Danger Spray
Glyphosate, better known by its trade name Roundup, is a popular herbicide. It kills almost anything green, and it’s safe too. Well, maybe not so safe. Recently courts have begun awarding damages [...]
Columns
Columns
With or Against Him
It’s dog whistle politics without the whistle. Alberta’s new UCP government doesn’t have to come out and admit it’s much less committed to Indigenous issues than the former NDP [...]
Educational Warfare
In 1965 Edmonton writer Henry Kreisel published “The Broken Globe” in an American periodical. It was a short story about a Ukrainian immigrant with a farm near Edmonton. When Mr. Solchuk’s son, [...]
By Fred Stenson
Perverse Policy
October, for me, used to mean duck hunting: the fecund smell of prairie potholes, a spreading sunrise glow along the horizon and the whistle of mallard wings overhead. Saskatchewan describes [...]
Floor Crossings
Anyone who says a leopard can’t change its spots has never met an Alberta provincial politician. Over the years the spot-changing has included Liberal MLAs who “crossed the floor” to become [...]
Ritual Nonsense
All of us respond automatically to verbal stimulus. Even if we have a raging headache or are in mourning, we’ll still reply to “How are you today?” with “Just fine” because we’re programmed to. [...]
By Fred Stenson
Better Contagion
Earth is a mess. It’s been 400,000 years since the planet’s atmosphere last held this much carbon dioxide. And we keep pumping out more. The consequences—melting permafrost, increasingly frequent [...]
Imposing Decorum
You may have missed this promise from Jason Kenney in the lead-up to April’s election: “I and our caucus will raise the bar of civility and decorum in the legislature.” It probably didn’t grab [...]
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 [...]
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
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 ...