The Alberta Wildrose party was and still is (barely)

the official opposition to the current Alberta Premier Jim Prentice Conservatives. Yesterday Danielle Smith leader of the opposition party, defected with 9 other of her MLA's to join the Alberta Conservatives or pc's. Over the past several months Wildrose MLA's began defecting to join the pc party. On various Connect to Edmonton threads yesterday, some of us (me included) were joking that the opposition leader Danielle Smith herself could join the pc's. Speculation to that end has been brewing for awhile now. I was shocked to hear this on the news late last night that Smith did indeed join the pc party of Alberta. Wow! This was shocking news but not totally surprising. With 5 Wildrose MLA's remaining in their party and Smith encouraging those left over to join her, what's going to happen to the party? If one more Wildrose MLA jumps ship, the rest will follow. I feel bad for all the Wildrose supporters that voted Wildrose in the last Provincial election April 23rd 2012. I'm sure they feel betrayed by the party leader defecting. There should be a rule that states if any MLA defects to another party especially as official opposition, they lose their seat. I wonder how many Danielle Smith supporters will vote for her during the next Provincial election, which is in the Spring of 2016. I'm sure many Wildrose supporters of those 9 that have defected to the Conservatives probably feel that the defectors now have zero credibility. If the Wildrose party is still in existence in 2016, I'm half inclined to vote for them.

It didn't take very long but we finally regained our internet connection over all 3 devices. It was a combination of Anne overloading the breakers and an old modem. Everything works fine now.

Thales is the signaling contractor for the Metro line. Its an lrt extension that was built last year and has been idle since last April when it was supposed to come online. Yet there have been several delay announcements since the initial April start. The City of Edmonton are no longer saying when Thales is handing over a certificate of safety and approval. I'm speculating that this wont be until mid April of next year. One year after, the initial line has been built. If oil prices keep dropping and the Province says they will be delaying the promised funding to the Valley line lrt (the next lrt line) that might get started in that case, until maybe after the 2016 election if oil prices don't rise to last Summer levels. Valley line delayed Provincial funding is a scenario that could easily happen. The Valley line from Mill Woods to City Centre downtown probably wont get under way if Provincial funding is delayed now until 2017. It also means that the City of Edmonton will have to revise its Capital City plan to the point that the Valley line might never get under way at all if the Province reneges on its promise and takes this project off the rails. Anyway, that's all for now.