Municipal affairs critic says province is bullying Jasper into accepting their rebuild parameters  The Government of Alberta is ratcheting up the pressure on local planners in Jasper to sign off on leases where interim housing is slated to be built. But local authorities want clarity on what those b...

"At this moment in time, I still see a pathway to 80 to 100 units being delivered sometime relatively early in the New Year, but it is a challenging pathway for sure, and the longer we go without certainty, the narrower that pathway becomes." The Jasper Recovery Coordination Centre is reporting that...

The wolverine is a reclusive, mysterious animal that is rarely seen by humans. I t’s scientific name is Gulo gulo, which translates to ‘glutton’ or ‘I swallow. ' But what’s more gluttonous? The feeding habits of a reclusive wild animal, or the self-serving policy decisions of a populist government g...

Jasper’s mayor is number one. Richard Ireland has been voted Best Municipal Elected Official in political watcher Dave Cournoyer’s Best of Alberta Politics 2024 Survey . Cournoyer publishes the DaveBerta substack , where he writes and podcasts about Alberta politics and elections. “The annual survey...

Dear Premier Smith, MLA Long, the Hinton Medical Clinic, and fellow Albertans: I am reaching out through this open letter to shed light on the urgent healthcare issues affecting our community in Hinton, Alberta. Over the past two years, I have personally tried eight times to schedule a doctor’s appo...

Is Alberta’s Minister of Forestry and Parks camouflaging the hunting of “problem” grizzly bears as a wildlife safety measure? Back in June, Minister Todd Loewen, a renowned big game hunter and shareholder in a Valleyview-based outfitting business, signed a ministerial order that, to this retired bio...

Record dryness, extreme heat, high winds, and a lightning storm. This summer in Jasper National Park, all of the ingredients of a recipe for disaster were in place. Now, two and a half months after that disaster came to pass, another set of circumstances— misinformation, toxic politics and facts-sta...

Jasper is at a crossroads. Like its residents, legislators in Ottawa must come together today to expedite Jasper’s rebuild “Will there just be crumbs, dad?” We were driving back to Jasper—for the first time since the fire. We were passing through the community’s west gate, trying to prepare the kids...

Jasper’s mayor is pushing back on prevailing narratives that suggest the municipality’s transit system has been rushed, town capital costs are out of control and Jasper’s financial capacity is at its breaking point. As he does every spring, on May 8, Mayor Richard Ireland took the stage at the Jaspe...

Changes will send chills through municipal councils and create a lot of grief for MLAs  It has been very interesting to watch over the past week how Premier  Danielle Smith ’s United Conservative Party government has unrolled its suite of changes to municipal governance and local election laws, and ...