The Road From Here
Years from now we may well remember the date with a certain mythic significance. March 11, 2020: the day the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 virus a global pandemic. I was [...]
By Jenna Butler
Columns
Columns
Pandemic Politics
Pop Quiz! What do you call a government that runs up record deficits, intervenes in the marketplace, restricts people’s movements and pays workers to stay home? a. Socialist b. Communist c. New [...]
Finding Fortitude
Ottawa is a city of memorials, as befits a national capital. But the most poignant and powerful one isn’t in Ottawa proper. It’s the Afghanistan Memorial Hall, a 30-minute drive from Parliament [...]
By Paula Simons
Pestilence, Again
Sometime in 2019 a tiny little virus called COVID-19 discovered a new host species and began to multiply. That would have been merely an interesting phenomenon were it not for the fact that we [...]
Who’s Keeping Watch?
As a journalist, covering Alberta’s United Conservative Party government is a bit like trying to jump aboard a speeding locomotive. So much weight is moving at such great velocity that it’s [...]
Our Real Journey
“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary [...]
By Jenna Butler
Bears and Brains
Winston Churchill said “History is written by the victors.” In other words, consider the source before believing an assertion. Another example of “he who holds the pen” relates to intelligence. [...]
Fates Intertwined
Line 9B. It’s not a fancy name. It doesn’t have the poetic ring of “Trans Mountain” or “Northern Gateway” or even “Energy East.” Yet the Enbridge 9B pipeline, for me, symbolizes the [...]
By Paula Simons
Letter to the War Room
DEAR WAR ROOM: I realize you’ve called yourself the “Canadian Energy Centre” since opening shop last fall, but we all know you’re the War Room as promised in the United Conservative Party’s [...]
Saving Seeds
It’s the cusp of the growing season on our farm. The past year hasn’t been for the faint of heart, that’s for certain: another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it summer, the boreal forest lagging [...]
By Jenna Butler
MOST READ
MOST READ
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 ...
Part 1: A Tribute to Charlie Russell
Charlie Russell loved to fly, and he seldom phoned first those times when he would fly his Kolb ultralight airplane north from Hawk’s Nest ranch on the boundary of Waterton Lakes National Park, to our “ranchette” near the Crowsnest Pass. We would hear the thrum of the plane’s Rotax motor ...