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Minister LaGrange Protected Charter And Home Schools Yet Is Being Targeted For Her Nomination

Published

3 years ago

8 minute read

Article submitted by Wyatt Claypool of the National Telegraph

Wyatt Claypool

The performance of a lot of Alberta UCP Cabinet Ministers has left a lot to be desired over the past couple of years, but the one Minister that absolutely does not describe would be Red Deer-North MLA Adriana LaGrange.

LaGrange has been genuinely doing amazing work as Education Minister, helping to reform the public education system, and promoting the growth of the charter and homeschooling systems with more support typically monopolized by the public system.

She has also helped focus classrooms back onto straightforward teaching of mathematics and English in grades K-6, as well as started cutting politics out of the social studies curriculum, which she frequently took note of after being appointed Education Minister in April of 2019.

 

After The National Telegraph contacted both Parents For Choice In Education and the Alberta Parents Union both pro-school choice and education reform groups had almost nothing but good things to say about Minster LaGrange.

Frankly, an even bigger endorsement of Minister LaGrange’s work is just how much the NDP and left-wing Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) hate her.

Regarding the latter, despite how hostile the ATA has been towards the UCP government and the reforms made to the education system, Minister LaGrange was able to wrangle the ATA into signing a new collective agreement with the province while she simultaneously took away the ATA’s arbitrary power to discipline teachers and gave the responsibility back to the province.

This all raises the question of why someone would want to challenge LaGrange for her nomination.

Well, it seems that certain political organizations new to the scene simply want their people in the legislature.

That organization is Take Back Alberta, which originally campaigned to remove Premier Jason Kenney in the leadership review vote has now moved on to trying to take out anyone associated with Kenney’s government, or at least anyone who hasn’t endorsed their preferred UCP leadership candidate.

Ironically many of the people backing Take Back Alberta are the same political insiders that either helped to install Kenney as UCP leader back in 2017, as well as Erin O’Toole in 2020, and who have contributed to the feeling of alienation within grassroots in conservative politics in Canada.

Take Back Alberta is backing a man named Andrew Clews whose claim to fame is founding an Alberta anti-mandate group called Hold The Line (with only 1,000 followers), and predictably his pitch to UCP members in Red Deer North is that LaGrange is not pro-freedom enough.

In an interview with True North, Clews said:

Even to date, I have not heard (LaGrange) voice any type of support for the rights and freedoms that we once had as Albertans, I’m not impressed with how our government has handled the pandemic, how they have so casually given rights and taken rights away from Albertans…we need to elect leaders to go to the Alberta legislature and stand for freedom.

While most people would agree the UCP government did a poor job standing up for Albertan’s civil liberties over the past two years, it would also be wrongheaded to think Minister LaGrange had much to do with it.

Yes, LaGrange did not stand against Kenney in the strong and principled manner that MLA Drew Barnes did, and while what Barnes did was highly commendable and important, LaGrange was not exactly a big supporter of lockdowns and mandates. She mostly just stuck to her ministerial work while Kenney and other members of his cabinet hard-charged on mandates.

Clews himself even tactically admits that LaGrange never publicly supported the lockdowns and mandates by focusing his criticism on the fact she was not publicly against them, not that she was publicly in favour of them.

On the issue of education, Clews basically endorses the job Adriana LaGrange has been doing as Education Minister.

Clews stated that:

We need to reform the funding for our school system so that the funding goes to the child and follows the child as opposed to going automatically into the public school or Catholic school system…

Frankly, unless Andrew Clews believes that LaGrange should be magically reforming the education system overnight, she is doing exactly what he said he wants to be done, but seeing as she is not the premier, she has had to move slower than she would want to.

Part of LaGrange’s support for charter schools has been making more funds available to them in order to reflect the increase in the proportion of students attending charter schools.

We need to actually evaluate our elected officials on their overall performance and not nitpick on one specific aspect of their record in order to justify throwing them out of office.

I, (the writer of this article), was strongly against lockdowns and mandates, and the reporting I did here at The National Telegraph contributed significantly to protecting unvaccinated workers, as well as getting Dr. Verna Yiu removed from her position as the CEO of AHS for incompetence in the management of ICU beds.

Former AHS CEO Dr. Verna Yiu.

With that in mind, I don’t take much issue with anything LaGrange did or did not say over the last two years. She would be close to the bottom of the list of people I’d hold responsible for the lockdown regime, and on issues regarding education, I’d say her record, for the most part, is unblemished.

