While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Lisa Johnson.
It's budget day in Alberta, and the overarching question is not whether the budget will show a deficit, but exactly how many billions of dollars in the red it will be. Premier Danielle Smith has signalled for weeks that the deficit is going to be, in her words, "significant" but has not provided a dollar figure. She says the main...
EDMONTON -- It's budget day in Alberta, and the overarching question is not whether the budget will show a deficit, but exactly how many billions of dollars in the red it will be.
EDMONTON -- Alberta's government says it plans to increase physician spending by more than 20 per cent in its upcoming budget.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government isn't sure how much it might save if referendum questions proposing restrictions to social services for some newcomers are approved in the fall. Smith announced in a TV address Thursday that her United Conservative Party government is putting nine questions to a provincewide referendum on Oct. 19. They include proposals to restrict social...
Alberta's Opposition NDP says Premier Danielle Smith is stoking hatred by blaming her government's financial "mismanagement" on newcomers. Smith announced in a TV address Thursday night that her government is putting nine questions to a provincewide referendum on Oct. 19. They include proposals to restrict social services from some immigrants and to open up Constitutional negotiations on abolishing the Senate...
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is putting nine questions to a provincewide referendum on Oct. 19, including proposals to restrict social services from some immigrants.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is set to address the province in a TV broadcast Thursday evening and is expected to discuss immigration.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is set to address the province in a TV broadcast Thursday evening and is expected to discuss immigration. Smith said Wednesday that rapid population growth coupled with slagging oil prices have put an unsustainable strain on the province's finances. "You have to be a taxpayer before you start using our services," she told reporters at an...
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is set to address the province in a TV broadcast Thursday evening and is expected to discuss immigration.
EDMONTON -- The Alberta government is hitting pause on a recent policy change cutting off health coverage for some temporary foreign workers, including youth coming to Canada on working vacations.
The Canadian Bar Association is speaking out against Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's call for more input on the selection of federal judges. Smith says if Alberta doesn't get more say on future judicial appointments to the province's superior courts and the Supreme Court of Canada, her government would hold back money those judges need to do their jobs.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government says it will bring in the new budget on Feb. 26 and is warning it will be a tough one.
EDMONTON -- Alberta's recently announced effort to add physician shifts to help triage patients in crowded emergency rooms has been delayed.
EDMONTON -- A former United Conservative member of Alberta's legislature says he will remain an Independent MLA when the house reconvenes in February.
Alberta's judges are calling for respect days after Premier Danielle Smith said she wishes she could "direct" them. The province's three chief justices say in a rare public statement that democracy only functions when all three branches of government operate independently and respect each other's role. "It ensures judges can make decisions based solely on the law and evidence presented,"...
EDMONTON -- The operator of one of the province's largest long-term care homes says it's working to address serious concerns about an infestation of mice and mice droppings.
EDMONTON -- Alberta's emergency room doctors, in a letter to the provincial government, have detailed front-line horror stories of preventable deaths along with indignities and suffering by patients in what one physician describes as "death zones."
EDMONTON -- An Alberta school division has launched an investigation after the premier shared on social media an audio recording, purportedly of a teacher disparaging the province's conservative political culture.
EDMONTON -- Alberta's Opposition NDP is calling on Premier Danielle Smith's government to face a "crisis" of overcrowded hospitals head-on as doctors plead for emergency measures to help cope.
EDMONTON -- Doctors who have been pleading for help as Edmonton hospitals are being overwhelmed by patients say Alberta's health-care leadership is missing in action.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the American capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro underlines the urgency of building oil pipelines to export Canadian oil to new markets. U.S. President Donald Trump sent political shock waves around the world with the weekend military raid, saying Washington aimed to seize the South American country's oil reserves. Smith says the events "emphasize the...
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says the American capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro underlines the urgency of building oil pipelines to export Canadian oil to new markets.
The leader of a rival party to Premier Danielle Smith's United Conservatives says they're scrambling to organize on the chance Smith tries to undercut them by calling a spring election. "Time is not on the side of the UCP," Peter Guthrie, the head of Alberta's new Progressive Tory Party, said in an interview. "If you look at us organizing, we're...
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA -- The leader of a rival party to Premier Danielle Smith's United Conservatives says they're scrambling to organize on the chance Smith tries to undercut them by calling a spring election.
Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz is quitting cabinet and says she will also soon be leaving the legislature altogether. Schulz made the announcement on social media Wednesday. She says she has offered her resignation from cabinet effective Friday and will step down as the United Conservative legislature member for Calgary-Shaw by May. "Timing is everything in life and in politics,"...
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA -- Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz is quitting cabinet and says she will also soon be leaving the legislature altogether.
The Alberta government in 2025 completed the final legal foundations of its new health-care system -- and Premier Danielle Smith says she's working in 2026 to prove it was worth it. The massive reorganization saw Smith dismantle Alberta Health Services as the provincial health authority and relegate it to a hospital service provider. Smith said with one major piece of...
