[DrCaleb]

llama66 llama66:

Edmonton landlords run 'do not rent' list with hundreds of tenants in private Facebook group
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local- ... book-group

Very much against privacy laws. Reminds me of the No Fly List. No criteria to get on, impossible to get off.

That said, Landlords also have very little recourse against serial vandals or habitual midnight movers.

[DrCaleb]

Why Jason Kenney's cabinet shuffle is a late-day news dump

$1:

That late-afternoon, almost-evening period is when a government or other institution likes to haul out the news releases or announcements that don't produce the rosiest headlines — the stuff officials aren't proud of, and which they'd prefer to not get the same scrutiny, consideration and reaction that announcements put out earlier in the day will get. Most journalists don't punch out at 5 p.m., but they have families and/or microwave dinners to get home to like everybody else.

Typical garbage-time releases include awkward policy flip-flops or damning reports. Cabinet shuffles, though? Highly irregular that would be slotted in at garbage time.

$1:

With Kenney's meeker-than-usual shuffle by email, photojournalists cannot capture images and video footage of the little-captured new Environment Minister Whitney Issik, Children's Services Minister Matt Jones or Infrastructure Minister Nick Milliken — whose roles and actions (or inactions) inevitably will become newsworthy over the next several months.

This way, they are sort of faceless new faces in Kenney's executive team. (Even later in the day, the premier's office issued a government employee's photos of ministers getting sworn in. Visual news releases.)

[bootlegga]

That's an old PR trick - send out a bad news press release late in the day (Friday is the best), then because it's after hours, there is nobody to call and pester you with questions or ask for interviews.

In this case, I don't see it as an issue because after the UCP selects its new leader in October, there could very well be another cabinet shuffle as he/she fills cabinet with supporters (and punishes opponents).

At least this shuffle means work will actually get done with full time ministers, instead of people having two portfolios (Nixon, Panda, etc.) to deal with and struggling to do the job properly. Without an engaged Minister, it's really hard for ministries to get anything done, as they need sign off from the Minister to proceed on almost any initiative/program.

[llama66]

Jesse Kline: Don't try to call the Alberta sovereignty act a negotiating tactic

United Conservative Party of Alberta leadership candidate Danielle Smith’s promise to introduce a so-called Alberta sovereignty act, which would precipitate a constitutional crisis that could easily prove to be the death knell of the Canadian project, should disqualify her in the minds of the electorate.

First proposed in a paper written by former MLA Rob Anderson, University of Calgary political science Prof. Barry Cooper and lawyer Derek From in September 2021, titled the “Free Alberta Strategy,” the Alberta sovereignty act would, in their words, “provide Alberta’s legislature with the authority to refuse enforcement of any specific act of Parliament or federal court ruling that Alberta’s elected body deemed to be a federal intrusion into an area of provincial jurisdiction, or unfairly prejudicial to the interests of Albertans.”

My first thought upon reading this was to wonder how three well-educated experts in law and politics could put forward such a harebrained and clearly unconstitutional proposal. As it turns out, the unconstitutionality of the proposed act is considered a feature, not a bug. “But, but — gasp! — that would be unconstitutional,” wrote Cooper in a defence of the act in Wednesday’s National Post. “Indeed, that is the whole point. The Canadian Constitution has never worked in favour of Albertans, so it needs to be changed.”

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jesse- ... ing-tactic

[DrCaleb]

bootlegga bootlegga:

At least this shuffle means work will actually get done with full time ministers, instead of people having two portfolios (Nixon, Panda, etc.) to deal with and struggling to do the job properly. Without an engaged Minister, it's really hard for ministries to get anything done, as they need sign off from the Minister to proceed on almost any initiative/program.

Except that Nixon is an asshole who has threatened a woman half his size (among other things), and now we have a 'Minister without Portfolio'; aka:Golden Parachute so they get a little more dough after being retired.

Nixon and Shandro should have been marched out of Government, not shuffled to different ministries.

[bootlegga]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

bootlegga bootlegga:

At least this shuffle means work will actually get done with full time ministers, instead of people having two portfolios (Nixon, Panda, etc.) to deal with and struggling to do the job properly. Without an engaged Minister, it's really hard for ministries to get anything done, as they need sign off from the Minister to proceed on almost any initiative/program.

Except that Nixon is an asshole who has threatened a woman half his size (among other things), and now we have a 'Minister without Portfolio'; aka:Golden Parachute so they get a little more dough after being retired.

I don't disagree, but ministries need someone to sign off on things, or work grinds to a halt, so somebody needed to be put in those positions. The problem of course is that most UCP MLAs have serious character deficiencies, so it didn't matter who got picked.

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Nixon and Shandro should have been marched out of Government, not shuffled to different ministries.

Agreed.

[DrCaleb]

'Shame on those responsible': Float in Sundre, Alta. rodeo parade called out as racist

$1:

Politicians and community members have criticized a parade float that appeared in a southern Alberta rodeo over the weekend in which a man with a fake beard and turban is seen riding in a manure spreader with the words "The Liberal" pasted on its side.

Photos of the float, taken Saturday at the Sundre Pro Rodeo, show a man wearing a mask driving the tractor that's pulling the manure spreader.

[DrCaleb]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

'Shame on those responsible': Float in Sundre, Alta. rodeo parade called out as racist

[DrCaleb]

'It was political satire': Lynne Hoff discusses her controversial parade float

$1:

Hoff says it was political satire.

"The last thing it was, was racist," she told CTV News.

"If the leader of the NDP party would have been a blond woman, I'd have been in there. It wasn't anything to do with the Sikh community."

[herbie]

Obvious if it had been a printed editorial cartoon. Not so much in a parade where political comment is unexpected.

[DrCaleb]

Firefighters brought injured toddler to hospital due to lack of ambulances, says Calgary fire chief

[DrCaleb]

https://mobile.twitter.com/abdaniellesm ... 80?lang=fr


Danielle Smith advocates for 'Special Military Operation' in BC, SK and MB.

[herbie]

Obviously it was taken from a trash can and uncrumpled....

[DrCaleb]

'Albertans need to know': UCP ripped for lack of accounting on $4B in COVID-19 spending

[DrCaleb]

Heartland Petrochemical Complex outside Edmonton produces first plastic pellets