Very few politicians could ever be reelected if Adriana LaGrange was someone deemed unworthy of continuing her work in government, but the people behind organizations like Take Back Alberta do not seem to care about any limiting principles. Their goals seem to be more based on political ambition than anything truly connected to the conservative grassroots.

If I was a UCP member in Red Deer North I would be voting to renominate Education Minister Adriana LaGrange.

———

Details on the Red Deer North UCP nomination vote are listed below:

– August 18, 2022
– 11:00am-8:00pm
– The Pines Community Hall
– 141 Pamely Avenue

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2025 Federal Election

Will Four More Years Of Liberals Prove The West’s Tipping Point?

Published on April 3, 2025

By

The 1997 political comedy Wag The Dog featured a ruling president far behind in the polls engaging Hollywood to rescue his failing ratings. By inventing a fake war against Albania and a left-behind “hero”— nicknamed Shoe— the Hollywood producer creates a narrative that sweeps the nation.

The meme of hanging old shoes from the branches of trees and power lines catches on and re-elects the president. In a plot kicker, the vain producer is killed by the president’s handlers when he refuses to stay quiet about his handiwork. The movie’s cynicism over political spin made it a big hit in the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky days.

In the recent 2024 election the Democrats thought they’d resurrect the WTD formula to spin off senile Joe Biden at the last minute in favour of Kamala Harris. Americans saw through the obvious charade and installed Donald Trump instead.

You’d think that would be enough to dissuade Canadians who pride themselves on their hip, postmodern humour. But you’d be wrong, they don’t get the joke. Wag The Carney is the current political theatre as Liberals bury the reviled Justin Trudeau and pivot to Mark Carney. If you believe the polling it might just be working on a public besotted by ex-pat Mike Myers and “Canada’s Not For Sale”.

As opposed to Wag The Dog, few are laughing about this performative theatre, however. There are still two debates (English/ French)  and over three more weeks of campaign where anything— hello Paul Chiang—can happen. But with Laurentian media bribed by the Libs— Carney is threatening those who stray— people are already projecting what another four years of Liberals in office will mean.

As the most prominent outlier to Team Canada’s “we will fight them on the beaches…” Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith is already steering a course for her province that doesn’t include going to war with America on energy. She asked Trump to delay his tariffs until Canadians had a chance to speak on the subject in an election April 28. Naturally the howler monkeys of the Left accused her of treason. She got her wish Wednesday when Canada was spared any new tariffs for the time being.

Clearly, she (and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe) have no illusions about Carney not using their energy industry as a whipping post for his EU climate schemes. They’ve seen the cynical flip in polls as former Trudeau loyalists hurry back to the same Liberal party they abandoned in 2024. They know Carney can manipulate the Boomer demographic just as he did when he called for draconian financial methods against the peaceful Truckers Convoy in 2022.

Former Reform leader Preston Manning is unequivocal: “’Large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it.’“ So how does the West respond within Confederation to protect itself from a predatory Ottawa elite?

Clearly, the emissions cap— part of Carney’s radical environmental plans— will keep Alberta’s treasure in the ground. With Carney repeating no cancellation of Bill C-69 that precludes building pipelines in the future, the momentum for a referendum in Alberta will only grow. The NDP will howl, but there will be enough push among from the rest of Albertans for a new approach within Canada.

In this vein Smith even wants to approach Quebec. While it seems like odd bedfellows the two provinces most at odds with the status quo have much in common .  “This is an area where our two provinces may be able to coordinate an approach,” Smith wrote this week. That could include referendums by the middle of 2026.

Perhaps the best recipe for keeping the increasingly fractious union together is a devolution of power, not unlike that governing the United Kingdom. While Westminster remains the central power since 1997, there are now separate parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that put power closer to the citizen, so that local factors are better recognized in decision making.

With so little uniting the regions of the country any longer, devolution might provide a solution. What form could decentralization take within Canada? A Western Canada Parliament could blunt predatory federal energy policies while countering the imbalances of Canada’s equalization process. Similar parliaments representing Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and B.C. would protect their own special interests within Canada. Ottawa could handle Canada’s international obligations to defence, trade and international cooperation.

While the idea is fraught with pitfalls it nonetheless remains preferable to a breakup of the nation, which four more years of Liberals rule under Mark Carney and the same Trudeau characters will likely precipitate. Smith’s outreach case would be the beginning of such a process.

None of this would be necessary were the populations of Eastern Canada and B.C.’s lower mainland remotely serious after snoozing through the Trudeau decade. The OECD shows Canada’s 1.4% GDP barely ahead of Luxembourg and behind the rest of the industrialized world from 2015-2025. As we’ve said before the Boomers sitting on their $1 million-plus homes are re-staging Woodstock on the Canada Pension and OAS. As with Wag The Dog, they’re not getting the joke.

