Why Coal Mines Always Get Approved
On February 8, 2021, after months of growing concern among Albertans at the thought of a half-dozen new coal mines in the headwaters of south-central Alberta’s rivers, Energy Minister Sonya [...]
Jeff Gailus
Jeff Gailus
Hunting the “Wild” Pheasant
The Taber Pheasant Festival runs for a week or so every late October in an agricultural wonderland. According to various chambers of commerce and economic development bureaus, southern Alberta is [...]
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 [...]
On the Brink
There is something angelic about trumpeter swans. Rare, ethereal, the size of a child, they wear robes of white feathers and course across the sky like clouds. They were once widespread in Canada [...]
Black Swans
A heartbeat off Highway 63 north of Fort McMurray, a boardwalk leads you through a quiet grove of aspen and jack pine, where songbirds fill the air with their tweets and twitters. It was too [...]
Lobbyists and Lip Service
Shortly after 3:00 p.m. on March 7, 2007, following what Hansard describes as “a fanfare of trumpets,” freshly minted Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach introduced the Lobbyists Act in the legislature. [...]
Wild Alberta’s Last Stand
The Castle wilderness is our own Costa Rica. Tucked into the southwestern corner of Alberta, the Castle features the largest number of plant and animal species of any region in the province—an [...]
Mind Games
There’s an old saying in research: Go to the source. And so, on a cool November Thursday, I stopped in to speak to former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein at his newest place of employment, the swank [...]
Alberta’s Grizzly Century
When Andy Russell died on June 1, 2005, nature honoured him with a tempest the likes of which he had never seen in Southwest Alberta during his 89 years. Rain fell like lead shot for almost a [...]
The Battle for Banff
Last week, within a two-hour walk of my back door, the Fairholme wolf pack set upon a female cougar just inside Banff National Park’s east boundary. One on one, a cougar is the ultimate predatory [...]
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Kenney VS. Campgrounds
I hear children giggling, wood being chopped and wind blowing through towering lodgepole pines as I use the back of a hatchet to tap my tent stakes into the soft, pine-needle-covered earth. It’s a warm Friday in mid-August, and I’ll spend the evening around a campfire before tucking myself into ...
Should Churches be Tax Exempt?
Karen Kerr, the president of Edmonton Atheists and co-founder of Alberta Secular Conference says no.
In Canada many charities and other non-profits, including churches and religious groups, are tax-exempt if they are deemed to create public benefit. The exemption is premised on the idea that they provide a public good. However ...
Pension Folly
In 1965, Quebec, eager to be master in its own house, decided it wanted to have its own pension plan and not be part of the new Canada Pension Plan. Quebec’s population was younger than the Canadian average, and the province had a high birth rate. The province believed its ...