Swann had his chance to make his move before the election. He fucked up and now he is toast.
Alberta Politics - started May 7, 2015
Thu, 2015-05-14 17:25
#52
Thu, 2015-05-14 18:08
#53
Loser Prentice is addressing the PCs tonite - someone should thank him and his buddys Steve, Rona, and Jason for driving Calagary and Edmonton into a recession.
Thu, 2015-05-14 18:10
#54
Maybe Peter MacKay labelled Alberta Albertastan because the Cons policies were dring it into a recession, eh! 
Thu, 2015-05-14 18:11
#55
Maybe Peter MacKay labelled Alberta "Albertastan" because the Conservative policies were driving it into a recession, eh!
Thu, 2015-05-14 19:03
#56
_
Thu, 2015-05-14 19:19
#57
Not sure I'm comfortable with the expression "right foot" but whatever.
Rachel Notley gets off on the right foot
Rachel Notley’s message has been disciplined and clear — hers will be a government of caution, care and consultation.
Liberals and New Democrats can now also target as many as a dozen new seats in Alberta from Lethbridge to Lesser Slave Lake, and probably another half dozen in northern B.C. and Saskatchewan, whose politics are more influenced by Alberta than their city neighbours to the south. That’s nearly five per cent of the political pie.
As the quintessential practitioner of the most brutal politics, Harper might reflect on Jimmy Cliff’s prophecy about how hard men fall.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/05/14/rachel-notley-gets-...
Thu, 2015-05-14 20:36
#58
What a mess the Conservatives are in, having first lost Alberta and perhaps Canada all in the same year.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/time-to-rebuild-conservatism...
Thu, 2015-05-14 22:24
#59
Barry Cooper has just encouraged the NDP to create a refinery by calling the idea stupid. Maybe Barry Cooper is the stupid one.
NDP's Brian Topp signals new direction for Alberta oil sands
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/05/14/news/ndps-brian-topp-signals-...
Thu, 2015-05-14 22:26
#60
The climate number that changes everything
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/05/14/news/climate-number-changes-e...
Fri, 2015-05-15 09:47
#61
I have never seen a Chief of Staff gets so much publicity - has Rachel even been sworn in yet as Premier?
Brian Topp is high-risk, divisive, brilliant — and an outsider headed to help run Alberta’s NDP
http://www.canada.com/news/national/Brian+Topp+high+risk+divisive+brilli...
Fri, 2015-05-15 09:51
#62
Defeated Prentice faces Tories at annual fundraising dinner
http://www.canada.com/news/Defeated+Prentice+faces+Tories+annual+fundrai...
Fri, 2015-05-15 10:27
#63
Let's abolish lobbying as it is only for the rich and powerful anyways.
And as far as CAPP is concerned take a number and get in line like anyone else.
Oh and by-the-way, Fort McMurray voted for the losing team so don't expect too much.
CAPP offers olive branch to NDP, will form group to work with new government
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/2015/05/14/capp-offers-olive-branch-to-...
Fri, 2015-05-15 12:00
#64
Some calculations I did. The first number is the combined vote of right wing parties (PC, Wildrose, Social Credit, Alliance, Representative) as a % of the total electorate. The second is the combined vote of NDP, Liberals, Green etc. as a % of the total electorate.
1986 27.3 19.6
1989 24.0 29.5
1993 28.7 31.0
1997 31.2 22.5
2001 33.8 19.0
2004 25.7 19.1
2008 24.2 16.0
2012 42.5 11.7
2015 30.2 27.5
Two things to note. The Liberals under Decore in 1989 and 1993 ran to the rights of the PCs on some fiscal issues, and in 2012 many non-conservative voters voted PC to block Wildrose and a smaller number may have voted Wildrose to get rid of the PCs.
Fri, 2015-05-15 14:27
#65
bagkitty
And now there are 54 NDP MLAs... the official count is in for Calgary Glenmore.... and rather than a tie, NDP candidate Anam Kazim was declared the victor by 6 votes.
All the official results - there is still the possibility of a defeated candidate seeking a judicial recount.
Fri, 2015-05-15 16:54
#66
Gotcha politics at its finest.
Canada's right-wing media latest punching-bag.
New NDP MLA in album cover controversy
http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/new-ndp-mla-in-album-cover-contro...
Fri, 2015-05-15 17:41
#67
The NDP gained 50 seats, won 62% of the seats with 41% of the vote.
The PCs lost 60 seats, won 11% of the seats with 28% of the vote.
Wildrose gained 16 seats, won 24% of the seats with 24% of the vote.
