The Breakdown With Nate Pike: Recent Episodes
The Breakdown
In case Alberta politics isn't a hot enough topic, we're spending this episode on the intersection of religion and the machinery of public governance!In 2015 the Supreme Court of Canada decided in the Saturday Decision that prayer at municipal governments violates the states duty to neutrality, but is that decision being followed?To take this on, we sit down with Ian Bushfiled, the executive director of the BC Humanist Association and one of their main researchers Dr. Teale Phelps Bondaroff to talk about their efforts to document the overlap of religion and particularly prayer in government and their campaigns to ensure that the machinery of government remains neutral when it comes to matters of faith.And what does Sea Cucumber crime have to do with all of this?Some links compliments of the BC Humanist Association...Alberta Report:https://www.bchumanist.ca/last_municipality_standingOntario Report:https://www.bchumanist.ca/open_for_unconstitutional_businessManitoba Report:https://www.bchumanist.ca/in_open_defianceFirst BC Report:https://www.bchumanist.ca/municipal_prayer?utm_campaign=muni_prayer_1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=bchumanist Second BC Report:https://www.bchumanist.ca/we_yelled_at_them_until_they_stoppedLegislative prayer across Canada report:https://www.bchumanist.ca/prayer-across-canadaAnalysis of change in prayer in the BC Legislature:https://utpdistribution.com/9780776637891/legislatures-in-evolution-les-legislatures-en-transformation/A shorter analysis looking at prayer in the BC Legislature:http://www.revparlcan.ca/en/thoughts-on-prayers-an-analysis-of-prayers-in-the-legislative-assembly-of-british-columbia-2003-2019/Initial study of prayer in the BC Legislature:https://www.bchumanist.ca/house_of_prayers_reportPaper exploring how inclusive prayers are impossible and the state cannot possible adjudicate these issues:https://secularismandnonreligion.org/articles/10.5334/snr.140/?fbclid=IwAR2XO7BvxOLBM7_C-Hjh_YUzJsIrbtDW1kw2mXO1vT4xsJWmh_xktt6gCSI#Work on sea cucumbers:https://oceansasia.org/worldofseacucumbers/Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab and we can now accept e-transfers at info@thebreakdownab.ca!If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's another Alberta Politics roundup and open mic!We take a look at David Staples spreading right wing astroturf propaganda, the Western Standard making bank off of the feds decisions, the healthcare voucher system, the UCP's noncologist event and the condem,national of it from the medical community, Shannon Phillips retiring from politics, Smith seemingly wanting to cash out the Heritage Savings Trust fund on high risk investments, we fact check her chat with Real Talk and a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab and we can now accept e-transfers at info@thebreakdownab.ca!If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
On this episode we take a look at Derek Fildebrandts new criminal charges, we do a deep dive on coal mining and who's behind it, we talk about insurance costs, the state of healthcare in Alberta, Alison Redford new appointment and more!Look for Part 2 with our open mic soon!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab and we can now accept e-transfers at info@thebreakdownab.ca!If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With NDP members receiving their ballots across the province, we've put all of our conversations with the remaining leadership candidates together in one marathon episode!It starts with Kathleen Ganley, followed by Sarah Hoffman at 31:19, Naheed Nenshi at 1:20:42 and ending with Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse at 2:25:00!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With the Western Standard episode out of the way, we’re back with a conversation with Jeremy Appel to talk about his book "Kenneyism"!In this chat we get into why Jeremy wrote the book, we unpack the mind of Kenney a bit and we talk about the future of Alberta politics with a contrast between Smith and Kenney!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
In 2019, Derek Fildebrandt revived Ezra Levant's former publication th Western Standard and set about building a media empire out of Western Canada that was predicated on (among other things) not accepting any government funding. But can they really say that they don't accept any government funding and that they don't get taxpayer money?Over that last 6 months we've completed a series of FOIP's that show that The Western Standard has indeed been getting taxpayer funds. Not only has the government of Alberta been paying the Western Standard for their content and for subscriptions, but they've also been directing taxpayer dollars to the Western Standard for Advertising as well!Which is all pretty "conflict-of-interesty" given the fact that the WS was the previous media home of Danielle Smith and two of her highest ranking officials!We unpack all of that an more in this episode!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's time for a conversation with new Alberta Party leader, Lindsay Amantea!With more than a few pundits and political scientists making it clear that they believe Alberta is now inexorably a two party state, you have to wonder why the Alberta Party and it's leader believe that they have a place in the political conversation, and we pose exactly that question (and a whole lot more) in this upbeat and humorous conversation!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Welcome to Episode 6.31, an in depth deep dive on Bills 18 & 20 with Political Scientist Dr. Lisa Young!In this conversation that is quite the ride, we hear from Dr. Young on what Bills 18 & 20 do and also what the implications are for the province of Alberta in both the short term and the long term, including an important call to action!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's our final interview of the NDP Leadership race, and we're sitting down with non other than Gil McGowan!In this conversation, we get Gil's thoughts on the economy, healthcare, the future of the NDP and a whole lot more, including his reaction to Bill 20 and the UCP's chronic overreach!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Here's the Speakers Corner from our April 28th show!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Time for another Alberta Politics roundup!On this episode we take a look at the saga of the anonymous letter to the UCP alleging conflict of interest in the halls of Edmonton CIty Hall, Danielle Smiths 2nd (!) $2 million COVID panel, the recent appointment of one of Danielle Smith's mentors to the Alberta Energy Regulator before we do a deep dive on what some are arguing is the most Un democratic and even authoritarian piece of legislation to come out of the Smith government yet, Bill 20!Plus a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Dr Wesley is a political scientists and professor at the Univeristy of Alberta who specializes in taking a look at not only how Albertans see themselves, but also how they believe other Albertans see the world around them as well!Dr. Wesley does these investigations through his organization, Common Ground and recently he and his team completed some important research taking a deeper look at not only how Albertans view some of the big issues facing our province but also how they believe other Albertans feel about those issues as well, and he joins us to share those results and their implications!Not only that, but we also get into Bill 18, what it potentially means for the future of research and democracy in Alberta and perhaps most importantly, Dr. Wesley shares what Albertans need to be doing to move the needle in meaningful ways!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Welcome to episode 6.27, a conversation with Harm Reduction and recovery advocate Guy Felicella!Guy made headlines recently when he was barred from a recovery conference in Calgary, and he generously sat down with us to explain what happened, but we get into a whole lot more than that, including the nature of recovery, the crossover of BC and Alberta politics and a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Time for another panel!With the political temperature in Alberta reaching a rolling boil over Calgary and Edmonton initiating blanket rezoning (even though Edmonton has completed the rezoning already), particularly to access federal housing funding, we decided it was time for another deep dive!To make sense of this we’re joined by Robert Tremblay of the Calgary Climate Hub, Kathryn Davies of “More Neighbours” and Edmonton City Councillor Micheal Janz! To learn more about the climate hub or to attend their speaking event prep, visit https://www.calgaryclimatehub.ca/rezoning_speak_city_hall_train_apr24To learn more about “More Neighbours” and the specifics on the zoning, you can visit https://www.moreneighbourscalgary.ca/rcgDon't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's another Alberta Politics roundup and what a week!EMS profitization! Policing subsidization! Why is misrepresented BC drug policy playing such a big role in Alberta politics right now? We debunk a boatload of myths and we do a deep dive on Danielle Smith's Bill 18 and its attack on municipalities, post secondary education and well... pretty much everything?Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
