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Recently there has been a troubling trend of vandalism of oil and gas lines in Alberta and British Columbia. Is enough being done to protect our energy sector and our provincial infrastructure overall from the risk of domestic and international terrorism? DS: Some people don't feel proud of the industry the way they should. It provides so much to the Alberta economy in terms of jobs, it provides so much in terms of our growth in GDP, it provides a lot through royalty revenues, but I think that this...government has basically done a terrible job celebrating the things that the...

With his inability to pull his government out of the vortex of gaffes and blunders it has been stuck in, or slow the popularity freefall they are experiencing, there are some growing backroom whispers which suggest that Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach may try to repeat his strategy of 2008 by calling an early election in the hopes of catching the young Wildrose Alliance party off-guard.

You have given us years of directionless, big-spending government, and now we’re supposed to believe that you and your rearranged Gang of Usual Idiots have suddenly become born again fiscal conservatives?

It isn't often that I hand over that power and subject myself to the will and the questions of another, but that's just what I did a few nights back when I sat down and opened up for an interview by blogmeister Manganic.

In being witness to the plight Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach has found himself in, I cannot help but recall the final year or so of the Bush administration.

A random sampling of the best by the best.

The people are becoming restless and, more potentially damaging to Stelmach, they are beginning to lose faith. Descriptions like ‘aloof’ and ‘the Les Nessman of Alberta politics’ are replacing ‘nice guy’ regarding Ed. Notice: at no time do you hear the Premier described as ‘leader’.

Anytime a fresh political movement begins to gain momentum and begins to enjoy a higher level of credibility in the critical eye of the media, not to mention the public, there grows a danger of attracting the more controversial members of society.

If the most difficult aspect of democracy is finding yourself having to make a choice from a group of sub-par and undeserving candidates, then deciding who to vote for between two exceptional candidates has to be considered a very close second.

Talk about a good gig – every once in a while you throw a referendum (French for ‘tantrum’) that you never intend on winning, thereby ensuring another decade or two of pandering and bigger cheques from Ottawa. Crafty, them Quebecers.

Ironically, the very things Morgan was accused of saying – questioning of Hinman had the ‘charisma’ to attract voters – is something I had brought up before.

Then Evans made what could be regarded in the future as The Exact Moment Her Career Died when she did not rule out the idea of a provincial sales tax. For the uninitiated in the Alberta culture, let me explain: we are the only province that does not have a sales tax. The very idea is so poisonous, so distasteful, so completely unacceptable under any circumstances, it has been responsible for the deaths of an astronomical number of political dreams. Simply put: we will not have it.

They have been creating a little bit of a buzz, to be sure. But are they for real? Can they break away from the long-standing shackles that have held the pro-independence movement back? After lots of consideration, it appears the answer is no.

In what could be more than just an astute political move, the upstart Wildrose Alliance party has come out as supporting the idea of taking the idea of Alberta separation to the people via a provincial referendum.