Fri, 2015-05-15 23:11
#68
Gotcha politics at its finest.
Canada's right-wing media latest punching-bag.
New NDP MLA in album cover controversy
http://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/new-ndp-mla-in-album-cover-contro...
Well, I dunno. If it was a Conservative MP who had posed for a rape shot on a heavy-metal album cover, I'm pretty sure at least some people on the left would find that worth discussing. NEXT...
Fri, 2015-05-15 23:11
#69
I can't say for sure, but Rebecca Sullivan, of the U Of C Women's Studies department, does not sound like someone who would just be mindlessly repeating right-wing talking points.
Fri, 2015-05-15 23:15
#70
The NDP gained 50 seats, won 62% of the seats with 41% of the vote.
The PCs lost 60 seats, won 11% of the seats with 28% of the vote.
Wildrose gained 16 seats, won 24% of the seats with 24% of the vote.
I do not support direct PR. Mixed member proportional is a better system. Parties that failed to gain many (if any) riding seats can get PR seats to partially make up the difference. This was previously proposed in Ontario and would have added 30 seats to the 107 riding seats.
Sat, 2015-05-16 00:19
#71
Bye, bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Alberta PC party fires nearly its entire staff after election loss
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/alberta-pc-party-fires-near...
Sat, 2015-05-16 17:09
#72
'Parson' Manning, in the pulpit, preaches formula of failure to Alberta's New Democrats
Actually, if you ask me, Manning's idea isn't a bad one at all. The Stoopede, as we knew it in my days as a reporter at the Calgary Herald, is pretentious, dull and consistently cruel to helpless animals. If the organizers of TIFF couldn't make it considerably more entertaining, and notably less cruel, I'd be astonished. But that's just me. Probably spur-wearing Wild West purists would lean toward Manning's point of view on this, as is their right even in the kind of corporate-dominated partial democracy he and his financiers approve of.
Regardless, the person Manning really thinks Notley ought to listen to is … Mr. Manning (either one).
And what he is really trying to do, the clever old boots, is subtly set the narrative and tar Alberta's popular new NDP government by association with the federal NDP led by Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair in Ottawa, which he seems to think will drag Notley's party down a notch or two.
I'm not so sure. After all, recent polling, also not mentioned by Manning in his exhortation, suggests the federal NDP is making a comeback with voters. Just the same, he argues the unnamed-by-him Alberta Premier Designate risks the same fate as the Alberta Liberals when they were kicked out of office in 1921 for being, or so he claims, too closely tied withWilfrid Laurier's Liberal Government in Ottawa.
Could be, I guess. It's been 94 years and I don't recall the details very clearly any more, although I do remember something about Laurier presiding over the creation of the province of Alberta, so it couldn't have been all that bad.
Whatever. Manning also omitted to mention that the unfortunate Alberta Liberals of 1921, who may actually have had quite a lot in common with the unfortunate Alberta Conservatives of 2015, were kicked out of office by the then-rather-NDP-like United Farmers of Alberta led from outside the Legislature by the idealistic Henry Wise Wood.
Which segues nicely into the next Big Message Manning uses the Globe's pulpit to preach, the claim the "dark cloud" that descended on Alberta's conservatives on May 6 'has 'cleared the air' on the centre-right side of the political spectrum."
He goes on to assert that the Alberta Progressive Conservatives last led by Jim Prentice had departed so far from conservative principles they had practically turned into New Democrats themselves.
There are a couple of things hilariously wrong with this presumably intentional misreading of recent Alberta history.
First and most obviously, it ignores the pivotal role Manning himself played in creating the disgust that brought down the Prentice government. Just six months ago he was telling Wildrose MLAs then led by Danielle Smith the PCs had become exactly what Alberta needed and therefore they must betray their democratic role, cross the floor of the House and join Prentice's caucus. Ordinary Albertans were revolted when most of them did.
Does Manning really think our memories are that short?
It is true that there was plenty of strategic voting in the May 5 election -- by rural progressives and moderate urban conservatives alike, all disgusted by the arrogance and entitlement of the Prentice PC Party. But Manning needs to take responsibility for his role in that, specifically his active encouragement of the profoundly undemocratic Wildrose defection debacle.
Second, it is categorically untrue, as Manning suggests, that there is now only one generally accepted model for the conservative movement or the PC Party in Alberta -- his.
As we saw just the day before yesterday, there is another, quite different approach -- that advocated by former premier Ed Stelmach, who urges moving the party's policies back toward the political centre from the dangerous right-wing territory staked out by Manning and his fellow neoliberal ideologues.
