alberta stuff.

Well, not tones has happened in the realm of Alberta provincial politics in the past month or so, but there has been a bit of movement...

- Infrastructure and Transport Minister Lyle Oberg has re-launched his Leadership Campaign website - Oberg Online (not quite as cool and hip as "Hancock's Crew")

- Both the Alberta Liberals and Alberta PC's will be holding Party Conventions in the upcoming months - the Alberta Liberals will be holding a policy convention in Edmonton, and the Tories will be holding an AGM and convention in Calgary.

Though it looks largely boring, the Tory convention will include a Leadership review on Mr. Klein. Though it is not widely expected that any of the pretenders to Mr. Klein's slowly crumbling throne will mount a "dump Ralph" campaign during the review, it should be interesting to see what type of approval rating he receives. Anything lower than 90% (which seems inevitable) would definitely make a large dent in the Premier's armour (and his oversized ego).

So... we shall see... we're more that sure our 'deep throat' in the PC Party will be filling us in with all the goodies come convention time. :-)

- By the end of January, Kevin Taft's Alberta Liberals will have nominated at least 20 candidates for the next provincial election (out of 83 seats).

- It looks like the provincial budget may come down in February. This means that the Legislature is probably going to reconvene in the next couple weeks for a Spring Session.

- Oh, how we wish we had a computer scanner... believe it or not, we got a Christmas card from Mr. Jim Dinning this year. Boy, was that fun. :-P

- Rumours of who might run for the NDP nomination in Edmonton Strathcona when popular three-term MLA Raj Pannu retires have continued to swirl... though usual names like former ATA President Larry Booi are still around, names like Rachel Notley (daughter of former NDP Leader Grant Notley) have recently been floating. (**June 15, 2006 UPDATE** It looks like my Rachel Notley prediction has come true as she is now running for the NDP nomination in Edmonton Strathcona...)

- For those of you interested, the youth-wings of the three main Alberta parties now all have websites - the Alberta Young Liberals (AYL), New Democratic Party Youth of Alberta (NDYA), and Young Albertans Progressive Conservative Association (YAPCA, pronounced as- we're assuming - yapka). Not sure if the Alberta Alliance has a youth-wing...