There’s a lot of conversation around the physician shortage in Alberta, but how did we go from being on of the most appealing provinces for physicians to practice in to one that is struggling to even fill residencies?To get some answers, we sat down with President of the Alberta Medical Association, Dr Paul Parks! But we don’t stop at the physician crisis, we also get into the literal disintegration of healthcare in Alberta, the opioid crisis and we revisit the legendary December 10, 2023 press conference and vaccinations!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With incredible advocate Guy Felicella being banned from attending a recovery conference in Calgary this week, we figured it was time for a throwback to our episode originally aired on August 28, 2023!We are SO excited to present our conversation, with survivor, advocate and all around amazing person Guy Felicella! This is one of the most intense episodes we've done yet, and it's an absolute must watch/listen!Guy Felicella grew up in a middle-class home in British Columbia but due to trauma, undiagnosed ADHD and difficulty at home and school, he fell into addiction at a young age. Guy spent 30 years in the repeated cycle of gangs, addiction, treatment, and jail.He spent nearly twenty years residing in a two-block radius in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside. Miraculously, with sheer determination and the help of others through harm reduction and recovery, Guy managed to survive the HIV/AIDS crisis in the DTES, two decades of being homeless, multiple life-threatening bone infections, and six drug overdoses.As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we're trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you're listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don't forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We sit down again with Disability Advocate Don Slater to get his thoughts on how the provincial budget affects disabled Albertans, unintended consequences for the fight against the carbon tax, the erosion of social contact and a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's Part 2 of our March 31 episode and this is our speakers corner! You don't want to miss this one because not only do we hear from a few of our regular speakers but we also hear from advocate and politico Anna Murphy!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's time for another Alberta Politics Roundup and Speakers Corner and sure enough, this episode goes so long we're breaking it into two parts!In Part 1, we take a look at the recent Take Back Alberta troubles, the effect of the houselessness processing facility in Edmonton, the status of the grassy mountain coal mine, the latest on the NDP Leadership race, Premier Smith's attempt of a performative federal committee hearing before we get into the recent OFFICIAL UCP anti-trans tin foil hat event!Look for our speakers corner part 2 as well, because not only do we hear from a few of our regular speakers but we also hear from advocate and politico Anna Murphy!You can read the blog post that we reference during the show at https://crystalgaze2.blogspot.com/2024/03/you-got-played-girl.html?spref=twDon't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We've been working on having conversations with all of the candidates for the NDP Leadership, but as you'll see this conversation is more than a little different, and it's because what Jodi brings to the table is very different than any of the other candidates.Not only do we get into all of the same topics that we have addressed with the other candidates, including the future of the NDP, Alberta's economic and energy future, the environment and safe supply but we also get into a simultaneously complex and simple conversation on Truth and Reconciliation, the incredibly complex governance structures that make up Alberta as a treaty province and a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're continuing in our efforts to interview all the ecandidates for the NDP Leadership Race and we're very excited to present this conversation with Naheed Nenshi! We cover housing, energy, affordable housing, Grassy Mountain, renewables, and a whole lot more in this episode!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
In this episode, we're talking education with members of the Edmonton Public School Advocacy Network, Nancy Hunt, Jodi McDonald, Nancy Kirkpatrick! The UCP government introduced their new budget recently, and that's budget sees funding for private schools and early childhood centres increasing at four times the rate of public K-12 spending, the EPSAN is raising the alarm about how this budget doesn't begin to address the current situation and how the projections show decreases in funding year over year!You can visit their website at https://www.epscnetwork.com and you can sign the petition they talk about in this episode at https://chng.it/6sQTNfMz94!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
In this episode we're addressing the rumors surrounding former MLA, Minister and Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuks alleged entry to the NDP Leadership race, But wait, there's more!We also cover the RCMP investigation into the UCP Leadership race, the provincial budget, TBA and a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're back for another roundup of Alberta Politics and the last week has given us a lot of big events to talk about!We start by getting into the bizarre state of counselling as a profession in Alberta before we take a look at the RCMP investigation into the 2017 UCP Leadership Race, Danielle Smith's bizarre take on Pharmacare and we end with a deep dive on the state of coal mining in Alberta, particularly the proposed Grassy Mountain Mine that the UCP is inexplicably pushing through!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're continuing on with our series with NDP leadership candidates with a conversation with current MLA and NDP Leadership Candidate, Rakhi Pancholi!As with all of our conversations so far, we get into her vision for the Alberta NDP going into the future, her position on the relationship with the federal NDP, safe supply, the carbon tax and a whole lot more (including an Oregano scandal?)Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
There's been a lot of talk about Danielle Smith's proposed policies limiting access to gender affirming care, and we've talked a lot about statistics and studies here on the show when it comes to gender affirming care...But enough of the academia.We sat down with an ACTUAL physician in Alberta who provides gender affirming care to cut through all of the noise and the fearmongering to hear from someone who actually provides gender affirming care what is happening in Alberta, what the rules are, who can get care and how and a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're continuing on with our series with NDP leadership candidates with a conversation with former Justice Minister, Current MLA and Current NDP Leadership Candidate, Kathleen Ganley!As with all of our conversations so far, we get into her vision for the Alberta NDP going into the future, her position on the relationship with the federal NDP, safe supply, the carbon tax and a whole lot more!Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
The section of our show where Dr. David Keegan called in to share the story of his nephews death by suicide because of Smith's policies is so important and heartbreaking we decided to release a version with a few minor technical difficulties removed.
