Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Fuzz]

https://www.alberta.ca/news.aspx

Government news feed. Usually in a week there are maybe 5 or 10 of these. This past month it ramped up. I count 64 in the past week. Not sure if this is just announcing things they haven't in the pas,t or Kenney pushing as much through as possible before tonight.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.alberta.ca/news.aspx

Government news feed. Usually in a week there are maybe 5 or 10 of these. This past month it ramped up. I count 64 in the past week. Not sure if this is just announcing things they haven't in the pas,t or Kenney pushing as much through as possible before tonight.

That's an odious sign. While I'm sure the guy is wrapping up his projects and deliverables, I am also wondering if that's because the Leg is going to be a absolute trainwreck to get anything done.

Probably wants as many "accomplishments" under his belt as he can so he can say he did this, this and this.

[Muta]

These last four years (3.5?) have seemed like the longest four-year term in provincial history. An unmitigated conservative disaster. And we're in for a rough finale.

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by edslunch

I wonder how many UCP-for-a-day voters there are in the leadership. Anecdotally there were a lot in the Stelmach election and Kenney review but no idea if they was significant enough to change the outcome.

There were.

[Faust]

Braid: UCP vote looms with heavy security, a pledge of honesty and a golf cart:

https://calgaryherald.com/news/braid...nd-a-golf-cart

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Faust

Braid: UCP vote looms with heavy security, a pledge of honesty and a golf cart:

https://calgaryherald.com/news/braid...nd-a-golf-cart

Is there cheating? Albertans are entitled to wonder, after the 2017 leadership campaign that led to multiple fines, a kamikaze candidate scandal, revelation of fake identities and even an RCMP investigation that is still mysteriously unfinished almost five years later.

Good reminder. How is it we still have no conclusion to this? How can a democracy function properly if the public still doesn't know just how corrupt the Unsane Clown Posse is? WTF are the RCMP doing?

[Slava]

I'm kind of hoping that Smith wins today. I just want to see what happens!

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm kind of hoping that Smith wins today. I just want to see what happens!

I don’t imagine much will change for Albertans, that party might implode though.

And I don’t think you have to hope, sounds like it might be a landslide.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I don’t imagine much will change for Albertans, that party might implode though.

And I don’t think you have to hope, sounds like it might be a landslide.

Well we could be a sovereign nation, as far as I understand it!

[KelVarnsen]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm kind of hoping that Smith wins today. I just want to see what happens!

This is really ####ing stupid of you

[powderjunkie]

When does my diplomat badge arrive in the mail?

[Dion]

UCP Leadership Candidate Danielle Smith: Pay Workers With ‘No Skills’ a Lower Minimum Wage

Last December, a few months before launching her bid to lead the United Conservative Party and become Alberta’s next premier, Smith argued some workers should be paid less than the current minimum wage during an episode of “Danielle Smith’s Fraser Forum,” a short-lived podcast hosted by a right-wing think tank called the Fraser Institute.

The episode, titled “Well-meaning and wrong-headed: The morality of the minimum wage in Canada and the US,” was released while she was President of the Alberta Enterprise Group, and a restaurant owner in High River, Alberta.

Joining her was Fraser Institute senior fellow Don Boudreaux, an advocate of insider trading and adjunct scholar for the right-wing Cato Institute based in Washington DC.

“I pushed around a cart at the bingo parlor selling pop and chips. That was my first minimum wage job,” Smith told Boudreaux. “And then I did McDonald’s.”

“‘Time to lean, there’s time to clean’, which stayed with me for life.”

“I’m very glad I had those first two jobs. But you know, maybe this is the problem is that the minimum wage is a blunt instrument to address the wrong problem,” Smith said, before suggesting similar workers should be paid lower wages.

“I have in the past done business advocacy, argued that there should be a separate minimum wage that is lower for someone who has no skills and are entering the workforce,” Smith said. “You can give them an opportunity to enter knowing that they’re going to be less productive than an employee that has been there for a couple of years.”

“There’s often a visceral reaction to that too from those who would argue against it, who say ‘well now, you’re just going to be exploiting young workers’, and I wonder if there’s something of merit to what I’m arguing?”

https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-leaders...-minimum-wage/

[Ozy_Flame]

If Smith gets elected tonight, I'm going to have a toast to my progressive woke leftist Premier, Doug Ford.

[Fuzz]

It's something that would be entertaining form the side lines, like if it was happening to Florida. Unfortunately it's happening to us, so no, I'm not a tall excited to see what kind of disaster she will be to the province. "I told you so" is just not going to be very satisfying when we all find ourselves paying for every medical appointment out of pocket, supposing to be grateful for a few hungered tossed at us for the privilege.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Dion

UCP Leadership Candidate Danielle Smith: Pay Workers With ‘No Skills’ a Lower Minimum Wage



https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-leaders...-minimum-wage/

Odd she'd advocate for herself to get paid less, but hey. Have at it.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by Dion

UCP Leadership Candidate Danielle Smith: Pay Workers With ‘No Skills’ a Lower Minimum Wage



https://pressprogress.ca/ucp-leaders...-minimum-wage/

#### I hate Neoliberalism.

“I have in the past done business advocacy, argued that there should be a separate minimum wage that is lower for someone who has no skills and are entering the workforce,” Smith said. “You can give them an opportunity to enter knowing that they’re going to be less productive than an employee that has been there for a couple of years.”

If they are more productive and have been there for a couple years, they should NOT be making minimum wage. The worker she describes just entering the workforce is exactly who minimum wage is for. Anyone who is paying an employee minimum wages after a year of work is just saying I'd pay you less but I don't want to go to jail.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by KelVarnsen

This is really ####ing stupid of you

Thanks for your valuable insight on this topic.

[Dion]

If Smith is elected, I wonder how she's going to handle all the negitive press and attacks against her style of leadership.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Dion

If Smith is elected, I wonder how she's going to handle all the negitive press and attacks against her style of leadership.

Ban them. That's what she does on Twitter with people who disagree with her politics. Media, pundits, people, everything.

Silence is Daniel's favorite sound outside of her own chicken squawking.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

If Smith gets elected tonight, I'm going to have a toast to my progressive woke leftist Premier, Doug Ford.

Doug Ford's Conservatives are more or less a version of the centrist right wing parties that have become so popular in europe. That's the blueprint of success for the Conservatives but the UCP and federal CP seem slow to catch on.