“The province is facing a fiscal crisis because of a sudden drop in the price of oil. Isn’t this territory as familiar as the back of our hands? Oh, the causes might be new — the COVID-19 virus playing havoc with stock markets as a spat between Russia and Saudi Arabia wreaks chaos with oil prices — but the territory…

When is a “war room” not a war room? Well, when it’s the “Alberta Information Centre.” When is what looks suspiciously like an anti-union campaign not an anti-union campaign? Well, when it’s an “Employee Labour Relations Support Program.” Say hello to the season of the euphemism in Alberta politics.

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…