This is probably our most important episode of The Breakdown ever.We're back for our regular live round up of Alberta Politics, including the announcement of the fact Alberta intends to opt out of the new national Pharmacare program, the multiple environmental disasters that the province is inevitably facing, Smith's recent provincial address and her newest episode of "Your Province, Your Premier".But it's the call in from Alberta Physician Dr. David Keegan on the loss of his trans nephew to suicide that everyone needs to hear, because that death is directly attributable to Smith's recent barrage of anti-trans policies. And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
For episode 6.12, we’re proud to present this heartfelt conversation with Marni Panas! Marni is an advocate, a leader and a whole lot more, and she generously joins us to share her perspective on how Smith's anti-human rights policies already have and will continue to cause very real harm to the trans community.And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
On this episode we take a deep dive on the history or "Parental Rights" in Alberta and we further explore how Danielle Smith's new anti-trans, anti-choice, anti-expertise policies will affect all Albertans with Canada Research Chair for the Public Understanding of Sexual and Gender Minority Youth, Dr. Kristopher Wells!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With 3 official candidates for the NDP Leadership race having announced their intention to become the next leader of the NDP, we're very excited to present our first conversation with one of them!Sarah Hoffman has been a multi-term MLA, deputy premier and Minister of Health during the NDP's time in government. She joins us in this episode for a conversation on what she sees as the future of the NDP, her position on a carbon tax, healthcare, housing Danielle Smith's assault on trans kids and adult choice and a whole lot more!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
After Danielle Smith announced on her radio show on January 27th that she would be introducing some gender and pronoun policies, Political Scientist Dr. Duane Bratt joined us to try and make sense of what she was saying. No one was prepared for what she actually announced though.So a week later, we're thrilled to welcome Dr. Bratt to the show for an in depth conversation on Smith's policies and he has dropped the gloves and pulls no punches in this not to be missed episode!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Danielle Smith and the UCP have launched a series of policies attacking trans kids, the LGBTQ2S+ community, parents ability to choose medical procedures with and for their kids, teachers and the education system and the entire medical community.In this episode we fact check Dani from her launch video to several press conferences, and it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that what Dani says this about isn't at ALL what it's actually about.And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With the devastating news from the provincial government of their new policies targeting trans kids and minors ability to access healthcare, we wanted to have a conversation with someone who could bring some humanity to the conversation as soon as possible!Pam Rocker is a SUPER gay advocate, presenter, writer poet and a whole lot more! We are super excited to present this conversation that brings some much needed empathy and compassion to a subject that desperately needs it.And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Dr. Bratt is a professor of Political Science at Mount Royal University and he joins us for a conversation on the state of affairs in Alberta Politics! We start by taking a look at the potential political implications of Danielle Smith's recent appearance with Tucker Carlson before we pivot to the NDP leadership race and Danielle Smith's announcement that the UCP will be introducing legislation on "parents rights" with an announcement coming this week!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Another episode so big we had to split it into two parts!In this special Part 2, we sit down with politico and strategist Sarah Biggs to try and make sense of some of the choices that were made in Alberta Politics in the last week before we open it up to our open mic!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Another episode so big we had to split it into two parts!In this first part, we take a look at a few of the weeks bigger Alberta Politics events before we do a complete deep dive/fact check on Tucker Carlsons recent speeches in Calgary and Edmonton!(And there's a LOT to fact check!)In the process we end up fact checking a lot of Smith's recent claims as well, and theres more than a few inaccuracies in there was well!Look for Part two where we bring in Politico and Strategist Sarah Biggs to help us make sense of it all and we have our regular open mic!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With Edmonton cracking down on homeless encampments and teaming up with the province to create a processing centre, as well as the UCP ignoring the overwhelming evidence that supports harm reduction, we sat down with Euan Thomson from DrugDataDecoded.ca to try to make sense of these issues as well as address safe supply, supervised consumption sites and Danielle Smith's upcoming forced treatment!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Time for another Alberta Poliotics Roundup!This week We're talking about the oil and gas liability facing Albertans, policing in Alberta, homeless and houselessness encampments, Tucker Carlson, Rachel Notley's resignation and more!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Time for another Alberta Poliotics Roundup!This week We're talking about the ongoing healthcare crisis, especially in EMS and in Red Deer, the infamous Tylenot Childrens Medication scandal that just keep getting worse, Fracking and the Brazeau Damn plus we go through our latest FOIP results!And we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We’re back!And we’re kicking off the new year by asking what it even means to be conservative or progressive in the province of Alberta anymore! We take a look at Danielle Smiths track record, her year and comments and we deconstruct her appearance on the “program” Alberta Update that’s run by UCP staff and paid for by taxpayers and we measure that against the definition of conservative! But the NDP don’t get a pass in this episode either as we take a look at their frenzy around the changes to gifts introduced by the UCP that the NDP completely got wrong! Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're rounding the year off by revisiting our top 10 episode of 2023 (in no particular order).Guy Felicella spent 30 years in the repeated cycle of gangs, addiction, treatment, and jail. He spent nearly twenty years residing in a two-block radius in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. Miraculously, with sheer determination and the help of others through harm reduction and recovery, Guy managed to survive the HIV/AIDS crisis in the DTES, two decades of being homeless, multiple life-threatening bone infections, and six drug overdoses. We'll be dropping our top 10 most popular episodes over the next two weeks, so stay tuned!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're rounding the year off by revisiting our top 10 episode of 2023 (in no particular order).David Gray is someone with extensive knowledge of Alberta's electricity system, and he sat down with us to explain why Alberta's electricity prices went through the roof this year! He also has a long history in Alberta Politics and provided some historical insight on Danielle Smith's somewhat duplicitous approach to politics!We'll be dropping our top 10 most popular episodes over the next two weeks, so stay tuned!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're rounding the year off by revisiting our top 10 episode of 2023 (in no particular order).Collin May is a highly educated lawyer who made the news in 2022 when he was appointed to be the chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, but that was only the start of his media coverage… Later that year, an academic book review he provided was portrayed as being Islamophobic by some and racist by others. Collin was eventually fired from his position by the government and has since initiated multiple legal actions. We sat down with Collin to hear his story and what he shares is not only shocking, but a potential glimpse as to how political parties will go to extreme lengths to cover up their own mistakes.We'll be dropping our top 10 most popular episodes over the next two weeks, so stay tuned!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're rounding the year off by revisiting our top 10 episode of 2023 (in no particular order).Back in May we sat down with legendary broadcaster and commentator Charles Adler! We covered a lot of ground in our chat, starting with his history in media, his shock at where Alberta "conservatism" has gone, his endorsement of Rachel Notley and his historic interview with Jason Kenny during the 2019 election!We'll be dropping our top 10 most popular episodes over the next two weeks, so stay tuned!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're rounding the year off by revisiting our top 10 episode of 2023 (in no particular order).To kick things off, we're reaching back to May of 2023 with our election kickoff episode!We'll be dropping our top 10 most popular episodes over the next two weeks, so stay tuned!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Here's the call in section from our Dec 3rd, 2023 Alberta Politics Roundup! We get into the housing crisis, long COVID, the healthcare crisis, the Alberta Pension, the lifting of gift limitations for MLA's and a whole lot more!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're back for another weekly Alberta Politics roundup!On our last live show of 2023, we try and debunk some of the myths that are being spun on th carbon tax, we take a look at the bizarre meeting Adriana Lagrange had this last week leading to two rants on naturopaths and the Alberta Paramedic Association! From there, we take a look at the new federal emissions caps on oil and gas before we break down the new (and somewhat revealing) developments on the Alberta Pension Plan!Make sure to look for the bonus episode that goes with this one with our regular open mic as well!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Here's the call in section from our Dec 3rd, 2023 Alberta Politics Roundup, with a special surprise appearance from a former 2 term MLA!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're back for another weekly Alberta Politics roundup!We start by breaking down some of the biggest news stories of the last week of Alberta politics, including the Westlock Crosswalk situation, a CSIS report that should turn significantly more heads than it has, Tanya Fir's very bad week in the Legislature, multiple leaks from the oils sands up north, Smith launching the Sovereignty Act (kinda) AND...We get into th results of our FOIP requests on the Pension Report that seem to strongly suggest that there's much, much more to the story than the government is telling Albertans. Make sure to look for the bonus episode that goes with this one with our regular open mic as well!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Dr. Joe Vipond is an ER physician who has been an advocate for a number of causes, but over the lest few years his voice particularly stood our for his passioned positions on healthcare and on COVID prevention and mitigation. We sat down with Dr. Vipond to hear what his concerns are on Alberta healthcare, the respiratory virus season, COVID and perhaps most importantly, what people can do to protect themselves and their loved ones!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
