangaroo. That’s why Jason Kenney’s so-called war room is doomed to disappoint. You see, it’s preaching to the already converted while the vast majority of Canadians have no interest in reading copious yarns extolling Alberta’s major industry. […]
Jan 9 2020 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Not that it will come as much of a surprise to folk here in Alberta, but the United Nations has stuck its well-manicured fingers into the very future of Canada’s major energy projects. The UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination — wager there are some juicy expense accounts tied to membership in that […]
Dec 23 2019 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Recently, a rather aggrieved and agitated gentleman wrote to say I was the most despicable man in Calgary. This was in response to my somewhat skeptical viewpoint regarding the growing global belief we’ll all be boiled alive because of climate change, like daft frogs that won’t hop from the heating water. (I prefer thinking of […]
Nov 21 2019 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Well, if nothing else, you have to admire her sheer nerve. Here’s a person who led a major Canadian political party holding the reigns of power in a majority government into an election campaign that proved the most disastrous in our country’s entire history. But that was so many yesterdays ago. So today we’re supposed […]
Apr 15 2019 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Well, if you’re going down to defeat anyhow, then dancing with the one that brought you is as effective an election strategy as any other, I suppose. Maybe that’s why, in the dying days of this provincial campaign, Premier Rachel Notley once again put her faith and Alberta’s economic future into the furtive hands of […]
Dec 10 2018 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — We hear enough from politicians these days so it’s with trepidation I step aside for a few paragraphs to provide a platform for our prime minister to regale us with his worldview. You see, while hardly Churchillian in tone or content, his expressed view is vital in gaining true insight. Therefore it needs reading and […]
Dec 6 2018 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Peter Lougheed would later admit it was the biggest mistake of his long and successful political life. It was, of course, allowing himself to be photographed clinking champagne glasses with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau back in 1981 after the pair had made some tweaks in Alberta’s favour to the reviled National Energy Program, then devastating […]
Apr 2 2018 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Unlike our prime minister, I’ve always figured women are generally a bit smarter than us men. Certainly, when it comes to the actual doing of dumb things in life, the focus group containing all men usually wins hands down. Not being in the habit of patronizing people, I’ve never felt the need to do so […]
Jan 22 2018 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — The good news is there aren’t lots of shady men driving around Calgary trying to lure innocent kids into their cars, offering candy or a chance to pat a puppy. Thankfully, while such worrying instances do occur, they are rare – much less frequent than most people believe. Reports of such happenings are not quite […]
Jan 15 2018 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — The Rainmaker died seven years ago, but if ever his words were needed in Alberta and the rest of Western Canada, it’s today. That would be Keith Davey, believed by many to be the Godfather of the modern Liberal Party of Canada, and affectionately called The Rainmaker by those he helped grab or hang onto […]
Mar 20 2017 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Ben Franklin must be doing the old 360-degree roll in his final Philadelphia resting place at the latest muddle our provincial government has dragged us into. It was old Ben, in discussing the then-recently-signed U.S. Constitution, who declared: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Maybe the premier […]
Mar 17 2017 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — Such were the joys of childhood – throwing firecrackers into sewer pipes and anxiously waiting, homemade spear in hand, the resulting exodus of rats. And kids today think some new app is fun? They haven’t lived. So, arriving in Alberta many years ago, it came as a surprise that here was a land where such […]
Feb 27 2017 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — If you told the Alberta Treasury that today is Monday, what are the chances they’d be able to correctly predict what day tomorrow will be? Probably they’d respond “Thursday,” judging from the hodge-podge of failed predictions and busted assumptions arising in the third-quarter financial update unveiled by Treasurer Joe Ceci. There must have been something […]
Feb 18 2017 — Chris Nelson — Calgary Herald — The problem with these so-called sunny ways that our prime minister is supposed to epitomize is they can easily blind you to the truth. Last week, I watched the much-anticipated first meeting between Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald ‘Tweeter’ Trump with a mix of trepidation and small-minded anticipation – half-expecting the younger Canuck to […]