CBC The National reporter Ian Hanomansing interviews Dave Cournoyer on the day before Alberta’s 2023 provincial election (source: CBC)
I’ve been writing about Alberta politics since 2005 and it’s been a wild ride
It was 2005.
After a short stint on the dysfunctional Calgary Board of Education, former Fraser Institute intern Danielle Smith was in her fifth year as a columnist and editorial board member at the Calgary Herald. Smith joined the Herald a few years earlier while the journalists who worked for the paper were on strike.
Harvard-educated Naheed Nenshi was teaching non-profit management at Mount Royal College in Calgary. Nenshi was recovering from an unsuccessful first campaign for city council the year earlier and was about to build his profile as a civic affairs columnist in the same newspaper that employed Smith.
And somewhere on the University of Alberta campus in Edmonton, a young political science student named Dave plucked away at his laptop keyboard writing posts to publish on his new blog, Daveberta.
A lot has happened in the 20 years since. Time flies when you’re having fun.
I never expected or planned to still be writing about Alberta politics today but it turns out that it was something I enjoyed doing and people enjoyed reading, so I kept it up. And I’m glad I did.
To celebrate 20 years of Daveberta, I’m happy to offer free subscribers a 20 percent discount on an annual paid subscription ($40/year down from the regular $50/year). Paid subscribers get full access to all Daveberta newsletters and columns, full episodes of the Daveberta Podcast and a shout out on the podcast, and special Alberta politics extras.
Ten years ago, on January 21, 2005, I sat down at a computer in a University of Alberta library and launched the blog known as daveberta.
Malcolm Mayes’ Edmonton Journal political cartoon in January 2008 (I’m the Mac).
I had no idea at the time where the blog would take me. Blogging was new and I started one because many of my friends had started their own. Initial posts were more personal and not necessarily limited to politics, but the blog soon focused almost entirely on Alberta politics.
Ever since I was in junior high school, I have taken a keen interest in Alberta politics. The world of blogs, still relatively young when I was a university student in 2005, offered a great venue for a young political science student to share his opinions and observations. I was immediately hooked.
With Liberal MLA Kent Hehr in 2011.
The readership of this blog has grown enormously over the past ten years and I only once came close to shutting it down. In December 2007, after returning to the University of Alberta and planning to focus on my studies, I received a letter from a lawyer representing Premier Ed Stelmach. The Premier gave me new reasons to continue blogging and helped boost my readership considerably. The rest is history.
The world of blogging has changed a lot over the past ten years. Blogs have become more sophisticated and many aggregators, once hubs for links and readers, have disappeared as social networks like Facebook and Twitter have allowed bloggers to reach greater audiences.
With PC MLA David Dorward in 2014.
Writing this blog has led to many great opportunities over the past ten years. I have spoken at dozens of conferences, interviewed politicians of all stripes and participated in dozens of media panel discussions – including as a regular panelist on the Alberta Primetime politics panel.
I am also humbled to have received a few awards for this blog, including Best Political Blog and Best Progressive Blog in the 2007 Canadian Blog Awards. More recently, I placed second in the 2014 Canadian Weblog Awards and was nominated for a Yeggie in 2013. In 2010, I had the privilege of being named one of Edmonton’s Top 40 under 40 by Avenue Magazine.
With Don Iveson in 2007.
My opinions and political allegiances have shifted over the years. For the first four years of this blog, I supported the Liberal Party and had the pleasure of working for Edmonton MLA Kevin Taft when he led the Official Opposition Party. When he stepped down from the leadership, I drifted for a time towards the Alberta Party and had the opportunity to volunteer alongside some great people in that organization.
Now, as a non-partisan, I feel free to write about Alberta politics without a partisan lens. It is refreshing.
With Justin Trudeau in 2014.
As the disclaimer on this blog reads, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time and I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of the various ideas running around my brain, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today.
I do not know whether this blog will last another ten years, but so long as I continue to enjoy writing about Alberta politics, and have the time to do so, I will do so. Blogging is a great hobby and Alberta politics continues to offer great content.
To the readers, commenters, and occasional guest contributors who continue to return to this blog to follow Alberta politics, I offer a heart-felt Thank You.