During this weeks open mic we heard from Jenney Yeremiy on a disturbing situation developing with logging in Southern Alberta and as well got some good news from one of our regular callers! Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're back for another weekly Alberta Politics roundup!We start by breaking down the whole saga with Red Deer Catholic School Board Trustee Monique Lagrange before we tackle the provinces war on affordable housing, their war on healthcare, the continuing Turkish Tylenol debacle, some fascinating developments in renewable energy (despite the renewables moratorium from the UCP), the Manning Report, and an extended "Stuff Smith Says" segment. Make sure to look for the bonus episode that goes with this one with our regular open mic as well!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Alberta is seeing seismic changes to it's healthcare system and the implications can be a bit overwhelming. To try and make sense of the changes that Danielle Smith and the UCP are implementing and threatening to implement, we sat down with an expert in the field of health law, Dr. Lorian Hardcastle!Lorian Hardcastle is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, with a joint appointment to the Department of Community Health Sciences in the Cumming School of Medicine. Lorian obtained her JD with Health Law and Policy Specialization Certificate from Dalhousie University, and her LLM and SJD from the University of Toronto, and in this episode she helps us navigate what the changes to the role of CMOH, forced treatment and the implosion of AHS and the profitization of healthcare delivery mean for Albertans.Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Time for another weekly roundup!Ethics rules re-written! AHS Implosion! And...Tucker Carlson is coming to town for a play date with Smith?We had a LOT to talk about this week, including a special visit from David Grey for and update on the Citizens Research Foruum and we had our regular open mic!!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Dr Andrew Leach is an economist, a constitutional law scholar and a professor at the University of Alberta! He recently released a new book entitled “Between Doom and Denial” which takes a look at the ongoing conversation about Oil and Gas during a time of climate change and where investors are demanding companies and jurisdictions work to reach net zero. Plus we ask him for his thoughts on the Alberta Pension Plan, the Carbon Tax & Nate Horner’s announcement he’s pursuing a retrofit subsidy for Albertans who want to switch from Natural Gas to…Heating oil?Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
After our weekly roundup, we always open our mic up to the "X Spaces" for people to share their thoughts on the show, the topics we cover and Alberta Politics in general!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's game on in the Alberta Legislature and we're back with another Alberta politics roundup in two parts!In this back to session episode, we take a look at the throne speech, all of the bills that have been introduced so far and we try and make sense of their impact and what they mean for Albertans. But if that wasn't enough...This weekend also saw the UCP AGM, and we take a look at the policies that passed and try and make sense of the impact of what they mean for Albertans!As always, we also hosted our open mic and you can find those conversations (with a surprise appearance from a former MLA!) in Part 2!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
A conversation with David Gray! Some of you might remember David from our earlier episode where we talked about how the primary driver of skyrocketing electricity prices was the policy of economic withholding that the UCP brought in. David is now working to create a space where Albertans can access unbiased information about the issues facing their province and sat down with us to talk about this new project, The Citizens Research Forum!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Time for another weekly roundup of Alberta politics!The Banff Centre is embroiled in scandal (again)! We learn how much the Alberta Government is willing to pay for a prime website address! Take Back Alberta continues with some major drama! There's pension problems aplenty, Albertans got SCREWED on Smith's Turkish TyleNot and more!Plus our regular segment "Stuff Smith Said", and we host our weekly open mic!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Time for another weekly roundup of Alberta politics!This week we're taking a look at the Red Deer School Board Trustee who claims she was told by god to post Nazi memes, Danielle Smith's Childrens Tylenol scandal that just keeps getting worse before we do a deep dive into the pension situation with Rachel Notley, Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre all taking the stance that Alberta shouldn't leave the CPP.We also take a look at the things that Danielle Smith said this week, the True North event and our weekly open mic!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
The Alberta Pension Plan Proposal from Danielle Smith took a lot of people by surprise given she said that it wouldn't be an issue she would pursue, but nonetheless, Alberta's find themselves facing down an almost certain referendum and trying to make sense of what it all means...To help make sense of this situation, we sat down with renowned economist Dr. Trevor Tombe to first walk us through what the CPP is, how it works, and who pays for what. From there, Dr. Tombe explains the differences between the CPP and the proposed APP, the misleading and incomplete information Smith has provided Albertans and perhaps most importantly the massive risks that Albertans would be assuming that aren't risks that exist with the CPP!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're back after two weeks which makes this a record long episode!There's an absolute dumpster fire going in health care in Alberta, coal mines in the mountains are back, the UCP policies for their policy convention are public and we spend literally an hour fact checking Alberta Premier Danielle Smith before we open up the floor on our regular open mic!Pack a lunch because this is a long one!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
There's no question that the public education system has been under attack from the far right lately, and the attention that they've drawn by attacking vulnerable kids in the LGBTQ2S+ has had the additional side effect of distracting from some of the other major issues that teachers and kids in schools are facing!To help try and re-centre the conversation a bit, we sat down with Alberta Teachers Association Local 38 President Stephani Clements to talk classroom sizes, increasing complexity and a whole lot more!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Many Albertans might be surprised to know that the oldest political party in Alberta is also the first political party to form government in the province of Alberta, the Alberta Liberal Party!While the Alberta Liberals have had a challenging run since the late 2000's and have been shut out of the legislature since 2019, Alberta Liberal Leader John Roggeveen assumed the role of permanent leader in 2022 and is hoping to rebuild the party. We sat down with John in advance of their 2023 AGM to hear about what he sees as the future of the Liberal Party.Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
It's our Alberta Politics Roundup for the week ending on October 1st!We start with taking a look at a few stories that were ironically ignored in the run up to the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, because these stories speak to how much work is still needed. We then run through a the biggest stories in Alberta politics including Smith's embarrassing performance on Power and Politics, her even worse press conference where she completely failed to show leadership on vaccination roll out, the ongoing scandal with Red Deer School Board Trustee Monique Lagrange and a whole lot more before we open things up for one of our most intense open mic's yet!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a fall lineup!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With a monster week in politics we're back with another 2 part episode!In Part one, we do our weekly round up of Alberta Politics and in Part 2, we're joined by politico Sarah Biggs for her take on the week before we open up the floor for our regular open mic!In our roundup, we take a look at more changes to provincial party leadership, health care and curriculum "announcements", the latest environmental stories and a bit more before we break down both the recent anti-LGBTQ2S+ protests and the stunning announcement about Alberta pensions!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.
