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Alberta Debate Live Blog
6:35 pm: Fairly flat opening statements for all four leaders. Vision, future, prosperity, puppies, sunshine. 6:42 pm: Health Care starts with a very substantive discussion between Sherman and Redford, then Mason and Sherman tag team arguing the “two conservative parties” want to privatize Health Care. 6:48 pm: You know what this debate is missing? Gilles […]
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Alberta Votes Day 18: Debate Night in Edmonton
More often than not, the Alberta leader’s debate is a mere formality, intended to create a vaneer of democracy in a province where elections tend to be meaningless. It’s barely worth watching, because even if someone delivers the mythic “knock out punch”, it doesn’t affect the election outcome. Hell, had Ed Stelmach literally gone over […]
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Alberta Votes Day 17: Conservatives Attack Conservatives for Being Conservative
Alberta Tories play race card, call Wildrose party of old, white men in election EDMONTON – Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives appear to be actively painting their Wildrose opposition as the party of old, white males. Tory strategists in recent days have begun warning voters that the Wildrose roster of candidates is dominated by Caucasian males and […]
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Alberta Votes Day 15: Paging Stockwell Smith
Like Stephen Harper in 2006, Danielle Smith now has 5 priorities, highlighted by an Accountability Act. However, in proposing citizen-initiated referendum, Smith evoked memories of an equally photogenic Albertan leading an upstart party. Remember this? Smith’s referendum idea has a higher threshold than Stockwell’s, but is equally wreckless. After all, she has left the door […]
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Alberta Votes Day 14: Party of One
Notes from week 2 of the Alberta election, as Alison Redford tries to resurrect her campaign over Easter Weekend. 1. Daveberta’s post on the Wildrose Party’s more controversial candidates has generated over 100 responses and heavy online debate – not surprising, given the limited coverage by the mainstream media on this topic so far. Which […]
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Alberta Votes Day 12: Who says a 40 year old government can’t come up with new ideas?
Raj Sherman delivers perhaps the best line of the campaign so far: ‘Alison Redford Invents Triage’ Alberta’s Tory leader has announced money for faster treatment in emergency rooms, but the Grit leader — an ER physician — says the program is already in place. Tory Leader Alison Redford said patients with serious injuries will be […]
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Alberta Votes Day 11: A Wild Wave Sweeps Across Alberta
Dear Wildrose Party candidates, It’s time to book a return ticket from Vegas: Wildrose pulling ahead of PCs in election campaign: poll Wildrose poised for majority in Alberta: poll New Poll: Wildrose up by 17 points While the Wildrose lead ranges from 7 to 17 points on these polls, the trend is clear on all […]
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Alberta Votes Day 9: Ralphbucks Returns
On Sunday, the Wildrose Party released an April Fools press release, proposing to merge Alberta and Saskatchewan. On Monday, they took the silliness up a level: Wildrose promises cash rebates to Albertans if oil money creates budget surplus CREMONA, Alta. – Alberta’s Wildrose party is promising free oil money for all if it win’s the […]
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Alberta Votes Day 8: Losing control of the agenda
One week into the election, and Alberta’s 40 year PC dynasty is on the ropes. It’s premature to write the obituaries, but it’s never too early to write about what went wrong – and what went wrong in week one was a complete inability of Alison Redford to control the agenda. One day, the Tories […]
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Alberta Votes Day 5: This time, when we say "It’s time", it really is time
A collection of random nuggets from the first week on the campaign trail… 1. The leader’s debate has been set for 6:30 mountain time on Thursday, April 12th. Unless of course, the Flames make the playoffs and play that night, in which case the leaders will fall over each other to demand it get moved. […]