Battleground Alberta? Not a term you’d usually use to describe the province during federal election campaigns. I mean, Alberta votes so solidly right-wing they should stop counting the Conservative ballots and simply weigh them. But what if Alberta becomes a battle of sorts that could affect the outcome of the October 21 election? What if the Conservatives and Liberals are in…

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 Conservatives, a New Democrat who became a Conservative, a Conservative who became a New Democrat, Conservatives who became Wildrosers, and, in the infamous stampede of 2014, 11 Wildrosers who became…

For Alberta premiers it is the pilgrimage: The business trip to the United States. Premiers have been doing it for the past 50 years, all with cap-in-hand and all pretty much singing the same slogan: “Alberta is open for business.” Now it’s Jason Kenney’s turn. This week he travelled to New York where he spoke with business reporters, made a speech to…

Reading the sky-is-falling report from the Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s Finances should give you a dreaded feeling of deja vu. The report — and the rhetoric surrounding it — sound remarkably similar to the political arguments made by then-premier Ralph Klein 25 years ago to invoke massive cuts to government spending and services. Back then Klein summed up the state…