– The Government of Alberta has purchased +$50,000 newspaper advertisements in Washington DC and written a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defending the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to Texas. The pipeline is facing opposition from Democratic Representative Henry Waxman, who currently Chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The provincial government also employs former cabinet minister Gary Mar as a permanent envoy in the American capital and frequently sends cabinet ministers and MLAs to conferences and trade meetings in the United States.
– Members of the United Nurses of Alberta have voted to ratify a new collective agreement that includes a 6%-pay increase over three years. Both the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald editorial boards have praised the agreement.
– At the age of 40-years, two-term Wood Buffalo Mayor Melissa Blake is a hot political commodity.
– The Alberta PC Party has hired Brent Harding as their Director of Communications.
– The Liberals purchased newspaper ads calling for cooperation with other parties and received cool responses from the NDP and Alberta Party.
– Former MLA Dan Backs is gearing up to run for City Council against Councillor Ed Gibbons. Both men are former MLAs for Edmonton-Manning. Mr. Gibbons sat as a Liberal MLA from 1997 to 2001, and Mr. Backs sat as a Liberal from 2004 until he was ejected from the Opposition caucus in 2006. After being defeated by Peter Sandhu when seeking the PC nomination in 2007, he placed third in his bid for re-election as an Independent in 2008.
– Jim Hillyer has been nominated as the Conservative candidate in Lethbridge for the next federal election. The federal Liberals held their candidate nomination in Edmonton-St. Albert last night.
– Jim Silye has been appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as chair of the board of the Museum of Science and Nature in Ottawa. Mr. Silye served as the Reform Party MP for Calgary-Centre from 1993 until 1997. Mr. Silye was defeated by Wayne Cao in the Calgary-Fort Progressive Conservative candidate nomination in 1997. In 2000, he ran as the PC candidate in Calgary-West against Canadian Alliance MP Rob Anders and Liberal candidate Frank Bruseker.
Read more in the Alberta Politics Notes archive.
6 replies on “alberta politics notes 7/09/2010”
Rats. That link to the Edmonton-St. Albert nomination meeting has disappeared already. But thanks for the heads-up; will hunt down further.
I am going to see if I can find out the results today.
Kevin Taron is the nominated Liberal candidate in Edmonton-St. Albert.
Oh Lord, the Dan Backs website is hilarious. It’s amazing how a little retroactive revisionism can turn a psychotic imbecile with bad teeth into “the most effective MLA in years”.
Technically, if success is measured in cheeseburger consumption, that would be correct. However…
At any rate, I for one am glad he’s back in the public sphere. People who refer to themselves in the third person are just too precious to fade away.
Thanks Dave!
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