#quoth the quotable hansard

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The Legislature sits again starting this Wednesday, February 28. Brace yourselves!

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It would be so delightful if, in the next session, the speaker occasionally asked members to define words that they're clearly misusing. "Woke" and "socialist" being at the top of the list.

That WOULD be delightful, an excellent suggestion! It would also be nice if the alleged leftists in the NDP stopped letting "socialist" be used against them as an insult and saying nothing about it. Whenever someone tries to use "What are you, some kind of SOCIALIST?" against me I just say, "Yeah, I am. Can I explain it to you?" A lot of people like the ideas of socialism until you use the word "socialism" because they've been conditioned to think socialism=bad. And the AB NDP just keep reinforcing this by running scared from the word. I am of course assuming that anyone in the NDP even identifies as a socialist anymore, which they may not. But a lot of people in this province do, so at the very least it would be nice for someone in the Legislature to point out that simply being a socialist is perfectly legitimate and not eeeevil, and it's really shitty to keep saying that socialists want to destroy the province, when we're just normal Albertans going about our lives and advocating for change. Which is our right. Wow, sorry. That got away from me. This has been bothering me for a while!

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Well, it's been almost a full month since the election. How's everybody doing? The election of the presiding officers took place yesterday. Nathan Cooper is the Speaker again, Angela Pitt is the Deputy Speaker and Chair of Committees again, and Glenn van Dijken is the Deputy Chair of Committees. I'll have a little bit of content from that issue of Hansard to post. Other than that, the Legislature isn't scheduled to sit until October, so things will stay pretty quiet on the blog. Personally I think I'm going to NEED all those months to brace myself for whatever legislation this government is going to throw at us.

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I've become so blissfully used to not reporting on the clown parade that I clean forgot to post a heads-up yesterday, which was throne speech day. So get ready for some new content starting next week! Yay?

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We've reached the end of everything I had for the spring 2023 session. I've still got some stuff from 2021 that I think I'll post, just so we can have a complete account of the UCP's time in government, which will hopefully come to an end soon. Please enjoy (probably not the best word) the upcoming walk down memory lane.

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Well, we've reached the end of my Fall 2022 content almost just in time for the Spring session. Look to this space after February 28!

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New throne speech drops today, which you can watch live on the Assembly website at 3 p.m. if so inclined. Otherwise, brace yourselves for new blog content coming soon!

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December 6, 2022

Mr. Nicolaides: I mentioned earlier the member for the district of Alexandra, MLA Bramley-Moore, who wrote a book. I’ve just ordered it on Amazon. I’ll be happy to give the House an update when it arrives and I’ve had an opportunity to sit down and read that book from 1911 from cover to cover. Perhaps there may be some more interesting insights, but one of the things that the member said, which I found quite interesting, which I think I’ll leave the Assembly with, was a very simple comment, a very simple statement: Alberta first, last, and forever.

Popping out of the tags to offer some info. That book is called Canada and Her Colonies; Or Home Rule For Alberta. Separatists love to reference it. They tend not to reference the white supremacy spelled out very clearly in it. One might hope that the Minister of Advanced Education would be more careful about what he references, but one might hope in vain. Nicolaides is way more eager to cater to his grievance-obsessed base who eat this shit up and probably love the racist elements anyway.

You can find the book pretty easily if you want to read it for yourself (though you can probably guess most of its content. These people haven't changed their tune much in 112 years. "Ottawa is stealing all our stuff, we should be able to exploit the land however we want blah blah blah"). Also here's a Twitter thread

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New Legislature sitting starts tomorrow, so look for posts to pick back up next week! This is probably going to be a rough one, friends. I'll try to balance things out with as much light-hearted content as I can find (no guarantees, sadly).

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I know there haven't been very many posts lately, and that's because I've pretty much run out of recent content and also energy, quite frankly. I think I'll still post some vintage Hansard stuff here and there, but otherwise I'm going to just take a break before the fall session starts, probably in mid- or late November. That session is likely not going to make for enjoyable reading, so I'm going to recuperate a bit while we all try to figure out what we're going to do about our new disaster of a Premier. Take care of yourselves, pals

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I accidentally tagged Richard Feehan as UCP on the previous post, and even though it's fixed now, I feel like I owe him a massive apology

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I'm going to start adding political party tags to posts, and they'll come after the constituency name. So if you're not super familiar with all 86 of our current representatives (I wonder when that by-election in Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche is happening?), you can know who belongs where. Independent MLAs will be identified with IND.

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November 5, 2020

Mr. Jason Nixon: Yesterday I received a letter from Windsor Castle. As such, I rise to request unanimous consent of the Assembly to read correspondence received on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and for the letter to be tabled immediately following it being read and for the text of the letter to be recorded in the Votes and Proceedings of today’s sitting.

[unanimous consent granted]

The Speaker: The hon. the Government House Leader.

Mr. Jason Nixon: Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, from Windsor Castle, dated the 16th of October, 2020, addressed to myself.

