#UCP

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A right-wing media personality from Alberta went viral this weekend for all the wrong reasons after posting a video on social media from inside a public washroom at the Ottawa International Airport.

Derek Fildebrandt, the Publisher of the right-wing Western Standard media outlet, recorded himself exploring a public washroom before boarding a flight home to Calgary after this weekend’s conservative Canada Strong and Free Network conference.

Six different people are visible in the background of the video — half of whose faces are identifiable — while Fildebrandt criticizes the presence of a menstrual product dispenser in a men’s washroom.

At one point, one washroom user can also briefly be seen using a urinal. [...]

Fildebrandt, a former MLA with Alberta’s United Conservative Party, says he has no regrets despite creating obvious privacy issues for other washroom users. [...]

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @abpoli, @vague-humanoid

[smokeweedeattherich]

I saw this going around on reddit but not tumblr so I figured I'd share it here.

The image was posted by Danielle herself and can be seen here. This symbol is associated with Liberty Fund, a far right American think tank that credits themselves as partially responsible for Ronald Reagans presidential campaign.

Danielle has claimed that it's not related and is the cuneiform symbols for "freedom" and "liberty", but ask yourself, do you really trust her to tell the truth? She's revised her campaign promises multiple times, continues to condone private healthcare despite signing a measure to protect public healthcare. I'm just saying it wouldn't be a stretch to guess she might be funded by them, afterall she has some pretty damn uncanadian ideas that parallel those across the border.

[lizbean99]

PROTECT TRANS KIDS

I live in Alberta, Canada, which you may have heard is the latest province to introduce their version of "parental rights" legislation.

Here are some of the things our premier, Danielle Smith, promised to do on Wednesday;

mandate teachers report to parents (and ask permission if the child is younger than 16) if a child wants to use a different name/different pronouns in class

mandate permission forms anytime a teacher wants to mention gender or sexual orientation

ban children under the age of 16 from accessing hormones or puberty blockers

ban top & bottom surgery for anyone under the age of 18 (bottom, surgery is already illegal for anyone under 18 in Canada)

ban transgender women from competing in womens sports

These laws have been called "draconian" and were not drafted with consideration from medical, pediatric, or LGBT organizations. Danielle Smith is pandering to the social conservative wing of her party and putting queer kids in danger because of it.

"Parental Rights" are a sham that ignores the lived reality of queer kids.

I've spent the past few days feeling angry and heartbroken, and I wanted to spread awareness and share with my American followers because I haven't seen many news outlets outside of Canada covering this.

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

May 27, 2024

The Speaker: If there is another member of the Assembly that would like to join the debate, they would be welcome to do so. If not, I’m happy to call on the hon. Member for Calgary-Foothills. The hon. Member for Calgary-Foothills now to close debate.

Mr. Sabir: There was a member.

The Speaker: Oh, there was a member? I’m sorry. I didn’t see them. Were you standing?

Ms Pancholi: Yeah. I’m short.

[fireladybuckley]

I don’t usually get too political on this blog, but…

If you’re from Alberta, for the love of all that is good in humanity, please go and VOTE.

Danielle Smith wants to privatize healthcare, remove funding from programs that actively help people, blames late stage cancer diagnosis patients for not noticing their condition sooner, among numerous other terrible things. And true to the usual UCP bull, she cares more about money and oil and trades more than the actual people of the province.

She is a huge admirer of Ron DeSantis and thinks he’s doing a great job, which I’m sure anyone from the US and especially Florida can tell you is NOT a good thing!!

Please… if you want a premier that at least cares about people and not just money, vote NDP.

Rachel Notley is far from perfect, but she is a hell of a lot better than the alternative. She at least actually cares about people, and cares about the marginalized in our society. She may not balance the budget, but she will fund education, healthcare and other important things, rather than funnelling everything into a dying economy and ignoring the citizens struggling.

If you don’t want hate and cold disregard to rule our province for the next 4 years, vote NDP. Liberal, Green and any other party don’t stand a chance. This is UCP vs NDP, period.

Vote orange if you care about the people around you.

Thanks for listening. Let’s all cross our fingers that tonight’s vote isn’t the start of rights being taken away. 🤞🏻🤞🏻

[yegactivist]

Enough Is Enough by Paula Kirman Via Flickr:

[masonjarhead]

In January 2007, President Bush would announce the deployment of five additional brigades to Iraq, particularly around Baghdad, to help combat a rise in Insurgents. Most of these forces would deploy with the new (at the time) ACU pattern uniforms printed in, the one and only, infamous, beautiful(?), Universal Camoflage Pattern, or UCP. The main focus of the surge was to help establish a democratic government in Iraq that could sustain itself after we left, with a secondary objective of fighting the growing insurgent threat.