So it is quite wrong to suggest all Alberta conservatives are now in agreement on policy, or that all that is required to restore conservative rule in Edmonton is to "unite the right."
What Manning really has in mind is uniting the right behind his radical market fundamentalist project -- which in fact is part of the reason the PC Party in Alberta got into trouble in the first place.
Manning is arguing for Margaret Thatcher's long-discredited slogan, There Is No Alternative to the corporatized market fundamentalist dystopia he and his cronies have in mind for Alberta and Canada.
Well, Notley has just proved that's not true!
Manning ends his sermon with an exhortation to the business community to rise to the challenge of leading the economy when "such leadership is unlikely to be provided by the provincial government." Says who? Manning's blood must run cold at the thought -- quite likely, actually -- that resource prices may soon improve and the economy perk up significantly on Notley's watch.
This would provide the NDP with the opportunity to do what 68 years of incompetent Social Credit and Conservative governments, including the elder Manning’s, failed to do since oil was struck at Leduc in 1947: diversify Alberta's economy enough to weather the peaks and valleys of petroleum price volatility.
I take this to be a coded call by Manning for big business to undermine the government at every turn, even at the risk of harming the economy. If so, there would be nothing unique about it in Canadian political history. The business responses to the NDP governments of Dave Barrett and Bob Rae in B.C. and Ontario, which bordered on open sabotage, spring to mind.
But perhaps I'm now the one letting a tendentious interpretation of history get the better of me. I certainly hope so.
Regardless, Notley would do best to listen to the counsel of the people who truly support her program, and to be mindful of the aspirations Alberta's increasingly moderate and progressive electorate had when it voted for her, not to the likes of Preston Manning. I'm confident she will.
A good place to begin would be for her to ensure passage of her promised legislation banning political donations by corporations and unions.
One idea she could profitably take from Manning, however, would be to urge the Calgary Stampede Board to hire some talented Alberta artists and filmmakers to bring that moribund and cruel spectacle into the 21st Century!
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2015/05/parson-manning-pulp...
Sat, 2015-05-16 18:57
#73
A note for Rachel Notley: A carbon tax is not political suicide
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/a-note-for-rachel-notley-a-c...
Sat, 2015-05-16 20:21
#74
The King is Dead!
Long live the Queen!
Newly-minted-MLA Hoffman promises more money for new students
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/alberta-politics/Newly+minted+Hoffman+...
Sat, 2015-05-16 20:44
#75
Sorry big business community but you need to be brought kicking and screaming into paying your fair share of taxes. Your low or no-tax party is over in Alberta, and hopefully in the rest of Canada as well later on this year.
Sun, 2015-05-17 12:42
#76
Alberta’s election was more about change, less about the NDP, say voters.
http://abacusdata.ca/albertas-election-was-more-about-change-less-about-...
Mon, 2015-05-18 17:28
#77
Who needs pipelines, eh!
In the oil sands, a painful shift to a new normal
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-a...
Mon, 2015-05-18 17:41
#78
Wildrose Grade 10 male student organizing recall campaign before Notley is even sworn in as Premier.
Drever has apologized - time to move on.
-----------------------------------------------
Some political analysts suggest finding candidates without social media baggage will become increasingly difficult in this age.
Mount Royal University political analyst Duane Bratt doesn’t believe the photos are enough to force an MLA to quit or be disqualified.
“This is a young adult doing a stupid thing (as most young 20-year-olds do). What if she was 50 and this photo cropped up of something she did 30 years ago?” he said in a past interview.
Two of the three online petitions launched to call for Drever’s resignation have since closed. A message on one says the petition gained over 900 signatures in 24 hours and that it would be sent to the NDP party to “voice the issue.”
http://globalnews.ca/news/2003973/calgary-student-organizes-protest-to-r...
Mon, 2015-05-18 17:55
#79
Wildrose need to stop with the gotcha politics and come into some 21 century thinking.
Brian Jean should be ashamed of himself for attacking a young newly elected female MLA like this.
Politicians with embarrassing Facebook photos? Get used to it.
Mon, 2015-05-18 18:59
#80
Wildrose need to stop with the gotcha politics and come into some 21 century thinking.Brian Jean should be ashamed of himself for attacking a young newly elected female MLA like this.
Politicians with embarrassing Facebook photos? Get used to it.
Mon, 2015-05-18 19:01
#81
Wildrose need to stop with the gotcha politics and come into some 21 century thinking.Brian Jean should be ashamed of himself for attacking a young newly elected female MLA like this.
Politicians with embarrassing Facebook photos? Get used to it.
i like the tweet quote. can't quote it for some reason here.
