Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has long demanded the federal government roll back climate policies, further support its highly polluting fossil fuel sector, and threatened a constitutional unity crisis if she doesn’t get her way.  On Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney blinked.  The two leaders signed a memorandum of understanding that immediately exempts Alberta from clean […]

Separatism. Sovereignty. Statehood. Danielle Smith has repeatedly invoked the idea of Alberta independence during her time in office. But documents obtained by the Investigative Journalism Foundation suggest it is not an economic scenario the provincial government is seriously studying. In his decades with the public service, Lennie Kaplan, former senior manager for the Fiscal and […]

A Grande Prairie local has applied for a petition to recall Grande Prairie MLA Nolan Dyck. Recall petitions for United Conservative Party MLAs are growing across the province following the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause to force teachers back to work.  “Dyck was chosen by the people to represent their interests and not echo […]

A new report from Dalhousie University shows flaws in the environmental review process for mining operations in Canada, with researchers finding that data for 20 per cent of the projects they reviewed was incomplete or missing entirely from public records. The report collected all available environmental impact assessments on mining projects dating back to 1974 […]

Alberta’s forthcoming passenger rail master plan could open the door to a company’s “hyperloop” proposal — despite a federal study that found the technology is shrouded in uncertainty and unlikely to be viable this decade. All the hype around hyperloop technology started in 2013 when celebrity investor Elon Musk proposed the concept of using electric […]

A report into allegations of corruption in Alberta Health Services contracts says it was widely known two employees were in conflicts of interest, but no steps were taken by senior officials. Former Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant writes in his report, released Friday, that he found no evidence of wrongful interference from Premier Danielle Smith, her […]

The Alberta government has chosen not to renew a regulation banning the practice of “carding” by police officers, but the province says the practice is still prohibited under other laws. The provincial regulation enforcing the ban was due for renewal this past summer, but a government letter to the Alberta Association of Police Governance and […]

Premier Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next panel, aimed at wrenching more political control from Ottawa, was spurred to take action in Grande Prairie Wednesday. The panel is pitching six ideas that could become potential referendum questions, and the naysayers were again outnumbered in a packed house of more than 500 attendees. Many who spoke at the […]

Critics are questioning what problem the Alberta government’s move to add mandatory citizenship markers to provincial identification aims to solve, and say it opens the door to potential privacy breaches and discrimination. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said Monday the move is all about streamlining services and preventing election fraud.  Zool Suleman, a Vancouver-based immigration lawyer, […]

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s government is again shifting its expense disclosure policy after critics from across the political spectrum accused her of dodging responsibility. In early August, the province quietly published new rules axing a requirement for Smith, her ministers, senior staff and deputy ministers to publicly post receipts for expenses over $100.  Marisa Breeze, […]

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government will consider reversing a recent policy change that ended the public disclosure of expense receipts over $100 for ministers and other government officials. Smith, asked about the change Thursday at her Alberta Next panel town hall in Edmonton, told the crowd that it caught her off guard but […]

An online conspiracy theory recently claimed that a candidate on the ballot in the federal byelection in Alberta’s Battle River-Crowfoot riding had died in February. The source for the claim was an obituary for an unrelated woman with the same name. The real candidate told The Canadian Press that Elections Canada verified her identity before […]