
This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities.
Albertans are in the dark about what’s going on.
Early this month, Albertans were jolted by electricity grid alerts and rolling blackouts. In a province endowed with such vast energy resources, both renewable and non-renewable, grid failure seems inexplicable especially given the balmy, spring weather.
“We’ve built the system completely backward,” was the blunt assessment of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
Alberta’s electrical...
April 28, 2024 - 09:00 | Donna Kennedy-Glans | National Post
This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities.
Jyoti Gondek has 18 months remaining in her first and perhaps only term as Calgary’s mayor. Elected in October 2021, during the COVID pandemic, the mayor’s approval ratings sank quickly and she’s had a rough ride ever since. People are being mean to her, which is not OK, but Calgarians kind of let her frame herself as a hapless victim dragged into a partisan arena.
I sat down with her recently at city hall to unpack how it’s all gone...
April 21, 2024 - 09:00 | Donna Kennedy-Glans | National Post
Canada’s 2024 federal budget
has higher deficits, higher spending and higher taxes for the country’s wealthiest people. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland introduced the budget as a spending plan designed for younger Canadians. Freeland tabled the budget Tuesday after already having revealed much of its contents in the weeks before. In her budget speech, Freeland said younger generations need help given the swift rise in housing costs and...
April 16, 2024 - 16:30 | National Post | National Post
This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities.
Festival after festival across Canada is heading to the edge of the fiscal cliff. Edmonton’s Fringe Festival and Toronto’s Hot Docs report massive deficits and dire straits ahead without an infusion of funds. Just for Laughs has been forced to cancel festivals in Toronto and Montreal. In a post-pandemic world, festivals are vulnerable; many find themselves precariously caught in the financial squeeze of spiralling inflation and reduced...
April 14, 2024 - 09:00 | Donna Kennedy-Glans | National Post
This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities.
Why were we not surprised that teenage figure skater Kamila Valieva was caught doping and finally stripped of a gold medal awarded to her at the Winter Olympics in Beijing two years ago?
Valieva is Russian. Prior to the competition, Russian athletes were officially banned from competing by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). No matter. She competed in Beijing as an independent athlete.
Imagine — getting to the Winter Olympics,...
March 31, 2024 - 08:00 | Donna Kennedy-Glans | National Post
This is a conversation series by Donna Kennedy-Glans, a writer and former Alberta cabinet minister, featuring newsmakers and intriguing personalities. This week: former Alberta premier, Ed Stelmach.
Scroll back to the first week of March. In a single week, a record-setting 10,000 Ukrainians board airplanes heading to Canada to escape a brutal war that has no end in sight. And this surge of evacuees is expected to continue until the end of the month. After that; who knows.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than two years ago, 250,000 Ukrainians relocated to Canada under our...
March 24, 2024 - 09:00 | Donna Kennedy-Glans | National Post