Your Honour,

Thank you for your recent letter regarding the reintroduction of singing of ‘God Save the Queen’ in the Alberta Legislature. I have shown your letter to The Queen, who was grateful to be kept informed.

This message comes to you with Her Majesty’s warm good wishes.

Yours sincerely, Tom Laing-Baker Assistant Private Secretary to The Queen.

Long may she reign.

Coming out of the tags again for this because it’s just so hilarious to me. Nixon practically wet himself in his excitement over this and I just...I would be devastated to get a letter like this from someone I was desperate to notice me. “I have shown your letter to The Queen, who was grateful to be kept informed.” Translation: the Queen could not possibly give less of a fuck about this. “Warm good wishes?” Oh man, that is the opposite of warm. That is cold as ice. You’ve been dissed by the Queen, Jason. 

Imagine making everyone sit through God Save the Queen, the most inane bit of sycophantry ever written, every Thursday in order to get this smallest scrap of acknowledgment and treat us all to this pathetic display of royal bootlicking with zero sense of how ridiculous you look. Amazing. 

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The fall session of the Legislature starts today. Look for more up to date content next week!

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You may have noticed that the first post for today was from 1972, which was the first year that we had a Hansard in Alberta. You may have also noticed that I finished up with posts from the most recent Legislature sitting a while ago, and I've been slowly going through all the committee meetings that I missed. Committees typically don't yield a ton of bloggable content, so I decided to start digging into some vintage Alberta Hansard issues. It's been pretty fun for me so far, and I hope you enjoy it as well!

Also, I typically don't tag political parties, but for general information if you're not familiar: in 1972 government members are Progressive Conservatives, and everyone else is Social Credit, with the exception of Grant Notley, the lone New Democrat.

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November 18, 2020

Edmonton Federal Building Living Wall

Ms Armstrong-Homeniuk: Mr. Speaker, politicians are often accused of being out of touch, and while I know this stereotype is not reflective of many in the House, there is a reason why this perception exists amongst the public. Our late great former Premier Ralph Klein recognized this, coining the term “dome disease,” describing the propensity of some members to become absorbed in the world of the Legislature and disconnected with the priorities of everyday Albertans.

Yesterday, thanks to our friends in the opposition, we were presented with a reminder of this. What I’m talking about, Mr. Speaker, is the Edmonton Federal Building’s living wall. After receiving coverage in the press on the government’s plan to remove the living wall, an extravagance that costs taxpayers $70,000 a year to maintain, the Member for Edmonton-Rutherford took to social media to lament the removal. Now, I, like the member opposite, spend time working in the Federal Building and appreciate the luxury of walking by the wall on a regular basis, taking advantage of the jungle-like humidity that emanates from it.

Our province is facing the most serious financial and economic challenges that we have seen for decades, and that means that luxuries for MLAs and staff must be taking a back seat to the priorities of Albertans. I know that the opposition will say that it’s only $70,000. Well, forgive me, but that is $70,000 we can save. While I understand that the NDP don’t prioritize fiscal responsibility, anyone who has experience in budgeting knows that the way to cut the fat is to cut away many excesses, even if they are relatively small, because those numbers add up to hundreds of millions across government.

I would also challenge any member of this House to tell me that they can look a constituent in the eye and tell them that they deserve a $70,000 wall while Alberta families are coping with the current economic reality. For those on this side of the House, there is one answer: we can’t. There is no justification. While members opposite lament the loss of government privileges and excess, I proudly tell my constituents that, in keeping with true conservative tradition, I support tearing down that wall. [interjection]

[interjection] indeed. Here’s my interjection: fuck you, Jackie. The living wall wasn’t an extravagance or a luxury. It wasn’t just “plants in [the NDP’s] office building's lobby,” as the UCP claimed in an unbelievable display of dishonesty. It was a part of the building’s HVAC system. Here is an article with quotes from the company that installed the wall talking about how much more expensive it’s going to be to  redesign and re-engineer the air circulation system in the building. 

Furthermore, the Federal Building does not just house MLAs and their staff. It is the workplace of many, MANY Legislative Assembly staff, who do not work for any political party, who I guess don’t count as “everyday Albertans” or as part of “Alberta families coping with the current economic reality.” The Federal Building is also a public building. In normal, non-COVID times any Albertan could come in and enjoy the living wall. The Legislative Assembly is constantly trying to figure out how to drive more public engagement with the Federal Building; tearing down one of its main points of interest is not a great place to start. 

The important thing here is that it looks good to the base, right? “Ugh, those latte-sipping SOCIALISTS love PLANTS more than SAVING MONEY. We’ll show THEM.” Just ignore the fact that the war room is still funded, Steve Allen’s failed witch hunt is still being funded, there are a number of redundant panels being struck at any given time to give the government results it has already decided on, there’s a small army of “issues managers” and press secretaries still being employed, not to mention Stephen Harper’s son doing...whatever it is he does. Yeah, it’s destroying something functional and beautiful that’s really going to balance the budget. 

Fuck this government.