Tag: Nate Horner

Evasive maneuvers! Alberta politics on a collision course!

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 24, 2025

A large rally of around 30,000 striking teachers gathered outside the Legislature to welcome MLAs back for the fall session on October 23 (source: @atalocal8 / Instagram)

A loud crowd of 30,000 teachers and their supporters welcomed MLAs back to the Legislature

When MLAs returned to the Legislature yesterday for the Speech from the Throne and the start of the fall session they were welcomed back by a very large and very loud crowd of around 30,000 Alberta teachers.

More than 51,000 teachers from public, Catholic, and Francophone schools across the province have been on strike since October 6 with workload challenges being their biggest issue, namely class sizes and per-student funding.

Instead of getting back to the bargaining table to negotiate a deal that could satisfy both the government and teachers, Premier Danielle Smith has signalled her government’s plans to fasttrack back to work legislation — and there is wide speculation that it could use the constitutional sledgehammer known as the Notwithstanding Clause to block any court challenges of the law.

The Order Papers for next week shows that Minister of Finance Nate Horner will soon introduce Bill 2: Back to School Act along with motions to severely limit debate at all stages of reading. With a 6 vote majority in the Legislature, UCP MLAs should have no problem pushing it through swiftly, though the opposition NDP can be expected to try its best to delay the passage of the bill.

Breaking the ATA is in the official UCP policy book

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 12, 2025

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.

Posh private schools get public funding in Alberta

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 11, 2025

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.

UCP cries poverty on funding but promises to build more schools

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 11, 2025

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.

UCP Government ads are slicker than it’s spokespeople

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 10, 2025

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.

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

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 10, 2025

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.

Teachers on strike in Alberta!

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 9, 2025

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

Alberta Politics

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

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date September 2, 2025

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.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

Alberta Politics

Battle River-Crowfoot by-election should be a Poilievre landslide

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date July 10, 2025

Premier Danielle Smith and Conservative by-election candidate Pierre Poilievre (source: Danielle Smith / Instagram)

A Liberal win in this sprawling rural riding would be one in a trillion

With Stampede season soon winding down in Calgary, attention of the political class will quickly turn from the lobbyist receptions, pancake flips, and oil industry cocktail parties to the land of real cowboys. The federal by-election in Battle River-Crowfoot has been called for August 18 and Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is the favourite to win this vote and reclaim a seat in the House of Commons after his defeat in Ontario on April 28.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack

Alberta Politics

Alberta Speaker Nathan Cooper is going to Washington DC

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date May 8, 2025

Alberta Legislative Assembly Speaker Nathan Cooper wearing the newly designed western-style tricorn hat designed by Smithbilt Hats Inc. (source: Legislative Assembly of Alberta)

Also: Six thoughts on Danielle Smith’s separatist threats

After ten years as the MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills and nearly six years as Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Nathan Cooper is leaving the Legislature to take up a new job as Alberta’s senior representative to the United States.

In a statement released yesterday, Premier Danielle Smith announced that Cooper would replace representative James Rajotte, who recently stepped down after filling the role since 2020.

Nate Horner’s deficit spending, tax cutting confused conservative budget

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date February 28, 2025

Minister of Finance Nate Horner in the government’s pre-budget release video posted on social media (source: Nate Horner / Instagram)

Alberta goes for another ride on the royalty roller coaster

After twenty years of writing about Alberta politics and about same number of provincial budgets, it’s sometimes hard not to write the same thing year after year: Alberta relies too heavily on revenues from oil and gas royalties to fund the daily operations of government.

That’s the baked-in analysis of Alberta politics. Our provincial government’s over-dependence on oil revenues is both a blessing and a curse. When the price of oil is high, things are really good. When the price of oil is low, it’s really bad. It is the central component of what we used to call the “Alberta Advantage.”

Alberta has been able to afford to have the lowest taxes in Canada and high spending on public services because the government could use oil and gas royalties to offset what every other province would normally collect through taxes.

Lethbridge-West by-election a big test for Naheed Nenshi and Danielle Smith

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 22, 2024

NDP leader Naheed Nenshi and Lethbridge-West NDP candidate Rob Miyashiro (source: Naheed Nenshi / Facebook)

Race to replace Shannon Phillips called for December 18

Nearly five months after Alberta NDP MLA Shannon Phillips resigned her seat in the Legislature, a by-election has been called in Lethbridge-West and it’s happening on December 18.