Mon, 2015-05-18 19:05
#82
and wtf. i take the picture on the album cover as a reality facing many women all the time... "fear of attack" it says. how in the hell to we get to it glorifying rape?
Mon, 2015-05-18 19:35
#83
DAVEBERTA WROTE:"It is just what happens when you are in high school or university: sometimes you do dumb things and they end up on the internet." NEXT...
Mon, 2015-05-18 19:35
#84
So, university students do dumb things? I don't know if this is the best argument for the NDP to be embracing when some of their elected MLAs are university students at the present time.
Mon, 2015-05-18 19:50
#85
betcha they're NOT first year!!!!
Mon, 2015-05-18 20:39
#86
The people Rachel will now get to meet!
Where there is oil and gas there is Schlumberger
It’s ubiquitous in fossil fuel operations across the world, has more staff than Google, turns over more than Goldman Sachs, and is worth more than McDonald’s – yet you won’t have heard of it. Meet the oil world’s most secretive operator
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/where-there-is-oil-an...
Tue, 2015-05-19 00:31
#87
and wtf. i take the picture on the album cover as a reality facing many women all the time... "fear of attack" it says. how in the hell to we get to it glorifying rape?
Well, the band are the ones doing the raping
Tue, 2015-05-19 11:13
#88
betcha they're NOT first year!!!!
Was Drever at the typical age of a first-year student when that picture was taken? The casette came out in 2012, which would put her at either 23 or 24 at the time of release. Not quite the age group usually implied by "first year of univeristy." NEXT...
Tue, 2015-05-19 11:13
#89
And, anyway, the NDP has run 19 year olds federally, and provincially, at least one 18 year old, in Newfoundland. So, no, I'd say they forfeited the immaturity-of-youth defense a long time ago.
Tue, 2015-05-19 11:16
#90
FWIW, I don't think the defense of immaturity is ever acceptable coming from someone who is above the age of majority. It's one thing to say "I had bad judgement five years ago"(which can be said by anyone of any age), quite another to say "I had bad judgement BECAUSE I was nineteen.
Tue, 2015-05-19 13:13
#91
Do you think Ms. Drover should be required resign her seat? I acknowledge in a typical non-union environment someone would probably be fired for social media posts like this (or more likely, would have never gotten hired in the first place if the employer screened its employees properly). That being said, elected office is different. The voters have already chosen to hire her and more in willful blindness than anything else - nobody bothered to check her out in advance and now she's in. In any case, I'm not sure we've seen anything that actually demonstrates illegal or unethical behavior, the posts are just embarassing and in poor taste.
If you don't think she should be forced to quit, what do you want from Ms. Drover other than an unconditional apology (offered) and a commitment to demonstrate better judgment in her actions in the future (only time will tell).
I'm asking this genuinely and asking all critics on this board not just VoD because your post is above mine.
Tue, 2015-05-19 13:34
#92
If you don't think she should be forced to quit, what do you want from Ms. Drover other than an unconditional apology (offered) and a commitment to demonstrate better judgment in her actions in the future (only time will tell)
No, I don't think she should resign her seat. In fact, all I really think she should do is what she HAS already done, ie. apologize. NEXT...
Tue, 2015-05-19 13:34
#93
My comments weren't really directed against her, they were diretced against the people(eg. Daveberta) who are specifically applying the argument of immaturity. I simply don't think that is a valid defense, and in fact is the kind that can come back to bite you in the ass later on(ie. when you run young candidates and try to argue that they are just as mature as anyone else).
Tue, 2015-05-19 14:26
#94
Let's get off the bullshit.
Why doen't we just focus on how much money the right-wing Alberta government cost taxpayers by not collecting the low oil and gas royalties that the Alberta was entitled to get to the tune of $13 billion dollars.
Wed, 2015-05-20 03:58
#95
Let's get off the bullshit.
Well, you're the one who originally posted the Daveberta article making the argument that I'm criticizing. But now, discussion of the argument is bullshit?
Wed, 2015-05-20 09:24
#96
Wasn't referring to you.
Wed, 2015-05-20 09:49
#97
Oh, okay. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Wed, 2015-05-20 10:40
#98
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/ndp-wil... Macbeth: NDP will take the blame, but Alberta's fiscal future was already written (Globe and Mail)[/url]
For more than a decade, Alberta experienced unprecedented growth in two areas of activity: energy and construction. These booming sectors provided a massive boost for Alberta corporations and households alike.Household incomes in Alberta are much higher than the rest of Canada, distorting housing affordability measures. While much attention has been directed on Vancouver as one of the world’s most expensive housing markets, Alberta’s elevated home prices seldom get mentioned. That’s because housing in Calgary and Edmonton seems almost affordable, even though prices have increased dramatically. The Teranet-National Bank house price index shows gains of 82 and 84 per cent for Edmonton and Calgary respectively since June, 2005.
