For months now, the city has been watching a tedious production called Waiting for Stephen to come to its end — is Mayor Mandel in, or is he out? All other potential or rumoured candidates — Karen Leibovici, Don Iveson, Kerry Diotte and Amajreet Sohi — have kept their powder dry waiting for the mayor […]
Category Archives: Edmonton
Everybody in Edmonton, it seems, is complaining about potholes. This is a yearly phenomenon in Edmonton that arrives as surely as the first snows of October, and the last snows of April … or May. It’s all part of the rich fabric of life that is being an Edmontonian. Up until today, I thought all […]
Ah, politics. It has the potential to inspire, and an even greater potential to inspire derisive laughter or fits of rage. Here, for your reading and enraging enjoyment, are my choices for the top 10 political blunders of 2012, local edition. 1. Allan Hunsperger and the ‘lake of fire’ In the April provincial election, the […]
So the arena deal is dead, at least in its present form. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Daryl Katz has shown that he is not a man the city should be in business with, so let’s wash our hands of this whole sordid mess and consider ourselves lucky. So what went wrong here? Well, I […]
It’s odds-and-ends blog time, a fallback position for guys like me who suddenly realize that it’s been a while since they’ve written a blog. Can’t disappoint the followers, can I? Well, yes I can, and have, but not deliberately. Most Edmontonians have no idea why our best park is named Hawrelak, a name that does not […]
Mayor Stephen Mandel professes to be baffled by what Oilers owner Daryl Katz wants in the ongoing agony that is the arena negotiations. “I can no longer define what Mr. Katz is asking for or what he’s not asking for,” a deeply frustrated mayor said on Tuesday, after Katz gobsmacked city council with a new […]
I’m shocked, shocked to hear that Daryl Katz wants more money for the new arena, just the way Major Renault was “shocked, shocked” to find that gambling was going on in Rick’s Café in Casablanca. Back in July, when word came down that the “iconic” project (it can’t really be an icon until it’s built […]
Hey, Nail Yakupov! Can I hang with you the next time you go to a bar in Edmonton? Preferably someplace on Whyte or Jasper Avenues. Seriously, dude. I’d just hang around in the back somewhere. You wouldn’t even know I was there. I just want to watch. Sorry, let me rephrase. I just want to […]
The city of Edmonton continued its arena tease last week, releasing the latest renderings of the new hockey pleasure palace. It took exactly one day before it was declared “world class” by the typically rapturous coverage of the Edmonton Journal. Of course, anything built in Edmonton these days is immediately dubbed “world class”; apparently “Canadian […]
Well, the WC word appeared in the paper again today. You know what it is. I can barely utter it without snickering. It’s world-class. And yes, technically, it’s two words. But whether it’s one or two, the one thing I know is that no arena is going to make Edmonton world-class, or “put Edmonton on […]