With a monster week in politics we're back with another 2 part episode!In Part 1, we do our weekly round up of Alberta Politics and in Part 2, we're joined by politico Sarah Biggs for her take on the week before we open up the floor for our regular open mic!In our roundup, we take a look at more changes to provincial party leadership, health care and curriculum "announcements", the latest environmental stories and a bit more before we break down both the recent anti-LGBTQ2S+ protests and the stunning announcement about Alberta pensions!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With an E. Coli outbreak striking to the heart of the province, we're back for another Alberta Politics Roundup! We start by taking a look at the environmental situation in Alberta before moving on to the incredibly on brand appointment of a lowered standard "writer" to the office of the deputy premier's press secretary. From there we get into the E. Coli tragedy and the provinces inexplicable response to not just the outbreak itself but the affected families as well, particularly the arguably staged response of the premier. We then round the night off with the recent cancellation and then rebooking of a Take Back Alberta event important American culture wars before we pivot to some examples of politicians representing Canadian values, not imported American ones. And that's when we're happy to see the return of longtime guest Sarah Biggs for her take on the events of the week before we open it up for one of the busiest open mic's we've had in a while!Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
With many people in Alberta (and across the world) trying to make sense of Alberta’s Renewable Energy Moratorium, we decided to try and get some context from someone who works in that field to not only better understand the moratorium but the whole process for getting renewable energy approved in Alberta.
Lindsay Amantea is a lawyer who works in renewable energy who has an up close view of what the moratorium is, how it’s affecting projects and energy workers in Alberta, and we’re extremely grateful for her insights!
Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca!
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For a "quiet" week in Alberta Politics, there's no shortage of ground to cover in this weeks roundup!
This week saw the Kananaskis being clear cut while a company apparently violated protected lands, the War Room/Canadian Energy Center throwing taxpayers dollars across the border, the last day of the Shandro hearings and a whole lot more, and that's not even our main subject!
Because we also unpack the whole debacle with the School Board Trustee who compared kids waving pride flags to kids waving Nazi flags and the response across the province before our regular open mic where we get into the housing crisis and the nature of independent media and journalism!
Plus we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca!
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It’s back to school for students across the province, so we sat down with the executive Director for “Support Our Students” Medeana Moussa!
In this conversation we cover a lot of ground, including what some of the biggest issues teachers and students are facing with the return to the classroom as while as what the future of those classrooms could like like with the looming threats from “Take Back Alberta” (and what Albertans can do to help)!
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Time for another Alberta Politics Roundup!
The renewable moratorium situation just keeps getting worse, and Smith just keeps getting caught in lie after lie! Plus, what is going on in Fort MacLeod, who's going to be the new UCP president and does someone need to check on the leader of Take Back Alberta?
Now is the time on The Breakdown when we dance!
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We are SO excited to present our conversation, with survivor, advocate and all around amazing person Guy Felicella! This is one of the most intense episodes we've done yet, and it's an absolute must watch/listen!Guy Felicella grew up in a middle-class home in British Columbia but due to trauma, undiagnosed ADHD and difficulty at home and school, he fell into addiction at a young age. Guy spent 30 years in the repeated cycle of gangs, addiction, treatment, and jail.He spent nearly twenty years residing in a two-block radius in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. Miraculously, with sheer determination and the help of others through harm reduction and recovery, Guy managed to survive the HIV/AIDS crisis in the DTES, two decades of being homeless, multiple life-threatening bone infections, and six drug overdoses.As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
We're back from break with our first live Alberta Politics roundup in a few weeks and it's a monster episode!In this episode we take a look at the concerns Alberta Fire Chiefs have with the UCP's unexpected changes to Bill 5, Danielle Smith's Chief of Staff Marshall Smith’s Scandals that keep gaining mass, the Dynalife Buyback, the Renewables Moratorium, Dani’s very bad presser, Take Back Alberta and "Real Talk" and a whole lot more!We also welcome back politico Sarah Biggs to provide a little context as to why "Real Talk" would have had "Take Back ALberta" Leader David Parker on their show!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Threads!
Back to school is coming and with it (in parts at least) is a new curriculum!
But what about the most controversial part of the new curriculum, the social studies component?
To try and find out a more on the status of things and what the Smith government intends to do with Social Studies in Alberta, we sat down for a chat with curriculum expert and amazing advocate Dr Carla Peck!
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It's a takeover edition of The Breakdown!
In a complete switch up, disability advocate Don Slater takes over the hosting duties and our regular host gets put in the hot seat! Don runs the gamut of topics from the provincial election, the future of the major political parties in Alberta and a whole lot more in this unique and one time episode!
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In this chat with Alberta Party Leader Barry Morishita, we cover the Calgary Stampede scandal, what went right and wrong with the Alberta Party's strategy in the last provincial election, what the future of the Alberta Party looks like (and we've got a bit of a scoop there!) and what Barry believes is necessary for the future of politics in Alberta!
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Time for another Alberta Politics roundup!
Fundraising! Healthcare Restrictions Revelations (but not really)! Private Healthcare in Alberta! Healthcare/EMS Crisis! No New Renewables! The UCP on Substance Use/Houselesness! Stampede Scandals!
All this, our regular open mic and a whole lot more!
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Time for another Alberta Politics roundup!
On this episode we start by catching up with a missing MLA, before we take a look at the potential privatization of healthcare, the history of the lab services debacle before we do a deep dive on the recent settlement of the lawsuit where the Calgary Stampede admitted liability and negligence for decades of abuse, but for seemingly inexplicable reasons Danielle Smith seemed determined to soft pedal the Stampede's admitted responsibility.
All this and a whole lot more!
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We return for our first live recording in two weeks!
Donairs! Healthcare crisis! Management Opportunities in Alberta! And Alberta Pension Plan! Cronyism Contracts? Danielle Smith's Secret Council for the future of energy in Alberta! Our FOIP results for who runs Smith's Social Media and how many accounts has SMith blocked?
All this and a whole lot more!
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The conclusion to our conversation with Energi Media Founder Markham Hislop!
Markham has been reporting on Energy and the future of Energy for years following an entire career and lifetime in the energy industry, and in this conversation we go through Parts 1 & 2 of his “Unethical Oil” series! What’s the future of Oil and Gas in Alberta? What’s the future of bitumen? What’s going on with abandoned and orphan wells?
And why didn’t the NDP capitalize on Carbon Capture and Storage during the election?
All this and a whole lot more!
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We’ve got a conversation with Energi Media Founder Markham Hislop that’s so big we’re breaking it into two episodes over this week!
Markham has been reporting on Energy and the future of Energy for years following an entire lifetime and in the energy industry, and in this conversation we go through Parts 1 & 2 of his “Unethical Oil” series! What’s the future of Oil and Gas in Alberta? What’s the future of bitumen? What’s going on with abandoned and orphan wells?
And why didn’t the NDP capitalize on Carbon Capture and Storage during the election?