Even with those gains, house prices in Alberta’s two largest cities stayed within reach because median household incomes have rivalled San Jose, Calif., the “capital of Silicon Valley.” Calgary and Edmonton average more than $90,000, while Canada’s average is $72,000 and Torontonians get by on $74,000. So Albertans, buoyed by higher incomes, willing lenders and frenetic home construction, found houses that they could buy, if not really afford.
Many of these Albertans were young, first-time buyers with minimum down payments – the loan amounts were mind-boggling. I talked to several couples with high-paying jobs who were offered up to $1-million dollars in loans. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. confirms that Albertans led the way in 2014 borrowing, soaking up 23 per cent of insured mortgage funds despite having just 11 per cent of Canada’s population. The average down payment was 7 per cent.
So Alberta’s workers are well housed but saddled with debt and overdependent on employment in the most cyclical sectors of the economy. That economy is already in a slowdown or worse, although most economists still predict modest growth. The Bank of Canada forecasts a 30-per-cent drop in oil and gas investment for 2015.
And now along comes an NDP majority government.
Wed, 2015-05-20 12:32
#99
With NDP Win, Alberta Votes against 40-Year Ideological Infection
Once patient zero in a nation-wide contagion, the province shows resistance.
Canada is the fourth richest country in the world based on resource wealth, and our inventory of timber and petroleum alone is worth some$33 trillion -- a highly attractive host for the spreading contagion of neo-conservatism in the 1980s. Adjusted for population, we are the second wealthiest country in the world, just after Saudi Arabia.
Since Canadian provinces control resource development, Alberta, with its prodigious petroleum bounty, was an even more irresistible target to those spreading Thatcher fever. Convincing independent-minded Albertans that governments should have limited scope was not a difficult sell. However, undermining the courageous work and strong resource oversight of the Peter Lougheed government, which introduced the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, would take patient and persistent effort.
A veritable forest of right-wing think-tanks sprang up in Canada, including the so-called Calgary School, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Fraser Institute. Millions in largely anonymous donations flowed into these conservative coffers, rewarded by charitable tax receipts.
Was this a profitable investment? By 1987, all royalty contributions to the iconic Heritage Fund ceased. Alberta collected only $4.38 per barrel of oil equivalent in 2013 -- one twentieth the amount captured by Norway that same year.
While the economy of Alberta has deteriorated into an inarguable failure, seen through another lens it has been an unbridled success. Those unnamed corporate donors to conservative think-tanks have reaped enormous rewards by accessing globally scarce resources at rock bottom prices. How? By investing in public opinion.
Building immunity
It was a remarkably successful strategy, until the NDP came out of left field with a viable political alternative to the tired PC regime led by Jim Prentice. Who saw that coming? Apparently not Kevin O'Leary. With a healthy majority and another election fully four years away, some backroom business interests accustomed to calling the shots in Alberta are left to bellow from the sidelines.
Will it be trouble-free for the new Notley government? Hardly. As evidenced by recent cacophonous commentary, there are obviously outside interests committed to seeing Alberta fail. But many parties in the business community are willing to work with the new government rather than fight a spiteful and costly war that would last at least 16 financial quarters.
Markets know very well that wealth originates from resources. Canadians as resource owners are finally starting to waken to this, too. Some pundits may posture and snarl, but the whip hand is with the public, and always has been. A more equitable and mutually prosperous future can be negotiated, and may ironically produce public buy-in and certainty that has always been absent in our rather colonial country.
Notley's NDP is not a "dark force" or a disease. It is a moderate and democratically elected government with a mandate that many political parties can only dream of. If anything, it represents an ideological immune response that is long overdue in this country. Let's hope it's catching. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/05/20/NDP-Alberta-Ideological-Infection/
Wed, 2015-05-20 17:28
#100
Notley, 11 cabinet ministers to be sworn in Sunday at legislature
Premier-designate Rachel Notley and her new, smaller cabinet will be sworn in Sunday afternoon during a ceremony at the legislature grounds, nearly three weeks after Albertans gave the NDP a landslide...
9 MINUTES AGO
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Wed, 2015-05-20 17:29
#101
Excellent!
Notley sets some important dates for transition
http://www.630ched.com/2015/05/20/notley-sets-some-important-dates-for-t...