Alberta Municipalities President Tyler Gandam minced no words today in condemning Bill 20…

“Bill 20 is an attempt by the government to centralize, strengthen and tighten (Smith’s) hold on power”

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

There's another problem with Bill 20.

It's a back door to recall.

If Executive council doesn't want to dismiss a municipal elected official outright, they can use the same 'Public interest' requirement to hold a recall vote.

No petition. No signatures.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

Just a reminder…

The CEO of the food bank is the wife of one of the authors of the “Free Alberta Strategy” with Rob Anderson.

So that’s…

Convenient.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

Family doctors use national guidelines to decide whether to send their patients for routine cancer screenings.
But experts say Canadians' lives are at risk because those guidelines use old data, lack expert advice and are updated too infrequently. cbc.ca/news/politics/… .

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has been rapidly spreading throughout U.S. dairy cattle. Scientists say it has been transmitting for longer than official reports suggest and could pose a threat to human health. cbc.ca/news/health/h5….

Reminder: the UCP's drift into authoritarianism is neither new nor normal.

The volume & audacity of their misdeeds shouldn't lull Albertans into thinking that it’s politics as usual. Just because these episodes happen in plain sight doesn't excuse them.

theconversation.com/democracy-itse…

Bill 20 represents further escalation of the UCP’s efforts to undermine, control and scapegoat City Councils. The hostility we are seeing is part of a larger strategy to remake local government in their own image and bully us into submission. This is an attack on local democracy.

Courts & law enforcement are poor protectors of democratic norms. Backstops, at best. By then, too late.

Representative democracies rely on voters to choose ethical people & turf anti-democratic ones.

Expect backsliding unless everyday citizens wake up to that responsibility.

People unknowingly ingest microplastics from what we eat, drink and breathe.
While possible links between microplastics and disease are not definitive, researchers are exploring some concerning hints. cbc.ca/news/health/mi… .

On the taxpayer funded 'UCP Propaganda hour' Smith attacked the federal policies on plastics by claiming that plastics have saved animals.

Because we no longer use whalebone corsets and we don't 'need' to use tortoise shells to make jewellery.

So think of the animals?

#abpoli

“But the bill reaches into the smallest municipality, education boards, universities, health authorities, and Crown and public agencies…

That’s a heavy load of bureaucracy from a government that loves to boast about its department of red tape reduction.” calgaryherald.com/opinion/column…

Albertans are closer to the centre than they imagine the ‘average Joe’ to be.

Jared Wesley examines the results of a recent survey that finds that Albertans have a distorted view of their political culture.

options-po.li/3UegaHd

The federal government's budget is setting aside $1.5 billion to implement pharmacare.
It's a major financial commitment with the potential to have a wide-ranging impact on the country's health-care system. cbc.ca/news/politics/… .

It’s almost impossible to unpack how incredibly McIver manages to out-Rumsfeld Donald Rumsfeld in this clip.

Metrics - “No idea, we’ll make them up as we go!”

Parties - “Parties will have no connection to provincial parties but people will know who the NDP candidates are.”

I don’t know if the public will see how utterly terrible this is, but I hope that in all the chaos this province has doled out, folks take the time to really look at this.

The party that likes to say they are champions of democracy have gone out of their way to dismantle local democracy through Bill 20. Almost everything that Albertans have said over the years have been ignored. #ableg #abpoli #yegcc #yyccc

Alberta Municipalities condemning Bill 20.

It’s worth remembering that this org represents rural Alberta.

So as much as the UCP claim this is just about #YYC and #YEG , the writing is very much on the wall.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli