Jan 24 2020 — Don Braid — Calgary Herald — The talent void in the Conservative party leadership race is prompting strange scenarios among Alberta loyalists. Their first and faintest hope: Stephen Harper comes back, wins the leadership with ease, runs off Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and recreates a Conservative national government. There is no hard evidence for this, but you have to wonder why […]
Jan 21 2020 — Chris Varcoe — Calgary Herald — For Alberta, trade matters. And for the province’s agriculture sector, international trade challenges remain an unpredictable factor in how 2020 will unfold. From the ongoing disruption of Canadian canola sales to China to the potential fallout of a new trade deal between Beijing and Washington, getting goods to market is a pivotal issue in a […]
Jan 20 2020 — Calgary Herald — One-time media baron Conrad Black told a Calgary conference on Alberta’s future that the province’s economic troubles are in part because of a worldwide “holy war” on fossil fuel industries. Black’s keynote speech at Saturday’s Value of Alberta conference touched on topics from the American political landscape to the virtues of capitalism, but focused mostly […]
Jan 19 2020 — Calgary Herald — Alberta autonomy and separatism were the focus for many who attended a conference in Calgary on the province’s future hosted by Alberta Proud, Buffalo Project and Canadians for Democracy and Prosperity. About 700 attendees at the Saturday event, titled The Value of Alberta, packed a room in the Telus Convention Centre in downtown Calgary to […]
Jan 19 2020 — Calgary Herald — Is Alberta’s separation from Canada a possibility that’s even remotely feasible? And what would that process look like in action? Those are some of the questions panellists at a conference about the future of Alberta addressed Saturday afternoon, looking at topic of Wexit — or Western separation — through a legal lens. Richard Jones, a […]
Jan 16 2020 — Vinay Bharadia — Calgary Herald — TV commentator John Oliver famously and hilariously roasted Justin Trudeau in the lead up to the PM’s first electoral win, focusing on the then candidate’s touted “emotional intelligence.” Expertly edited news clips quipped that the junior Trudeau may lack his father’s intelligence but made up for it in his “emotional intelligence.” I’m paraphrasing, but Oliver […]
Jan 16 2020 — Don Braid — Calgary Herald — Quebec’s La Presse has declared that Rona Ambrose won’t run for the Conservative leadership. Albertans who know her scratch their heads and say, what the . . .? “A plant from a Quebec rival, no doubt about it,” says one. Who would that be, if not Jean Charest? Ambrose still hasn’t decided. That’s today’s understanding […]
Jan 15 2020 — Chris Varcoe — Calgary Herald — On the same bitterly cold morning that shareholders in one of the country’s largest petroleum producers officially voted to shift its headquarters to the United States, the prime minister’s special representative for the Prairies stopped in Calgary. It comes after the federal Liberal government was shut out of Alberta and Saskatchewan in October’s election. If […]
Jan 15 2020 — Don Braid — Calgary Herald — It was damned near impossible for the Liberals to turn Quebec into Canada’s happiest, most optimistic province, while killing hopes for millions of people in Alberta and Saskatchewan. But they’ve done it. Brilliantly. We already knew discontent was deep on the Prairies. A new Angus Reid Institute poll shows it’s almost bottomless. Seventy-one per cent […]
Jan 10 2020 — Chris Selley — Calgary Herald — Glee is spreading among Liberal partisans at the thought of Pierre Poilievre succeeding Andrew Scheer as Conservative leader. The theory is he is so pugnacious, so obnoxious, so poisonously, sneeringly partisan as to be literally unelectable.
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 […]
Jan 8 2020 — Don Braid — Calgary Herald — Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland visited Alberta relatives, talked to key politicians, including Premier Jason Kenney, and then blew town without a public word. That was odd, considering the gravity of the issues she’s supposed to be managing. This was a fleeting glimpse of the minority federal Liberals — more cautious, less blustery, less often […]
Jan 6 2020 — Don Braid — Calgary Herald — Disappointed in the Canadian Energy Centre, better known as the war room? You have plenty of company there — including the Alberta government. UCP patience is fading, although not yet exhausted, over slips involving logos and clumsy attacks on Alberta critics. “We obviously would have preferred for things to go more smoothly,” says Christine Myatt, […]
Jan 4 2020 — Calgary Herald — The Canadian oilpatch is concerned that a push led by former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney to demand further climate disclosures and climate risk assessments from global banks could increase scrutiny of investments in the Canadian oilsands and nascent liquefied natural gas sector. Carney is set to leave his current job as Bank of […]
Dec 27 2019 — Don Braid — Calgary Herald — The Alberta NDP’s very bad year almost got much worse on Dec. 9, when Leader Rachel Notley’s vehicle ran off the Queen Elizabeth 2 Highway just north of Olds. Notley had a twinge of fear before staffer Dylan Sloan managed to steer the vehicle into safety fencing on the median. “I did have a moment […]