An eight-foot fence in Nightingale can remain standing after Wheatland County’s Municipal Planning Commission approved a height variance on Oct. 13 with one member opposed. The decision allows a 95-foot section of an existing wooden fence to exceed the six-foot limit for side and rear yards in the Hamlet Residential General district. The fence had […]

Powerful winds with shifting directions and dry weather contributed to rapid expansion of the grass fire at a military base in Wainwright, Alta., that left four soldiers dead and 39 others wounded, a wildfire expert said. Environment and Climate Change Canada had issued a severe weather alert for swaths of Alberta on Saturday, warning of […]

An online user claimed on social media that Alberta residents who are not Canadian citizens can falsely declare their citizenship at polling stations and vote in the Oct. 19 referendum. The user questioned Elections Alberta’s verification process and raised the spectre of a surge of ineligible voters changing the outcome of an election. Elections Alberta […]

An Alberta judge has rejected a court challenge to new rules mandating that provincial political parties receive only bare bones information about voters. The Opposition NDP challenged the rules in court after they were implemented last month by Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government. However, Court of King’s Bench Justice John Gill said in […]

A prominent Alberta separatist has shared an online claim that the provincial NDP used its access to the province’s voter list to request hundreds of thousands mail-in ballots for this month’s referendum. The claim includes an edited video of NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi talking about the party’s access to the list. However, a former chief […]

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith on Wednesday brushed off a court battle launched by the Opposition NDP over her government’s changes to voter list rules. Smith told reporters in Edmonton that the new restrictions were called for by elections officials earlier this year after a major data breach involving a separatist group and the pro-Independence Republican […]

A lawyer for the Alberta government argued Tuesday that temporary restrictions on what voter information can be provided to political parties won’t affect the upcoming referendum. Mandy England made the comment in a court challenge launched by the Opposition NDP against the new rules. The rules, published last month, say Elections Alberta can only provide […]

Wheatland County has approved changes to its artificial intelligence policy, adding stronger privacy restrictions and an explicit safeguard against using AI to broadly monitor or profile residents online. Council approved amendments to the county’s AI policy Sept. 22 after a lengthy discussion about personal information, chatbots, automated decision-making and public concerns about how governments could […]

An Alberta country music singer wants more from Elections Alberta after a letter was leaked by former workers who raised concern about how the Water, Not Coal petition was validated. “It sort of verified that what we had heard from our lawyers was consistent with what they were saying,” said Lund. The letter, which Great […]

Alberta’s government said Friday it has made temporary changes to rules governing provincial voter lists after a major privacy breach earlier this year. However, the move drew concern from the Opposition NDP, who said the government could be opening the door to voter fraud in next month’s referendum. The province published a new policy Thursday […]

Calgary police have charged two adults and a youth in what they say was an extortion scheme that included threats for money and gunfire at a woman’s home, and they are asking the public to help find a man still wanted in the case.Police say the woman started getting demands for money on March 25 […]

Calgary city councillor Landon Johnston said Tuesday he is apologetic — but unrepentant –for recently leaking private budget documents to the media. City councillors, meanwhile, were told they can’t do anything to sanction him for misconduct for the leak because recent law changes by the provincial government took that power away. “I apologize for breaking […]