Author: Dave Cournoyer

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Alberta Politics

Teachers used to be part of the PC Party big blue tent

Teachers used to be an important part of the big blue voter coalition that made the old Progressive Conservative Party an electoral juggernaut from 1971 to 2015.

There was even a former ATA President, Halvar Johnson, who served as a PC MLA under premiers Peter Lougheed and Don Getty and later as a cabinet minister in Premier Ralph Klein’s government. The relationship between teachers and the PC government had its rocky moments, but it was still common for teachers and even ATA officials to attend and participate in debates and votes at PC Party conventions.

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Alberta Politics

Breaking the ATA is in the official UCP policy book

Breaking up the ATA and making membership in the union optional for teachers are actual official UCP policies that were enthusiastically passed by delegates at the party’s convention last year in Red Deer.

In defending the policy to make membership optional, the UCP constituency association from Innisfail-Sylvan Lake wrote that the ATA is “supporting many controversial progressive ideologies that do not represent the values of many teachers who are forced to pay dues in order to maintain employment in this province.”

The policy was passed weeks after anti-sexual health education protests organized by UCP-connected activists were held outside the ATA’s offices in Edmonton. The political mood of those protests align with Nicolaides moral panic book ban fiasco and the government’s targeting of transgender and female students who want to play school sports.

But partisan conservatives didn’t always feel this way about teachers.

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Alberta Politics

Posh private schools get public funding in Alberta

Looming large over the government’s labour dispute with teachers in public, Catholic, and Francophone schools is the lavish funding the province spends on private schools.

Private schools in Alberta get 70 per cent per-student funding from the provincial government, which is the highest of any province in Canada. That tops BC, which funds private schools between 35 and 50 per cent, Saskatchewan, which funds up to 50 per cent. Ontario and the Atlantic provinces do not fund private schools at all.

Although there is a wide spectrum of private schools that provide different types of education to different groups of students, some of the private institutions receiving generous public funding include elite schools tailored to Calgary’s wealthiest families and charge more than $20,000 in annual tuition.

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Alberta Politics

UCP cries poverty on funding but promises to build more schools

While the government cries poverty when it comes to the per-student funding, classroom sizes, and salary increases teachers are asking for, Premier Danielle Smith frequently points to her big promises of capital investments in the education system.

Smith promised in a televised address last year that the UCP government would build 130 new schools by 2031, which is a lot, but with the student population of the province growing by more than 33,000 per year (Smith’s number), that’s just playing catch up.

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Alberta Politics

UCP Government ads are slicker than it’s spokespeople

The UCP government launched a series of advertisements shortly after the ATA announced its plans to strike. The ads promote what the government describes as “a good plan” and are short, easy to understand, and are framed as a policy proposal rather than a bargaining position.

Where the paid advertising ends and the spokespeople start talking is when the government’s messaging starts going off the rails.

The government’s messaging was derailed last week when senior UCP staffer Bruce McAllister publicly berated a high school student for asking a question about the teachers’ strike and private school funding during the Alberta Next panel town hall in Calgary. McAllister, a former news anchor-turned-Wildrose Party MLA who now runs the Premier’s Office in Calgary, told the young man that his parents should spank him before he cut off his microphone.

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s UCP digging in for a long teachers’ strike

Premier Danielle Smith, Minister of Finance Nate Horner, and Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides say they are disappointed with the strike but have given no indication they were eager to return to the bargaining table to, well, actually bargain.

Smith, Horner and Nicolaides have signalled that they are prepared for a long teachers strike, and, despite claiming the cupboards are bare, the government will pay parents $30 a day to do teachers’ jobs from home, sort of, during a strike.

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Alberta Politics

Teachers on strike in Alberta!

Teachers and supporters after their daily morning picket near the Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton (photo credit: Brad Lafortune)
Teachers and supporters after their daily morning picket near the Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton (photo credit: Brad Lafortune)

More than 51,000 teachers launched the largest strike the history of their profession in Alberta

Schools are empty this week as more than 51,000 Alberta teachers in public, Catholic and Francophone schools launched the largest strike the history of their profession in Alberta.

The strike comes shortly after members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association overwhelmingly rejected a new contract for a second time in less than six months, with more than 90% voting against the proposal in the final days of September.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith vs. Alberta’s teachers

Danielle Smith speaks at an all-candidates forum in Edmonton during the 2009 Wildrose Alliance leadership race. (source: Dave Cournoyer)
Danielle Smith speaks at an all-candidates forum in Edmonton during the 2009 Wildrose Alliance leadership race. (source: Dave Cournoyer)

With more than 43,000 members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association overwhelming rejecting the latest contract offer from the provincial government and an October 6 teachers strike fast approaching, a lot of people have been sharing links to a series of articles I wrote 16 years ago about Premier Danielle Smith’s disastrous time on the Calgary Board of Education in the late 1990s.

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Alberta Politics

Hey Dave! Who’s going to be the next Mayor of Edmonton?

Edmonton mayoral candidate Michael Walters (source: Michael Walters / Facebook)
Edmonton mayoral candidate Michael Walters (source: Michael Walters / Facebook)

The latest public opinion poll shows current councillors Tim Cartmell and Andrew Knack and former councillor Michael Walters leading the pack in a close three way race. But with nearly 50 percent of voters saying they are undecided, it could be anyone’s to win.