All this and a whole lot more!
Look for Part 2 Friday, July 21st at 8 PM MST!
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Crossover event!
In a special episode of The Breakdown, we sit down with the 905’er podcast from Ontario to discuss the state of politics, provincially and nationally, what Alberta’s future looks like and we re-litigate the 2023 Alberta provincial election!
(Note- this episode was recorded on June 16th when it appeared that the memo of the hiring and firing of Dr. Deena Hinshaw had been fabricated. That has since been proven to have happened, although the details of how it occurred remain unknown)
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Following the appalling comments by then UCP candidate Jennifer Johnson regarding trans kids, Jonathan and the Leduc Pride began trying to reach out to Johnson to try and not only educate her, but also to heal the community. Johnson hasn't committed to a time yet, but Jonathan isn't giving up and he took some time to share with us a bit of the progress he and Leduc Pride are making in their community!
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On this live episode of The Breakdown, we take a look as the anti-LGBTQs+ protests that are claiming to be protecting kids, but more and more it looks like they're weaponing them! From there we take a look at the BC Ports strike, the Preston Manning Report, the toxic supply crisis, the catastrophic drop in FIrst Nations life expectancy, before we get into Danielle Smith's recent interview with the Rebel and the retconning of her being found to break the law.
All this and we end up our round up with some of the wildest ABPoli tweets of the last week!
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We're excited to present a conversation with Executive Director for the Queer Alberta Safety Net William Conner!
The QASN started out as a grassroots facebook community providing mutual aid support for members of the LGBTQ2S+ community and with the rise of hate targeting their community have made the decision to rise to the challenge! We chatted with Will to learn the history of the QASN and where they intend to go from here!
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On this episode of The Breakdown...
This week, Leduc made the news for all of the wrong reasons, and we try and put some proper context and apply some facts to the hate filled rants that came out of the Leduc CIty Council chamber.
Take Back Alberta also made the news with not a small amount of internal and external drama, the Hinshaw hiring and Un-hiring spent a lot of time in the news and in what likely comes as no surprise Alberta premier Danielle Smith made headlines with her outright rejection of harm reduction, so we take a look at what she said and what the evidence, and fact actually are!
All this and a whole lot more!
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On this episode of The Breakdown...
What's all the fuss about Supreme Court judges? What are the scandals with Danielle Smith and why is the NDP calling for an RCMP investigation? It turns out the Hinshaw memo was REAL! What was behind that survey that made so many people so upset?
And we have a chat with Disability Advocate Don Slater who raised concerns about whether or not the province will ensure that C-22 is used to support people on AISH/Disability and that the province doesn't claw back any of the federal funding targeted to lift disabled Canadians out of poverty!
You can send an email a to the Minister of Community and Social Services at SCSS.minister@gov.ab.ca with the simple message to ensure there are no clawbacks when C-22 comes into effect in Alberta!
All this and a whole lot more!
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Collin May is a highly educated lawyer who made the news in 2022 when he was appointed to be the chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, but that was only the start of his media coverage…
Later that year, an academic book review he provided was portrayed as being Islamophobic by some and racist by others. Collin was eventually fired from his position by the government and has since initiated multiple legal actions.
We sat down with Collin to hear his story and what he shares is not only shocking, but a potential glimpse as to how political parties will go to extreme lengths to cover up their own mistakes.
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If you thought Alberta Politics were going to be less dramatic after the election...
That's definitely not the case.
So on this episode, we try to make a little sense of all the drama of the last week, from the real stats about the wildfires being investigated for arson to Danielle Smith using her platform as premier to plug her restaurant and then claiming to be cancelled from Facebook when she wasn't!
All of this and our usual Speakers Corner!
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He's been a hard core conservative activist, a firebrand city councilor and for the last two years he has been on something of a journey of self discovery that has led him across a continent, up more than a few mountains and sees him recently teaming up with former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi to call out the UCP and their candidates.
We sat down with Jeromy to hear his story in his own words for a fascinating conversation that covers a tremendous amount of ground!
And yeah, we get into the arena deal.
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TIme for another roundup!
We start of by taking a look at Danielle Smith's revisionist history attempts (from just this week) before we cover off the air quality complaints in schools here in Calgary followed by a look at Smiths new cabinet!
And then, we do a deep dive on the recent audio from an Edmonton School where a teacher has become the centre of controversy from alleged Islamophobic comments, and we ask the question, but were the comments actually the way they're being portrayed in what is likely one of our most controversial episodes to date!
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With Adriana Lagrange being the newly appointed minister of health, we decided to do our very first episode mashup!
Back in December of 2021, we started telling a story of a potential abuse of power by Lagrange to ensure wealthy donors got paid as part of the mask procurement for kids in school, and that story ended up spanning almost an entire year!
So in recognition of Lagrange's new appointment, we've put the entire saga into one bonus episode!
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With the election dust settling,we sat down again for another chat with former MLA, Minister and Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk for his thoughts on what went right and what went wrong in election 2023 as well as what the future holds for Alberta and how Albertans can make that future as positive as possible!
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On another weekly run down of the week in Alberta politics, we take a look at how so far, 2 new MLA's who were faced scandal over comments they made about the Trans community during the election have both failed to acknowledge Pride Month despite commitments to "do the work". From there we take a look at how multiple UCP MLA's (past and present) manage to fail upward despite major lapses in judgement and we take a look at the massive job cuts coming out of the oil patch!
All this and more plus our weekly live Speakers Corner!
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We're back and coming in hot!
On this episode we get through the last couple of days since the election before we get into the first of several deeps dives!
We start with a look at the election itself before presenting a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the NDP campaign that we've been putting together with conversations with experts for the last couple of weeks!
From there we get into our open mic and the anxiety that many are experiencing with the election of Smith and the re-election of the UCP before Ziad Fazel breaks down what we know about the arena deal and how badly taxpayers are apparently getting taken advantage of which also sees a surprise appearance and commentary from Jeromy Farkas!
It's possibly our longest episode yet, but we cover A LOT of ground!
