Oil Sucks
I’m an addict. I use oil. We all do. That’s how we’ve wired our economy. But the fact that we’re hopelessly hooked doesn’t mean we shouldn’t confront the issue. The first step, after all, is [...]
Oil
Oil
The Redwater Decision
All across this province, from the banks of the Peace River to the barley fields of Lethbridge County, 155,000 holes have been drilled in the ground that share four characteristics: They were [...]
Retrospective: The Ponds
Every Albertan now knows that the tar sands, the world’s largest energy project, drinks an enormous amount of water. Separating tar from sand is a messy, water-intensive business: producing just [...]
A Captive State
The scientific advisory panel to US President Lyndon Johnson delivered a detailed paper in 1965 warning that fossil fuels were emitting so much carbon dioxide that global warming was a serious [...]
By Kevin Taft
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 [...]
By Jeff Gailus
What Lies Beneath
Tony Bruder and Ron Schmidt get on either side of the six-foot boards as I crouch down to get a better look. The two Pincher Creek-area neighbours shuffle the weather-beaten wood aside, revealing [...]
By Doug Horner
Petrostate
For years the boast “City of Champions” has greeted drivers entering Edmonton. With the Oilers now more likely to compete for the first overall NHL draft pick than the Stanley Cup, perhaps that [...]
By Ian Urquhart
The Great Royalty Debate
We do get our pound of flesh,” quipped Premier Ralph Klein about Alberta’s oil royalty rate in 2006. Of his government’s in-house royalty review he said, “I don’t know if it was completed or not, [...]
By David Finch
The Ponds
EVERY ALBERTAN NOW KNOWS that the tar sands, the world’s largest energy project, drinks an enormous amount of water. Separating tar from sand is a messy, water intensive business: producing just [...]
Doing the Dirty Work
The idea of labouring in a lucrative industry, even one dominated by heavy, dirty work and long hours, drew me to the oil patch. It was the reality that made me happy to leave. After hearing the [...]
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MOST READ
The Lesson of Lougheed
For 100 years, between 1905 and 2005, Albertans changed their government only three times (1921, 1935, 1971). The last of these elections, the most portentous, happened 50 years ago this August. Alberta has now changed government twice in the past six years. The next election may see yet another new government—meaning ...
The Assault on Higher Education
The Kenney government proclaimed in fall 2019 that Alberta’s post-secondary institutions were “overly dependent” on government funding—which is an odd thing to say about a public good. Then it declared that the province’s grant to the schools should be reduced by 20 per cent by 2023. The rationale for this ...
Rediscovering a River
The Cree called it Kisiskâciwanisîpiy—the swiftly flowing river. For the Blackfoot, it was omaka-ty—the big river. It starts in the Columbia Icefield, at the toe of the Saskatchewan Glacier, and cuts the province in half as it flows through Banff and Jasper national parks, northeast to Edmonton, then east-by-southeast across the ...