When the Boomers award themselves another four years of taxapalooza and Mike Myers and the other “Canada Not For For Sale” celebs head south to their tax-avoidance schemes how will the Boomers say they’ve left Canada  better off for anyone under 60? We’ll hang up and listen to your answer on the TV.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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2025 Federal Election

Highly touted policies the Liberal government didn’t actually implement

Published on April 3, 2025

By

From The Audit

David Clinton

It’s one thing to make a promise, and quite another to deliver. The Liberal government’s inability to implement its own policies

State capacity is the measure of a government’s ability to get stuff done that benefits its population. There are many ways to quantify state capacity, including GDP per capita spent on health, education, and infrastructure versus outcomes; the tax-to-GDP ratio; judicial independence; enforcement of contracts; and crime rates.

But a government’s ability to actually implement its own policies has got to rank pretty high here, too. All the best intentions are worthless if, as I wrote in the context of the Liberal’s 2023 national action plan to end gender-based violence, your legislation just won’t work in the real world.

The Audit is a reader-supported publication.

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So I thought I’d take a look at some examples of federal legislation from the past ten years that passed through Parliament but, for one reason or another, failed to do its job. We may agree or disagree with goals driving the various initiatives, but government’s failure to get the work done over and over again speaks to a striking lack of state capacity.

The 2018 Cannabis Act (Bill C-45). C-45 legalized recreational cannabis in Canada, with a larger goal of regulating production, distribution, and consumption while reducing illegal markets and protecting public health. However, research has shown that illegal sales persisted post-legalization due to high legal prices and taxation. Studies have also shown continued use among children despite regulations. And there are troubling indicators about the overall impact on public health.

The 2021 Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (Bill C-12). The legislation aimed to ensure Canada achieves net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 by setting five-year targets and requiring emissions reduction plans. However, critics argue it lacks enforceable mechanisms to guarantee results. A much-delayed progress report highlighted a lack of action and actual emissions reductions lagging far behind projections.

The First Nations Clean Water Act (Bill C-61) was introduced in late 2024 but, as of the recent dissolution of Parliament, not yet passed. This should be seen in the context of the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act (2013), which was repealed in 2021 after failing to deliver promised improvements in water quality due to inadequate funding and enforcement. The new bill aimed to address these shortcomings, but a decade and a half of inaction speaks to a special level of public impotence.

The 2019 Impact Assessment Act (Bill C-69). Passed in 2019, this legislation reformed environmental assessment processes for major projects. Many argue it failed to achieve its dual goals of streamlining approvals while enhancing environmental protection. Industry groups claim it created regulatory uncertainty (to put it mildly), while environmental groups argue it hasn’t adequately protected ecosystems. No one seems happy with this one.

The 2019 Firearms Act (Bill C-71). Parts of this firearms legislation were delayed in implementation, particularly the point-of-sale record keeping requirements for non-restricted firearms. Some provisions weren’t fully implemented until years after passage.

The 2013 First Nations Financial Transparency Act. – This legislation, while technically implemented, was not fully enforced after 2015 when the Liberal government stopped penalizing First Nations that didn’t comply with its financial disclosure requirements.

The 2019 National Housing Strategy Act. From the historical perspective of six years of hindsight, the law has manifestly failed to meaningfully address Canada’s housing affordability crisis. Housing prices and homelessness have continued their rise in major urban centers.

The 2019 Indigenous Languages Act (Bill C-91). Many Indigenous advocates have argued the funding and mechanisms have been insufficient to achieve its goal of revitalizing endangered Indigenous languages.

The 2007 Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA). Designed to protect whistleblowers within the federal public service, the PSDPA has been criticized for its ineffectiveness. During its first three years, the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (OPSIC) astonishingly reported no findings of wrongdoing or reprisal, despite numerous submissions. A 2017 review by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates recommended significant reforms, but there’s been no visible progress.

There were, of course, many bills from the past ten years that were fully implemented.¹ But the failure rate is high enough that I’d argue it should be taken into account when measuring our state capacity.

Still, as a friend once noted, there’s a silver lining to all this: the one thing more frightening than an inefficient and ineffective government is an efficient and effective government. So there’s that.

1

The fact that we’re still living through the tail end of a massive bout of inflation provides clear testimony that Bill C-13 (COVID-19 Emergency Response Act) had an impact.

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