Meet the Minister: David Eggen
AV: You’re one of only two remaining MLAs from the Klein era. Yeah, I’ve actually seen six premiers. From 2004 until 2015 was quite an unstable government situation. They were changing ministers [...]
Evan Osenton
Evan Osenton
Meet the Minister: Marlin Schmidt
AV: What do you see as the purpose of post-secondary education? It serves two purposes. The first is to create well-educated citizens who are prepared to engage in public discourse and [...]
Meet the Minister: Shannon Phillips
AV: Does your government lose some credibility on the environment file due to its strong support for pipelines? No, because the replacement of a 50-year-old [Kinder Morgan] pipeline with a [...]
Meet the Minister: Oneil Carlier
AV: What does a typical week look like? I’m out and about a lot. The year before last I put 100,000 kilometres on my truck, just getting around the province, meeting producers, meeting [...]
Meet the Minister: Christina Gray
AV: Far more Albertans are workers than employers, but our culture really celebrates “the entrepreneur”—the job creator, the employer. What do you think about this? Well, we need both. A [...]
Meet the Minister: Shaye Anderson
AV: Why seek office? Why the NDP? So where I grew up, the Cowichan Valley, is a big resource area. My dad’s in forestry, as are a lot of people I know. And when I was born, in 1975, Tommy [...]
Meet the Minister: Joe Ceci
AV: Alberta collects some $8.7-billion less in tax revenue than we would if we had the rates of the next-lowest-taxing province [BC]. Your press releases say Albertans “benefit” from low [...]
The Mapmakers
On January 24, 2017, I took a road trip. Driving from Calgary to Drumheller that day was like floating in a void. Heavy fog under a blank-canvas sky. Snow on the field stubble. Frost on the fence [...]
No Free Lunch
Poleconomy, a 1980s family board game billed as “The Game of Canada,” has you move plastic beaver tokens, buy real-life companies and try to amass the most money. Occasionally you get elected [...]
The Gap
Dentists are trusted professionals. They’re also widely disliked. Having had a good dentist for decades, I was more trusting than disliking. But when my dentist reduced his hours, and new [...]
MOST READ
MOST READ
The Consequences of How We Pay Doctors
At approximately 9:21 p.m., on May 18, 2015, a couple driving on Edmonton’s Yellowhead Trail called 911 to report a suspected impaired driver. They said he appeared “like someone high on drugs.” At 9:33 p.m., two police officers in an unmarked vehicle pulled up behind the Nissan Maxima, which was now stopped ...
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 ...
Heritage Trust Fund
A decade ago, when Alberta was debt-free and staring at a $7.4-billion surplus, Premier Ralph Klein decided it was time to spread the wealth. He announced that every person who lived in the province—and, as it turned out, more than a few who didn’t—would receive a cheque for $400 as ...