Apr 17 2019 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — If you look up the Alberta government’s own economic review and indicators, you eventually land on a page filled with headlines like this; Alberta labour market softening, Alberta inflation cools, Trade sector stabilizing following recent weaknesses, shipments fall with lower energy prices, Alberta employment starts 2019 on a weak note.
Apr 11 2019 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — The Alberta premier talks to Jen Gerson about her economic plan, her working relationship with Justin Trudeau and what it will really take to get Trans Mountain built. Only days before Albertans prepared to go to the polls, NDP leader Rachel Notley sat down with Jen Gerson to discuss pipelines, her political relationship with Justin […]
Apr 7 2019 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — Since the writ has dropped, I have been slow to write about what has become a clear and malignant “bozo eruption” problem within the United Conservative Party. Other media outlets and columnists are already offering reporting and insight into the numerous examples of UCP candidates who have publicly offered dodgy, racist, or homophobic comments in […]
Mar 28 2019 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — At least one donor to the kamikaze candidate campaign to undermine Jason Kenney’s key rival in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race has told Maclean’s he didn’t believe he was doing anything wrong when he handed over thousands of dollars. Jeff Park said he thought he was being a team player when he gave […]
Mar 22 2019 — Jen Gerson — CBC — Those who read my columns regularly will have already surmised that my politics lean centre, centre-rightish, depending on the day. To use the banal stereotype, one might class me as closer to the right on fiscal issues, and to the left on social ones. But, like most voters, it’s all a touch a la carte […]
Mar 19 2019 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — New evidence shows it was backed in part by a quiet $60,000 payment from a corporate entity into the personal account of a staffer. Alberta United Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney and his senior campaign team aided and coordinated with a ‘kamikaze’ candidate to undermine rival Brian Jean during a 2017 leadership contest; further, that […]
Mar 12 2019 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — With the writ set to drop within weeks or days in Alberta, pre-election jiggery has been shaking out as anyone might have predicted. Behind in the polls, the party of premier Rachel Notley has already set a deeply negative and personal tone, focusing on Jason Kenney’s long record of conservatism on abortion and LGBTQ issues.
Mar 4 2019 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — It is at this point in the scandal, with the resignation of one of Justin Trudeau’s most competent and respected cabinet ministers, that a professional political speculator must begin to ask whether the Prime Minister can survive all the way to the fall election. It is hard to imagine a more damaging defection than that […]
Mar 1 2019 — Jen Gerson — Globe and Mail — To live in a country forever in the shadow of America has some blessings. Among them, there’s this: we can never quite beat their political drama. On Wednesday, however, Canada might have done it. While the testimony of Donald Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, transfixed the world, the reports originating out of an entirely different […]
Feb 21 2019 — Jen Gerson — Globe and Mail — We are just two weeks into the SNC-Lavalin affair, and already this scandal has exhausted a country’s goodwill, its credulity – and its store of metaphors for political ritual-suicide and murder. A weary nation can tolerate no more references to the bullet, the sword or the bus under which one is thrown. A column attempting […]
Dec 19 2018 — Jen Gerson — CBC — Let it be noted for the record: Alberta may be the first province in history to lament the arrival of buckets of money. Earlier this week, the federal government announced $1.6 billion in commercial support — $1 billion intended to help oil and gas companies diversify their markets and invest in new technology. Another $500 […]
Dec 3 2018 — Jen Gerson — CBC — There will, no doubt, be those who believe that Alberta Premier Rachel Notley finally got her most closely guarded wish on Sunday night when she announced she would cut oil production by 8.7 per cent. That she, as an oilsands-hater, finally dunked the industry in policy molasses, to the delight of her covert environmentalist allies. […]
Oct 7 2018 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — Sitting at the back of Jason Kenney and Doug Ford’s “Scrap the Carbon Tax” rally, it became clear how this is all going to work. It’s the Friday night before the long weekend and a windowless conference hall in downtown Calgary is standing room only, more than a thousand people inside. Another 200 were locked […]
Aug 23 2018 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — It speaks to just how shallow and affected my cynicism actually is that I never thought I would have to write this column. But if Maxime Bernier is going to try to ride the great global alt-right wave by spewing nativist rhetoric, complaining about “more diversity,” and raising the spectre of a breakdown of social […]
Aug 14 2018 — Jen Gerson — Maclean's — Brian Pallister figures it must have taken his father, a lifelong farmer and a man of few words, more than a week sitting on his tractor to formulate a response to his son’s first political win. It is 1992 and Pallister the younger has been elected to the provincial legislature. “He says, ‘Congratulations, boy. If […]