The Year of Bargaining Diplomatically
Last year the government of Alberta faced a mountain of public-sector contract negotiations. A whole mountain range, actually. Collective agreements covering roughly 180,000 employees expired: [...]
Policy
Policy
Social Impact Bonds
Imagine you’re running a shelter for homeless youth, and the government grants you’ve always relied on suddenly dry up. Imagine waging the equivalent of a Dragon’s Den pitch to potential [...]
The Assault on Science
By May 2012 morale was low throughout Canada’s scientific community—and then the country’s scientists received a swift kick where it counts. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) announced [...]
Delisted
Jessica Willes’s delicate complexion reflects her pale-grey T-shirt, creating a translucent backdrop for her sparkly almond-shaped eyes. Wisps of her bob-length ash blond hair frame her face as [...]
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 [...]
By Jeff Gailus
What Are We Fighting For?
In March 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper went to Kandahar, Afghanistan, to speak to Canadian troops. he defended Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, claiming that our military is “defending [...]
MOST READ
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 ...