[panicinthestudio]

Patients are losing Alberta’s public-private medical labs battle, November 1, 2023

Alberta’s medical labs have shifted between public and private delivery for decades, often depending on what party is in government, and now the province’s auditor general is investigating. CBC’s Christine Birak breaks down the medical and political saga that’s cost millions and had a negative impact on patient care. CBC News

@allthecanadianpolitics, @abpoli

I had my own brush with DynaLife three times in the last year, wait times and organization were horrendous at a lab that has always been high volume but was much better managed when they were public.

Their waiting room was not just crammed full, the wait times were so long they were paging people on their cell to return from their cars or from the mall across the way--some simply left without a word. Walk-ins alone were looking at least a hour seated wait time.

The single queue to check in was at least 30 minutes minutes standing, crammed in to the point people had to step out of the way of the doors. It included pregnant people, elderly, and others in need of priority with mobility aids and other conditions. Appointments were not immediately separated out from walk-ins or even simple drop off, the only instruction was for everyone to wait for the one person processing. Even when the line extended outside at the same location because of COVID social distancing it moved more efficiently.

There was clearly no regular process for stopping the line and refusing more patients despite this routinely being the case by the summer. While I was there one poor tech was delegated to end intake for the day early because they simply were overcapacity. After scrambling to make a couple signs to tape to the doors, they were completely ignored.

No one enforced a cutoff, the patients that were told they were the it remained silent or continued to open the door for more people. By the time staff reached what should have been the tail-end there was a a full queue again. I learned later that short of actually closing, policy was to continue to accept everyone in line and there was at least another hour after that to finish work and lock up.

This is one lab and next to one of the largest hospitals in Calgary, hospital internal labs and rural/community tests continued to be run by AHS's Alberta Precision (formerly Public) Labs. Only one instance that was relatively easy was right before the Christmas holiday when the transition to private was still new.

The technicians and phlebotomists were clearly struggling to do their best to keep the patients and their own morale up while understaffed and without the resources to preserve quality of service. I do not envy any of them being thrown the privatization curveball by the UCP and ultimately the people that voted to keep them in power, worse still for people that are depending on these services.

***

There is an entire history of neglect and privatization of Alberta's lab services under Conservative governments. Efforts by the Albertan NDP to consolidate, update, and expand the province's public lab services were quite literally bulldozed by Jason Kenney. Through the pandemic and now under Danielle Smith, the UCP has continued with plans to dismantle and portion off health care services, workers, and the facilities and now buying back our own labs, equipment, and employees less than a year later.

[paddysnuffles]

Whatever you do, don't vote blue.

As one of my Grade 5 students so eloquently and aptly put it:

"Smith worries me, and I don't trust her. She's been recorded multiple times saying 'Should the government really have to cover 100% of the cost of a doctor's visit?'. Which is like, yeah. Because some people can't afford to pay and if you don't go to the doctor you die."

Healthcare isn't a luxury and it's not optional.

It's literally listed as a right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which we have ratified.

[shitslikethis]

“we consulted a wide range of citizens to create these policies (which only effect a very specific group of citizens who were notably underrepresented in the consultation because they hate us and we couldn’t get them to talk to us) but i guess that’s just representative democracy 🤷🏼‍♀️”

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Former MLA Derek Fildebrandt's trial got underway Wednesday with testimony from three teenaged boys who said he threatened to shoot them and chased them in his pickup truck.  "I was really scared, I thought I was going to die that day," said 13-year-old Matthew.  CBC News is not using the names of the underage witnesses. They will be identified as Matthew, David and James

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland @abpoli

[newsfromstolenland]

Alberta's UCP on choosing Danielle Smith as their new premier: "We're confident that she can continue in the long-standing conservative tradition of making things worse."

[lizbean99]

"Puberty blockers can't be started at 18 when youth have already developed: experts"

YEAH NO SHIT

THEYRE PUBERTY BLOCKERS, NOT ADULTHOOD BLOCKERS

[the-quotable-alberta-hansard]

April 8, 2024

The Chair: You have 45 seconds. The hon. Member for Banff-Kananaskis.

Dr. Elmeligi: Forty-five seconds. Okay. Really fast, here is the deal with Bill 204. It is not needed. The National Parks Act already requires approval of the province to create national parks. The province was involved in discussions around the idea of the Edmonton river valley as an urban national park and chose to step away. It’s not very cool that you were there and then you changed your mind and now you’re like: “Oh, no. Wait. I want to change my mind again.” That’s not how this works. This legislation is not needed. It’s redundant with the National Parks Act. The province was there. The province could also go back any time. There’s no prohibition to the province already being engaged. We do not need to put it into legislation to ensure that happens.

The Chair: That was perfect timing.

[abpoli]

Alberta's health-care delivery agency says it's preparing for surges in patients at Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary by opening a heated trailer next to the facility's emergency department.

Alberta Health Services announced the move in a series of tweets this weekend, noting the trailer will be operational in early December.

Health officials said earlier this month that in-patient units at both Alberta Children's and Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton were at or over 100 per cent of their normal capacity.

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[havok777]

Listen/purchase: Shitegeist by Massesect