The Cardinal Research poll showed Walters with 15 per cent support and Cartmell and Knack with 13 per cent each, and 48 per cent of voters undecided. I don’t want to focus too much on the horse race, but that poll shows a pretty tight race in a big open field.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

All about Alberta politics in Fall 2025

Alberta’s Legislature Building through the view of a broken glass panel in summer 2025 (credit: Dave Cournoyer)
Alberta’s Legislature Building through the view of a broken glass panel in summer 2025 (credit: Dave Cournoyer)

Danielle Smith and Naheed Nenshi will spar in the Legislature but the most interesting politics will be on the road

A recent fundraising email from Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi with the subject line “Sooner than we think?” includes speculation that Smith’s United Conservative Party is “so afraid of losing power, they’re trying everything to give themselves an unfair advantage. Including US-style gerrymandering.”

Nenshi’s “US-style gerrymandering” comment was a reference to UCP cabinet minister Nathan Neudorf’s controversial proposal to split the southern Alberta city of Lethbridge into four sprawling rural-urban ridings (a story that was first reported on Daveberta). It’s certainly clear what Neudorf’s preference is, but whether it gets included in the soon to be submitted interim report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission is yet to be seen.

The new boundaries will certainly play a big role in the next provincial election but regardless of how the provincial map is redrawn, most voting intention polls show not much has changed since the last provincial election. That vote resulted in two-way race between the UCP and NDP, with Smith’s party’s dominance over almost all of the rural and small city ridings giving them a numerical edge against Rachel Notley’s Edmonton-based NDP.

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Alberta Politics

William Aberhart baby found!

William Aberhart was Premier of Alberta from 1935 to 1943.
William Aberhart was Premier of Alberta from 1935 to 1943.
Social Credit supporters named election night baby, William Aberhart Holman, after radical Alberta premier

Amidst the celebratory headlines, a tiny box on the bottom right corner of the front page noted a milestone for another William Aberhart – William Aberhart Holman. It was a birth notice.

Titled ‘First Social Credit Baby,’ the one-paragraph notice announced that a Mr. and Mrs. A.B. Holman gave birth to a child at Griffiths Lake at 10:30 p.m. on the night of the senior Aberhart’s electoral win. The Social Credit-supporting couple decided to mark the moment by naming the baby after Alberta’s new premier.

“Hearty congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Holman from the Chronicle and all Social Credit Supporters” the short noticed concluded.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

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Alberta Politics

Kansas Governor John Leedy tried, tried and tried again to get elected in Alberta

John Leedy served as Governor of Kansas from 1896 to 1898.
John Leedy served as Governor of Kansas from 1896 to 1898.

Alberta’s history is filled with colourful characters and perhaps one of the most unlikely was John Whitnaw Leedy. But before Leedy even arrived in Alberta in 1910 and set his eyes on elected office in this province, he had already served as the Governor and a State Senator in Kansas and a mayor and city attorney in Alaska.

Born in Ohio in 1849, Leedy was elected to the Kansas State Senate in 1893 and served there until he was elected Governor of Kansas in 1896 by leading the Populist Party ticket to a sweep in that year’s election.

Asked what in his opinion caused the defeat of the Republicans in that year’s election, Leedy told the Kansas City Gazette in November 1896 that “I attribute the defeat of the Republican party in Kansas more to the fact that the state of Kansas is for free silver, than to any other cause.”

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Alberta Politics

Moral panic! UCP book ban explodes as government on brink of major labour dispute with Alberta’s teachers

Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides (foreground) and Minister of Finance Nate Horner (background) (source: Government of Alberta / Flickr)
Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides (foreground) and Minister of Finance Nate Horner (background) (source: Government of Alberta / Flickr)

Summer is coming to an end. Labour Day is just behind us and students are heading back to school. But it looks like Alberta teachers and the United Conservative Party government are on the brink of a major labour dispute.

It’s been 23 years since the last province-wide teachers strike in Alberta and the impasse at the bargaining table has increased the possibility of another major job action.

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Alberta Politics

Not even close. Pierre Poilievre wins a landslide victory in Battle River-Crowfoot

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre posing with the Reynolds Raiders horse-mounted outlaw gang in Big Valley, which is part of the Alberta Prairie Railway tour (source: Pierre Poilievre / Instagram)
Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre posing with the Reynolds Raiders horse-mounted outlaw gang in Big Valley, which is part of the Alberta Prairie Railway tour (source: Pierre Poilievre / Instagram)

Independent Bonnie Critchley finishes a distant but respectable second

As was widely expected, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre had no problem winning yesterday’s federal by-election in the Conservative stronghold of Battle River—Crowfoot. Poilievre’s commanding lead was clear the moment the first poll was reported shortly after 8:30 p.m., which showed the party leader with 437 votes compared to a combined 49 votes for all the other candidates in the race.

After a long night of counting the write-in ballots, Elections Canada reported that Poilievre was elected with 40,548 votes — 80.4 percent of the total votes cast in the by-election. Poilievre’s landslide win is fell just short of the 82.8 percent earned by former and future MP Damien Kurek just a few months ago, but shows that Conservative Party support remains solid in this sprawling rural Alberta riding.

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Alberta Politics

Daveberta marks 20 years

Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin presents Dave Cournoyer with a celebratory scroll marking the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Daveberta.
Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood MLA Janis Irwin presents Dave Cournoyer with a celebratory scroll marking the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Daveberta.

Thank you to everyone who has shared kind words and notes of congratulations as I mark 20 years of writing about Alberta politics on Daveberta. This week I had the real honour meeting with my MLA, Janis Irwin, who presented me with a celebratory scroll marking the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Daveberta. Thank you, Janis!

Daveberta readers will also know Irwin as the 5-time winner in the Best Alberta MLA category in the annual Best of Alberta Politics Awards.

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