Lame duck Alberta premier Ed Stelmach, showing the typical Tory ability to lie their face off, decided yesterday to blame Alberta's teachers for their own impending layoffs. Stating that the Alberta Teachers' Association refused to take pay cuts, Stelmach then said that that was the reason for teacher layoffs. Stelmach is so off the mark on this one that his own education minister has contradicted him. So what does this all mean?

This past weekend the members of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives elected a new leader. Since they're the party in power, Ed Stelmach will become premier. Of the three choices between Ted Morton, Jim Dinning and Ed Stelmach. Stelmach was probably the least offensive non-Calgary candidate. The fact that Stelmach wasn't from Calgary was probably a factor in the final ballot.

Between work and my cadet commitments, I've had little time to blog the past couple of weeks. So I've missed the federal Tories totally messing up our foreign affairs. This is, of course, what I've come to expect from conservatives when it comes to international relations. Tory black and white thinking doesn't work very well in the messy world of international diplomacy. For now I will leave the foundering federal Tories and look more at their Alberta Cousins. For those of you who live outside of Alberta, the Alberta Tories are in the middle of electing a new leader. A field of eight lackluster candidates have been stomping around the province trying to engage the enthusiasm of their party's members.

The race to succeed Ralph Klein is now officially underway. An uninspiring group of nine Tories are vying for the position of party leader and Premier. What's made me think about these people are comments by the president of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party. Specifically, in response to the lack of rules for the leadership race, party president Doug Graham stated that there were few rules because the rules would be unenforceable. What does this statement say about the character of the candidates?

On my way into work this morning I was listening to the local CBC morning show when I heard about an upcoming meeting between government and industry to discuss the employment problem in Alberta. Now when I say employment problem, I mean there aren't enough workers to go around which is causing problems for small employers who can't afford to pay huge salaries to attract workers. This meeting is interesting in what it tells us about business people and conservative government as well as what it means for the economy.

... and so little time to do it. With school back in full swing, I find myself with less and less time to blog. So for today I have to decide on what to write about. There's US Secretary of State Rice's visit to the Maritimes to give Canada a pep talk to stay in Afghanistan (and the resultant gushing of Peter MacKay over Condi). Further the Alberta Minister of Health has been making statements about privatizing more and more of Alberta's health care system. There's also the escalation of our involvement in Afghanistan with sending our tanks in as well. All in all a busy week for sure. I have decided to write about an interesting development with the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party.

Well today was Ralph Klein's last day in the legislature. Some thoughts about this event. First was a comment he made on the radio about how his government didn't have a plan for the boom economy. Second is how bad things could get with his replacement.

The Harper Conservatives seem to be unable to help themselves, or at least their supporters, with yet more patronage appointments. It would appear that the new board of directors of the Toronto Island Airport just happen to all be Tory supporters. Naturally, the National Post, which printed the story, spent most of the article trying to spin things in favor of the Conservatives and discredit the NDP MP who made the discovery.

It would appear that my MLA, the infamous MIA-MLA Hung Pham, is in the news again. This time it's because he's under investigation by the ethics commissioner (Calgary Herald, 19 Aug 2006) for his part in a $20,000 government grant given to the Applewood Community Association. Seems the money didn't end up where it was supposed to go and the government wants it back. Pham used his position as MLA to get the money for the Community Association.

I heard an interesting thing on CBC on my way into work this morning. Victor Doerksen, in his speech outlining what he'd do as leader of the Alberta Tories, indicated that he would change the process in which party members communicate with the government. This points to two scary things, first the current government is ignoring it's own party members, second, the only problem with that in the eyes of the Tories is that the government is ignoring them and to heck with the rest of Albertans.