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Nov 25 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — The Danielle Smith government intends to put its Sovereignty Act into action next week to shield Alberta power companies from the proposed federal clean electricity regulations, CBC News has learned. The province will use the controversial law to introduce a resolution in the legislature that declares Ottawa’s plan to slash grid emissions an unconstitutional federal […]
Nov 23 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Reform Party founder wrote imaginary post-COVID review, then repeated ideas for actual government panel. Preston Manning’s report on the government’s COVID response concluded that emergency management agencies should lead over the health department, demanded economic impact assessments for any health protections and criticized the courts’ deference to “demonstrably justifiable” limits on freedoms. You might think […]
Nov 5 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Alberta’s premier leads a party whose most active members almost unanimously want the province to refuse to house trans women in women’s prisons, and require schools to tell parents if their children want to secretly change their pronouns, as New Brunswick and Saskatchewan have controversially done. United Conservative Party members also voted unanimously at their […]
Nov 3 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — David Parker’s bespectacled eyes widened as the leader of Take Back Alberta told fellow political activists what will go down at the United Conservative Party’s annual convention this weekend. It’s different from what most traditional politicos will say is happening at Calgary’s BMO Centre — a political schmoozefest where members get to clap thundersticks for […]
Oct 31 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Better make room for more neighbours, Albertans. So many more. If the premier has it right, the province’s population is on track to more than double in the time it will take my three-year-old to turn 30. And in this mid-century, 10-million-person future of Smith’s telling, you can take trains from Banff to Calgary and […]
Oct 29 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — When Danielle Smith says Albertans would save $1,425 a year in an Alberta Pension Plan and other Canadians would pay “only” $175 more, the Alberta premier is trying to excite one group of people and calm the jitters of another. But if these are the numbers Smith is using, then she’s adding an extra layer […]
Oct 26 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — It may seem like a pile-on by now to Premier Danielle Smith and the United Conservatives. The Tory-run Ontario government came out Wednesday sounding the same alarm about Alberta’s pension-plan flirtation as have (deep breath) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, the Alberta NDP, British Columbia’s premier, Newfoundland and Labrador’s premier, the Calgary […]
Oct 21 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — It’s not clear if Pierre Poilievre had already devised a position on Alberta’s proposed quitting of the Canada Pension Plan, but the Conservative leader issued one barely a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proclaimed his own stance. The Liberals’ unusually forceful opposition to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s pension ambition has doubled as a political […]
Oct 19 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Jim Dinning, engagement panel chair: Thank you, Duane from Camrose. We appreciate all your comments on the potential Alberta Pension Plan. Isn’t this telephone town hall format a swell idea? Sarah, please put through the next call. Operator: Our next commenter is Justin, and he’s on the line from Ottawa. OK, so it didn’t quite […]
Oct 7 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can usually only count on polite applause when he’s talking to an Alberta business crowd. But when executives hosted him this week at an Ottawa reception, he found one line worked surprisingly well — praise for the national pension program that Premier Danielle Smith wishes to exit. In a list of […]
Sep 22 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Premier Danielle Smith may have wanted Alberta to go it alone on pensions for more than two decades, but to fulfil her dreams she’ll have to convert a wary Alberta public. Polls have shown Albertans clearly don’t dream her dream with her. Pick your pollster: it was opposed by a margin of 31 per cent […]
Sep 17 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Danielle Smith believes in a bright future for zero-emission vehicles, of the sort that virtually no one uses in Alberta today. Remember in the middle of Alberta’s Hot Donair Summer, when the premier walked hand in hand with somebody in a buzzworthy government surplus costume through a food festival?
Sep 1 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — More due later from Premier Smith’s $330M pledge in deal with city and Flames owners. The United Conservative government has approved the first slice of provincial funding it offered for the Calgary Flames’ arena project, as part of the deal announced with the City of Calgary and team owners before last spring’s election. When Premier […]
Jun 23 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — Consequences have spread beyond the former public health official’s employment status. We know who hired Dr. Deena Hinshaw to a new role supporting public and preventive health in Alberta. We don’t know who un-hired her. But we’re starting to learn about the consequences of that somebody’s decision to rescind the appointment of Alberta’s former top […]
Jun 1 2023 — Jason Markusoff — CBC — It was eight minutes into her 12-minute victory speech when Danielle Smith got into the stuff the United Conservative crowd liked more than anything, other than the victory itself. The “warning to Ottawa” — the one she said she hoped Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberals were listening to (at a few minutes before […]