CALGARY, ALBERTA, CANADA -- The Alberta government in 2025 completed the final legal foundations of its new health-care system -- and Premier Danielle Smith says she's working in 2026 to prove it was worth it.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's hand-picked panel re-examining the province's relationship with Ottawa says it's time to ditch the RCMP and hold a provincewide referendum on quitting the Canada Pension Plan. The Alberta Next panel, in a report with findings and recommendations, says creating a provincial pension plan was the most hotly debated topic among citizens and one that needs to...
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's hand-picked panel re-examining the province's relationship with Ottawa says it's time to ditch the RCMP and hold a provincewide referendum on quitting the Canada Pension Plan.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's hand-picked panel re-examining the province's relationship with Ottawa says it's time to ditch the RCMP and hold a provincewide referendum on quitting the Canada Pension Plan.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is hiking the cost to apply for a citizen-initiated referendum by 5,000 per cent, saying it's about making sure applicants are serious.
EDMONTON -- Alberta's justice minister is the latest member of Premier Danielle Smith's caucus to face a citizen recall petition.
Alberta's governing United Conservatives stayed up until the early hours of this morning to pass a bill making it the fourth time they have used the Charter's notwithstanding clause. Members of Premier Danielle Smith's caucus used their majority to pass on third and final reading a bill affecting transgender citizens. The UCP members pounded their desks and shouted "Hear, hear!"...
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, CANADA -- Alberta's governing United Conservatives stayed up into the early pre-dawn hours of Wednesday morning to pass a bill that marks the fourth time in under two months they have used the Charter's notwithstanding clause.
EDMONTON -- The Alberta government moved to the final stage of debate early Wednesday on legislation that, if passed, would see the Charter's notwithstanding clause invoked four times in less than two months.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government moved one step closer late Tuesday night to passing legislation invoking the Charter's notwithstanding clause for a fourth time in this sitting.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government was poised Tuesday to pass legislation invoking the Charter's notwithstanding clause for a fourth time in this sitting.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says those seeking an independence referendum should not have "gatekeepers," like the courts, standing in their way.
EDMONTON -- Two Alberta cabinet ministers say money was a key factor in the United Conservative government's decision to use the Charter's notwithstanding clause to override teachers' rights and shut down a provincewide strike.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is urging Crown prosecutors to think twice about charging someone who acts to defend themselves or others in their own homes.
Alberta's watershed pipeline deal with Ottawa wasn't front and centre Friday when Premier Danielle Smith spoke with United Conservative Party faithful at their annual convention. Smith took the stage in Edmonton for the first of many addresses planned for the weekend. It wasn't until after she spoke on issues including rural policing, new federal legislation and even separatism that someone...
EDMONTON -- Falling oil prices and trade troubles continue to threaten Alberta's finances, but the province's deficit is expected to shrink only slightly.
EDMONTON -- Falling oil prices and trade troubles continue to threaten Alberta's finances, but the province's deficit is expected to shrink only slightly.
EDMONTON -- Alberta is moving to insulate its Crown investment corporation from potential legal liabilities and protect companies in the province from lawsuits accusing them of greenwashing.
EDMONTON -- The Alberta government has tabled a bill that would open the door for surgeons to charge patients for privately-delivered procedures while keeping a foot in the public system and billing taxpayers.
EDMONTON -- The head of the Alberta Teachers' Association says a report on classroom aggression and complexity largely vindicates its longstanding calls for more support and money to fix the problem.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is limiting what behaviour professional regulators can police in the name of strengthening freedom of expression.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is limiting what behaviour professional regulators can police in the name of strengthening freedom of expression.
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith revealed her government's plan to introduce legislation to let doctors choose to work in the public and private health systems simultaneously.
EDMONTON -- The Alberta government is on the hunt for a new auditor general, but the Opposition NDP says they're forcing him out before he finishes investigating a health-care contracting scandal.
EDMONTON -- The Alberta government is starting to roll out compensation for the families of children who were kept out of classrooms during a three-week teachers strike.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says absent a deal to end a provincewide teachers strike, her government will introduce back-to-work legislation Monday. Smith says with the strike deep into its third week, the hardship facing students and families is intolerable, forcing her government to step in. The two sides do not have formal talks scheduled but Smith says there is still...
EDMONTON -- Alberta doctors say the province's effort to save money on COVID-19 vaccines could end up costing taxpayers far more in public health-care costs.
EDMONTON -- Alberta's government is providing more details about a bill it says will prevent long ballot protests during provincial elections.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is planning to introduce legislation this fall to limit who can run in provincial elections. Government house leader Joseph Schow says the changes will ensure only those who, in his words, "truly care and are serious about representing a community" will be put on the ballot. Schow, speaking to reporters, declined to provide details on...
EDMONTON -- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's government is planning to introduce legislation this fall to limit who can run in provincial elections.
A final report into allegations of corruption in Alberta government health contracts says it was widely known two staffers were in conflicts of interest but no steps were taken by senior officials. Former Manitoba judge Raymond Wyant makes 18 recommendations for the Alberta government, including improving conflict and procurement policies.
EDMONTON -- The head of the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce says a provincewide teachers strike is putting a strain on businesses.
EDMONTON -- Alberta's government says it expected to receive a final report Wednesday from the investigation into allegations of corruption over health contracts, but it won't be immediately released.