Pandemic Politics
Pop Quiz! What do you call a government that runs up record deficits, intervenes in the marketplace, restricts people’s movements and pays workers to stay home? a. Socialist b. Communist c. New [...]
Graham Thomson
Graham Thomson
Who’s Keeping Watch?
As a journalist, covering Alberta’s United Conservative Party government is a bit like trying to jump aboard a speeding locomotive. So much weight is moving at such great velocity that it’s [...]
How Ethical is Alberta’s Governing Party?
We should have seen it coming. The first inkling that controversy would dog Jason Kenney’s victory in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race came not during that contest but a year [...]
Perpetual War
I have always tried to avoid getting into arguments with Alberta premiers. After all, as a journalist it’s my job to question politicians, not quarrel with them. But sometimes premiers seem to [...]
With or Against Him
It’s dog whistle politics without the whistle. Alberta’s new UCP government doesn’t have to come out and admit it’s much less committed to Indigenous issues than the former NDP [...]
Floor Crossings
Anyone who says a leopard can’t change its spots has never met an Alberta provincial politician. Over the years the spot-changing has included Liberal MLAs who “crossed the floor” to become [...]
Imposing Decorum
You may have missed this promise from Jason Kenney in the lead-up to April’s election: “I and our caucus will raise the bar of civility and decorum in the legislature.” It probably didn’t grab [...]
Equalization Rage
It has been called the superglue of Canada’s Confederation. It is also, ironically, one of the things that keeps driving provinces apart. It is ridiculously complicated, made more so by [...]
Alberta’s Watchdogs
He might not be Alberta’s version of US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated President Trump. But he’ll do in a pinch. His name is Lorne Gibson and he’s Alberta’s new Election [...]
Whipsaw Change
If you think at times you’ve got a tough job, just be glad you’re not a member of Alberta’s civil service. These poor souls don’t know if they’re coming or going. They’ve spent the past four [...]
MOST READ
MOST READ
The Plans to Strip-Mine Coal in the Mountains
It looks like spectacular wild country, but some see it more as a big money sandwich.
The top layer of that sandwich is comprised of alpine grasses, forget-me-nots and stonecrop, glacier lilies and ancient, brave pines whose branches have been gnarled and weathered by centuries of wind. In summer, solitaires and ...
Herd Memory
On a cold day in February, I flew over the tightly knit stands of black spruce and jack pine in northwestern Alberta, straining my eyes below, eager to catch sight of a woodland caribou. My dad, a wildlife biologist, called them the “grey ghosts” of the boreal. Woodland caribou have ...
The Big Man in Cargo Shorts
Leonard was the first to find him. The man was face down in the school’s outdoor learning space, next to a planter of basil. He was fat, his calves the size of a turkey dinner, his hair a gnarled mess of seaweed. Leonard wondered if the man was dead and ...