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With affordability on the forefront of many minds, we sat down with energy economist David Gray to try and make sense of why it is that electricity prices continue to skyrocket!Not only that, but David has been active in politics for more than a few years and had a front row seat to Danielle Smith's infamous floor crossing, so we get his insight on that as well!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On the eve of the election, we sat down with 6 (then) Alberta Party candidates to have an extended discussion on Where, Who and Why is the Alberta Party. That conversation covered the candidates and their own histories, why they chose to run for the Alberta Party and a whole lot more. If you're interested in what on of the smaller option parties is all about, this episode is for you!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
We're 10 days into the Alberta Provincial Election and it's already shaping up to be one of the most controversial campaign trails in living memory!To start with, we try and break down the major events of the last week, including the ongoing UCP scandals, Danielle Smith's tattoo (does that really have to be an election issue? Really?) and a whole lot more before we get into...The videos.Multiple new videos of Danielle Smith making wildly controversial comments made the rounds on social media this week, including ones where she spelled out her apocalyptic vision of health care delivery in Alberta as well as two that created significant outrage for her comparison of 75% of Albertans to supporters of the nazi regime and claiming that health protections ruined Remembrance Day for her. As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
We are extremely excited to present this long form conversation with the legendary Charles Adler!We cover a lot of ground in this chat, starting with his history in media, his shock at where Alberta "conservatism" has gone, his endorsement of Rachel Notley and his historic interview with Jason Kenny during the 2019 election!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.56 - On our very first mid-week round-up, we’re joined by politico and strategist Sarah Biggs to try and get caught up on the events of Alberta politics since our last episode, and there’s a lot! Danielle Smith and the UCP continue to crank out scandals, we take a look at the Super PAC that has seized control of much of the UCP “Take Back Alberta”, we run down the Q3 political party fundraising numbers and we chat about the NDP decision to remove a candidate after that candidate spoke out against a racist video and criticized the Stampede Board!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Danielle Smith is pushing a program called R* (R- Star) to encourage resource development and well sitecleanup, but there’s no shortage of critics condemning the program. We sat down for an in-depth discussion with Mark Dorin and Regan Sawchuk to learn a little more about this program and why it’s so controversial!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
In a special live episode recorded on November 8th during the byelection that saw the election of Danielle Smith to the Alberta Legislature, we combined our weekly rundown of Alberta politics with a live play by play of the byelection and all of the implications with the help of political strategist Sarah Biggs and political pundit Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On another live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the last week in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean starting with the ongoing health care crisis before moving on to mandate laters, addiction myths and finally we somehow land on dinosaurs walking with humans!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Continuing with our new format of running episodes twice a week, we run down the last week in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean!With education minister Adriana Lagrange making blatantly false comments about masking at a recent press conference, we start by asking where the real leadership is on in addressing the respiratory virus that’s cutting through Albertas kids right now. From there we get into the new mandate letters, Danielle Smiths apparently debunked claims about her ancestry and a whole lot more!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On another live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the big events in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean! We start with the costs of the border blockades, Smiths false Cherokee claims, Indigenous condemnation for the “Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act” and we pull back the covers a bit on Danielle Smiths proposed train from Calgary to Banff and look at where the motivations might be coming from and who stands to gain!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the big events in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean with a special focus on the recent televised address from Danielle Smith and the kinda-sorta announcements she made!Before that though, we get into Smiths continued heritage scandals, more Shantrums from Justice Minister Tyler Shandro and the recent communications debacle from the Alberta Paramedic Association!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Danielle Smith worked extremely hard to change the channel on her many incendiary comments on Wednesday with her paid provincial address, but it seems like she’s already committed to changing the channel back after her stunning comments on vaccination on her weekly “You province, your premier” radio show, and with the help of Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean, we try to make sense of that!We also take a look at the ongoing health care crisis, trailers at the Children’s Hospital in Calgary, the recent limitations on health protections from health minister Adriana Lagrange, and we spend an inordinate amount of time breaking down the NDP’s odd fixation on margarine and ask them, in the kindest words possible, to just do butter…As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On November 29th, Danielle Smith finally unveiled her Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, and as much as people were expecting it to be be bad, it turns out it’s actually much worse and gives the UCP the power to create and change laws with no oversight whatsoever.To try and make sense of it, we held a special live episode with the help of Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean that got more than a little feisty!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Danielle Smith has finally introduced her Alberta Sovereignty Act and despite the wide expectation that it was going to be watered down, to the shock of many it is actually much, much worse!We sat down with Sarah Biggs who has been in Edmonton for the throne speech and the introduction of the Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act as well as Deirdre Mitchell-Maclean to try and figure out some of the implications of this democratically corrosive piece of legislation.As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The last few days have been moving at breakneck speed in Alberta politics. In under 4 days we went from having UCP MLA’s and Ministers swearing that Smiths Sovereignty Act was perfect to having Smith herself acknowledge some of the foundational flaws that exist within the act, and we try and track that all down.In addition we’re joined by advocate Don Slater to get his take on AISH being reindexed before we’re joined by strategist and politico Sarah Biggs to try and make sense of the rollercoaster that is Alberta Politics!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
There’s a pediatric health crisis in Alberta and with it a major shortage of children’s tylenol (acetaminophen) and childrens ibuprofen.On Monday Danielle Smith announced that she had arranged for the purchase of 5 Million bottle of children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen. Only problem is, the company that she bought it from doesn’t make it yet, they aren’t legally allowed to seek drugs Canada yet, and many estimates put the drugs arriving in the spring of 2023.Plus the press conference was a disaster.So with the help of Sarah Biggs, we break down all of that, the recent resignation of two deputy CMOH’s and we have a special visit from our newest pawlitical analyst!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this episode we unpack the roll out of of Bill 1 and it’s fascinating evolution from a Bill that Smith sold to an angry base as being a Bill that would redefine how Alberta relates to confederation to it’s current form which appears to be business as usual with added red tape and the flawed expectation that MLA’s can interpret the constitution better than the courts.Plus, she’s really angry about straws.We also take a much deeper look at Danielle Smith’s bizarre decision to buy 5 million bottles of children’s medication from a company that isn’t approved to make them by Health Canada with @ZiadFazel before looking at the ongoing collapse of health care, the new police act and more!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The UCP is having a rather bumpy start to the week…First Danielle Smith announced that despite an ongoing health care crisis and trailers parked outside of the Children’s Hospital in Calgary that she was being told that it was unimaginable that healthcare could be doing any better.But then the real fireworks started when Smith equated the oppression and genocide of Indigenous peoples under colonialism to the relationship that Alberta has with Ottawa, followed up by the minister of Advanced Education releasing a video that referenced a literal manual on white supremacy for Alberta as being a cultural touchstone.So we try and unpack all of that with the help from politico and strategist Sarah Biggs!Plus we take a look the problems that substitute teachers are facing here in Alberta!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
As we head into the homestretch for the year (and maybe even a short break over the holidays), we try and get a handle on not only where Alberta Politics is heading but where we actually even are right now!To try and get a clear view of this, we sat down with provincial politics prognosticator and political scientist Dr. Lisa Young and chatted about the current state of Alberta, what’s happened to the level of our political conversation and what political parties in Alberta might need to do in order to not only get ahead in this new landscape but also maybe (?) try and make things better for Albertans!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