For the past five years, this urban riding located in southwest Alberta has been an electoral anomaly: a lone orange island surrounded by a sea of blue. The riding was one of two won by the NDP in 2023 that was outside of the immediate Edmonton and Calgary areas.

UCP cuts the “length” off arms-length AIMCo

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date November 15, 2024

Minister of Finance Nate Horner and Premier Danielle Smith on February 29, 2024 (photography by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta/Alberta Newsroom)

Alberta’s $160.6 billion investments now under a government controlled cone of silence

Secure in her party’s leadership after earning the support of 91.5 percent of members at the United Conservative Party AGM earlier this month, Premier Danielle Smith isn’t skipping a beat in implementing her government’s political agenda.

The firing of the CEO and the entire board of directors of AIMCo, the arms-length Alberta Investment Management Corporation, was confirmed through a short 9:47 am press release from Finance Minister Nate Horner last Friday.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack

Tags AIMco, Airdrie-Cochrane, Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission, Alberta Federal Candidate Nomination Update, Alberta Firewall Letter, Alberta Investment Management Corporation, Alberta Pension Plan, Alberta Teachers' Retirement Fund, Alex Williams, Amarjeet Sohi, Avni Soma, Brian Thiessen, Bruce McAllister, Calgary Municipal Election 2025, Canada Pension Plan, Carla Beck, Chris Nielsen, Chrystia Freeland, CUPE Alberta, CUPE Strike in Fort McMurray, Dale McFee, Danielle Smith, Daveberta Substack, Dj Kelly, Edmonton Municipal Election 2025, Edmonton-Decore, Edmonton-Manning, Elliot Weinstein, Evan Siddall, Heather McRae, International Democracy Union, Jeremy Nolais, Jim Dinning, Karen Principe, Kenneth Kroner, Lesley Thompson, Local Authorities Pension Plan, Management Employees Pension Plan, Marlene Puffer, Mary MacDonald, Matt Jones, Mickey Amery, Mike Ellis, Nate Horner, Paul Wynnyk, Peter Sandhu, Postmedia, Public Sector Pensions, Public Service Pension Plan, Ray Gilmour, Rick Bell, Rory Gill, Sarah Zagoda, Stephen Harper, Tim Cartmell, Tony Caterina, United Conservative Party, Ward tastawiyiniwak, Yellowhead

Alberta Politics

Danielle Smith’s big win

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date May 29, 2024

UCP leader Danielle Smith on election night in Calgary (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Losing Calgary was the plan Smith shared with Rick Bell months before the 2023 election

Danielle Smith has never been interested in building a big tent political party.

It was October 2022 when Smith landed in hot water with United Conservative Party MLAs from Calgary when she told Postmedia columnist Rick Bell that she would be okay with her party losing half its seats in that city.

Fast forward seven months and that’s what happened when Smith’s UCP were re-elected on May 29, 2023.

Read the rest of the column on the Daveberta Substack

Alberta Politics

What Danielle Smith said she wouldn’t campaign for in the 2023 election

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 26, 2024

Minister of Energy and Minerals Brian Jean and Premier Danielle Smith during their trip to Texas last week. (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

Smith said she wouldn’t campaign on an Alberta Pension Plan and police force, but it looks like that’s what we’re getting.

I want to focus on the lede from this widely shared Canadian Press story published on March 5, 2023:

United Conservative Leader Danielle Smith says she won’t be campaigning on some of her party’s more contentious ideas — sovereignty legislation, a provincial police force and an Alberta pension plan — ahead of the May 29 election.

The reason why this story is notable is because of how much of the re-elected UCP’s political agenda today focuses on those three things Smith specifically didn’t want to talk about during the campaign.

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It’s not unusual for parties that form government to back away from campaign promises or even implement policies they didn’t campaign on at all. But it feels a little more unusual for a party leader to implement policies she said she didn’t want to talk about during a 28-day election campaign that happened less than a year ago.

It was a shameless and cynical move, because despite Smith saying she didn’t want to campaign on those issues during the election, it was clear the UCP was going to move forward on pensions, police and sovereignty if they were re-elected.

Read the rest on the Daveberta Substack.

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