Equalization Rage
It has been called the superglue of Canada’s Confederation. It is also, ironically, one of the things that keeps driving provinces apart. It is ridiculously complicated, made more so by [...]
Columns
Columns
Reject, Accept, Embrace
All “new” things (most of which are not actually new) seem to go through a cycle from rejection to gradual acceptance and finally embrace. One might assume I’m about to wax philosophical about [...]
By Fred Stenson
A Clean Windshield
Last summer I drove to The Pas, Manitoba, to visit my daughter. The long, hot drive went through Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Saskatoon, the heart of prairie Canada. In part I followed the route [...]
Alberta’s Watchdogs
He might not be Alberta’s version of US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated President Trump. But he’ll do in a pinch. His name is Lorne Gibson and he’s Alberta’s new Election [...]
Leaving Canada…
The desire to leave Canada comes and goes in Alberta. But not in all Albertans. In December 2018, the pollster Research Co. tested the strength of Alberta secessionism and found that 69 per cent [...]
By Fred Stenson
Paying the Piper
You get what you pay for. But since tax policy is anathema to many Albertans, it seems we’d rather buy climate disaster, obesity and ill health, dead birds and damaged watersheds than pay for a [...]
Whipsaw Change
If you think at times you’ve got a tough job, just be glad you’re not a member of Alberta’s civil service. These poor souls don’t know if they’re coming or going. They’ve spent the past four [...]
No Mutinies Here
When MLA Robyn Luff declared last November that she would boycott the Legislature because of a “culture of fear and intimidation” emanating from the premier’s office, she expected immediate [...]
Excellence
With a provincial election drawing near, those who care about Alberta’s environment face the question of how to vote. But I don’t think there really is a question. At election time an incumbent [...]
Flights of Fancy
Some in Canada would say that politics has slumped to new lows—but not brand-new lows, really. All this was precursed by the politics of the ’90s in Alberta and by most of federal politics in the [...]
By Fred Stenson
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 ...
Can Climate Change Be Reversed?
When NASA initiated the Mercury Project that would send the first American into space in 1958, one of the many questions facing scientists was what to do about the carbon dioxide emissions of their astronauts. Our bodies exude about a kilogram per day of the gas, which is lethal in ...
Der Indianer
The first thing John Blackbird learned when he was growing up on the Canadian prairies was that his people were no good. Indians were history’s losers: dethroned, displaced, rounded up and ghettoized on the reserves. Raised by a white family from the age of nine, Blackbird heard from friends and ...