Our Almost-Revolution
One little girl got into trouble and her baby was born three months after she was married. That baby was only four pounds in weight because the girl was almost starved to death… That little [...]
Alvin Finkel
Alvin Finkel
Seeking Equality:
Left-leaning Canadian scholars often point to more redistributive Scandinavia to demonstrate that greater economic equality, achieved through government policies, benefits society at large. [...]
Give and Take:
A wealthy Canadian federal politician introduced income tax changes to remove the loophole of lower rates for family and personal corporations. But he ended up on the defensive because he had [...]
Notley Nation: How Alberta’s Political Upheaval Swept the Country
It remains a pleasant shock that Alberta is no longer a political monolith. Why Rachel Notley’s NDP triumphed and how well they are governing have occasioned considerable debate since the [...]
Co-operation or Bust
At a workshop in the fall of 2008, my Athabasca University colleague Jay Smith conducted a revealing political experiment. Using 10 excerpts from Liberal, New Democrat and Green platforms from [...]
More than Wages
When Willa Gorman began working in the fibres area at Celanese in Edmonton in 1965, the chemical plant employed over 1,000 workers. “We worked with chemicals with absolutely no safety as we know [...]
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The Plans to Strip-Mine Coal in the Mountains
It looks like spectacular wild country, but some see it more as a big money sandwich.
The top layer of that sandwich is comprised of alpine grasses, forget-me-nots and stonecrop, glacier lilies and ancient, brave pines whose branches have been gnarled and weathered by centuries of wind. In summer, solitaires and ...
Alberta’s Black Swan
The best evidence of our conservative government’s cluelessness before the economy tanked in 2020 is the provincial budget. It was passed in a rush on March 18, 2020, two months after the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, had arrived in Canada. Oil demand in China was already down 20 per cent. Oil storage ...
An Environmentalist’s Case for Beef
“…If you knew how meat was made, you’d probably lose your lunch. I know; I’m from cattle country, and that’s why I became a vegetarian. Meat stinks, and not just for animals but for human health and the environment.”
That was Alberta singer-songwriter k.d. lang, in a 1990 television spot for ...