Welcome to the Anthropocene
Welcome to the Anthropocene is a virtuosic, challenging book of poetry by Alice Major, who served as Edmonton’s first poet laureate. This collection is by turns a lament, a dirge and a [...]
The Irrelevance of Space and Other Stories
The world is always in movement,” wrote V.S. Naipaul, the late British novelist and travel writer. It’s an apt description for the themes and characters—the “restless feet and wandering [...]
Women Who Dig
In this beautifully written and lavishly illustrated book, journalist Trina Moyles addresses the links between patriarchy and agriculture in Canada, the US, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, India and [...]
The Figgs
The Figgs are a family ripe with dysfunctionality—all adult children live at home, working dead-end jobs, and their bickering is full of profanity. Yet parents June and Randy Figg remain [...]
Public Deliberation on Climate Change
Alberta—and the planet—has a “super wicked” problem. First described in 1973, wicked problems defy “rational” policy responses, such as a cost/benefit analysis, in part because they have multiple [...]
Trade in the Trump Era
Canada’s prosperity depends on trade; Alberta’s even more so. The province exported over $100-billion worth of products last year, generating roughly one of every three dollars earned by [...]
The Pipelines We Need
Read any of Alberta’s daily newspapers and you will know that our province’s only hope is new pipelines. Nothing else will save us. I took some convincing, but I’m in. In fact, I’d like to [...]
Going to Pot
The windows of the former flower shop are still papered over, but soon customers will mill about in a very different kind of store. The floors will be polished concrete, and the dated [...]
Elections 2019
Even humorists feel dark about the world at times, and when I do I force myself back to the basics: food and family. Don’t worry, I’m not going to lecture on why food and water are essential to [...]
Alberta’s $15 Minimum Wage
Ian Hussey anticipates benefits. Alberta’s minimum wage was tied for Canada’s lowest when Rachel Notley became premier. On October 1 it will rise to $15 an hour—a 47 per cent hike over [...]
MOST READ
MOST READ
Misplaced Anger
Should Alberta ditch Canada? This simple yet ominous question—blazoned on two Alberta billboards earlier this year, and asked by many in the recent provincial election campaign—reflects a deep feeling of frustration and resentment throughout the province, much of it directed at Ottawa.
Environics, in their 2019 Survey of Canadians, found 71 ...
All The Rage
The tipping point came a week from the end of the campaign, and
by April 16 in the Big Four Roadhouse on the Calgary Stampede grounds, United Conservative Party supporters felt scant need for civility. Not anymore. The UCP had won the 2019 Alberta election, taking 63 seats to the NDP’s ...
Is Southern Alberta Home to Canada’s Stonehenge?
Imagine you are a bird, soaring. Below you on a high rise of prairie in southern Alberta lies an elaborate arrangement of stones. With eagle eyes you see distinctive lines radiating out every which way from a huge central cairn, enclosed within an outer ring of more stones. This is ...