Roundup: Alberta on the edge

It’s election day in Alberta. Will the desire for change lead to an even more right-wing “libertarian” government of inexperienced rookies? Or will institutional inertia and one party state-ism that has otherwise defined the province carry the day? I guess we’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

Today’s Senate “nominee elections” in Alberta are likely to split along party lines – as in, PC and Wildrose, who have both pledged to sit as federal Conservatives in the Senate. Which is just one reason why this whole exercise is so problematic – there is no sense in provincial parties running candidates when those candidates will sit in different federal caucuses once they arrive in Ottawa down the road – assuming of course that they do make it to Ottawa. In fact, it makes the vote that much more disingenuous.

Vic Toews admits that Omar Khadr is a Canadian and he’s coming back, so he’s now in damage control mode – he won’t be a danger to Canadians, and at least if he serves his sentence here we can better monitor him and his activities upon release than if he’d served his entire sentence in the States and suddenly showed up on our borders.

There are thousands of buildings owned by the federal government that are crumbling, some of them in states of total system failure.

Despite the ongoing battles between the chief of Attawapiskat and the federal government, it seems that not everyone in her community are pleased with her leadership. Not only that, some members of the community are also tired of NDP MP Charlie Angus using them to score political points.

Susan Delacourt looks at a grand national project like the Charter 30 years later, and fears that such a feat couldn’t be accomplished in today’s political landscape.

What’s that? The Conservatives are dismissing more expert testimony with those court challenges to overturn the election results in seven ridings? You don’t say! Meanwhile, in the battle to overturn the results in Etobicoke Centre, the Elections Canada factum says that mere clerical errors shouldn’t be enough to invalidate an election result.

Liberal Party brass were meeting in Ottawa this weekend to determine the rules for their (eventual) leadership contest, which they’ll have more firm rules on by June.

Here’s a look at Ruth Ellen “Vegas” Brosseau, one year after her election.

Here’s a timeline of the history of the Kingston Penitentiary.

And here’s a little bit about the Queen, as Saturday was her 86th birthday (not that we’ll celebrate it here in Canada until Victoria Day).