It’s our second last show of 2022!And while we still have one show left in the year, MLA’s and Ministers called it early this week, ending the latest legislative session early despite having limited debate and rushed through legislation! Also, Alberta has a surprise new member of cabinet with Parliamentary Secretary for Civil Liberties, Tracey Allard being appointed with literally no announcement!We try and make sense of all of this and more with the help from our chief WTAF correspondent Sarah Biggs!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
We’re back from break!We start by running through the events of the last few weeks in Alberta Politics including taking a look at new UCP nominations, the importance of one vote, Danielle Smiths walking back of pretty much all of her leadership race promises before we do a deep dive on the “Take Back Alberta” Initiative that has been buying up NHL game advertising time to see who is behind them and how they’re connected to Smith.(It’s pretty close)Then we sit down with @ZiadFazel to hear his concerns about masks for healthcare workers, especially for health care workers who are working with the elderly and the vulnerable in long term care facilities. Zaid explains his understanding of the history of mask procurement in Alberta and he has a lot of questions that sound like they very much need some answers!Plus we’re again joined by Sarah Biggs to try and make sense of it all!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this episode, we take a look at the recent provincial political party fundraising numbers, the effective of the gas tax being cut (again), we try and fill in the blanks on on a recent story about Danielle Smith’s Chief of Staff and we take yet another look at the ongoing children’s fever medicine purchase by the UCP from a company that wasn’t allowed to seek those drugs here. As always, we’re joined by Sarah Biggs to try and makes sense of it all!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Danielle Smith and the UCP have announced to task forces to address social issues, but there are a lot of people who are raising some very serious concerns around the motivations and methods of these task forces. One of those people is Euan Thomson, founder of the harm reduction group Each & Every. We sat down with Euan to hear what his concerns are in regards to these task forces and why he’s concerned that instead of harm reduction, they might well just be causing more harm…As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On another one of our Alberta Politics round-ups, we take a look at the embarrassing controversy surrounding UCP Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Nick “S-CLub” Milliken and his weekend of embarrassing and brutally ignorant tweets. Plus we do a bit of a deep dive on exactly what is this “Just Transition” that has the UCP all up in arms and more!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The start of this week saw two press conferences from the UCP government that didn’t go very well at all…First we saw the “Affordability” Presser where UCP Minister Nate Glubish effectively admitted that the UCP had dropped the ball on several programs during COVID and then inexplicably couldn’t explain why the Alberta government had opted to create a costly program that delayed affordability payments instead of working with the CRA like BC.But then we saw a Danielle Smith Press Conference that saw the revelation that the UCP apparently had botched the application for children’s medications and was now pushing costs onto AHS as well as her some remarkable journalism that saw her fact checked real time in a way that she didn’t seem at all prepared for.To help make sense of all of this, we’re joined again by politico and strategist Sarah Biggs!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
We’re super excited to be able to share this episode! Lydia Greene is one of the founders of backtothevax.com, a grassroots organization working to dispel vaccine hesitancy and she comes to it from a place of very real personal experience! Lydia spent years immersed in the extreme anti-vax/wellness culture but has since come out the other side and is now not only working to better inform people but also pursuing a career in healthcare/public health! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On Thursday Danielle Smith flipped the world of Alberta Politics on its head (again) by stating at a press conference that she had been directing prosecutors to look at specific cases, which would be a huge violation of the independence of Crown Prosecutors. What followed was a dizzying few days where statements were issued, Smith offered multiple clarifications and ultimately it was said on her weekly radio show that there would not be any kind of an investigation.We walk through all of the events and we try and make sense of it all with the help of politico and strategist Sarah Biggs!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
It's January 18th and we're back to talking about the "Just Transition" because that seems like it's all we talk about in Alberta these days...On Tuesday Danielle Smith falsely claimed that the "Just Transition" would eliminate up to 2.7 million jobs, and despite being corrected by, well, pretty much everyone, she has continued to double down on this ridiculous claim. Add to that the fact that Opposition leader Rachel Notley finally took the bait and also condemned the federal plan (that hasn't yet been detailed) to retrain workers laid off by automation and efficiency for jobs in green energy and it's been a wild, wild week.We also take a look at the partial privatization of EMS in Alberta, the recent win for Take Back Alberta in Jason Nixon's constituency and we count another few ways that Danielle Smith has played her base!And of course, strategist and politico Sarah Biggs joins us to try and make some sense of it all!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Danielle Smith announced her new COVID Inquiry Chair, and it's a figure well known in Alberta Politics, Preston Manning! But there's some very important questions about Prestons payday and the kind of bias that he's potentially bringing to the inquiry.Also, on Thursday, yet another scandal broke in regards to the Smith government potentially trying to influence the independent Crown Prosecutors Office when CBC broke another story. This comes on the heels of Smith trying to walk back multiple comments where she has said that she herself had contacted the Crown Prosecutors office. And of course, strategist and politico Sarah Biggs joins us to try and make some sense of it all!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro finally has his hearing with the law society and for inexplicable reasons, his defense has spent a surprising amount of time debating whether or not Tyler actually cried on the day he showed up to confront a physician in their driveway.Plus!The privatization of Alberta Health care continues and we recap the ongoing scandal and new revelations from the last days about Danielle Smith and the premiers office allegedly trying to influence prosecutors, apparently in part on the advice of...Ezra Levant?And of course, strategist and politico Sarah Biggs joins us to try and make some sense of it all!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
What was the Alberta Party thinking? That's the question that we kick off this episode with after they deployed a clunky AI Avatar in a new video this week. From there we move into the ongoing developments in Justice Minister Tyler Shandros hearing with the Law Society, skyrocketing insurance rates and why the UCP's measures won't make the impact people need, the ongoing health care crisis and Smith's bizarre pivot on Justin Trudeaus "Just Transition".As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Many people know "True North" as a fairly far right conservative media platform, but as we started to try and pull back the curtains on their story, we were shocked to find out just how intertwined they are with a number of other organizations, most shocking of all that they share a "Corporate Headquarters" address with none other than Danielle Smiths "Free Alberta Strategy" PAC! Strap in, because this is one wild ride!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this episode, we take a look at the latest events in Alberta Politics, including the walk back of Smith's COVID advisory council, Danielle Smith's drug deal that just keeps getting worse, Take Back Alberta's headfirst run into a brick wall on nominations being reopened, and we try and make a bit of sense of the story so far with the UCP 'S takeover (?) of Athabasca University!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
What was up with that handshake?As groundhogs across the continent were just tucking themselves back in, Danielle Smith finally appeared in public again, which can only mean at least another 6 weeks before the next provincial election!At this weeks First Ministers health meeting, Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau exchanged what could only be called a handshake using the lowest definition of the word, but what was the deal that potentially came out of that meeting?Plus we catch up on all of the latest events in Alberta Politics and address the rumours swirling around Nate and the next provincial election.As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this episode of The Breakdown, we're excited to welcome back Regan Boychuk to the show for a conversation on the irresponsible R Star program and on why he believes that Albertans need to demand a fresh look at how oil and gas royalties are handled!As always, thank you so much for your support!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Danielle Smith came back from her sunny vacation this week and blew in with all the fury of a tropical storm!At her press conference on Thursday, not only did she reveal that she's recently been talking to an anti-vax protestor who claims she promised him a free pass on charges for his involvement in the Coutts border blockade, but also that she never knew that it wasn't;t a power available to a premier to even do that!But then on Friday she released one of the most whitewashed revisionist history videos in recent memory that spurred national backlash before she doubled down on Saturday.All of this is on the backdrop of a proposed program to give successful oil and gas companies $100,000,000 of taxpayers money to clean up oil and gas sites that they had already promised to clean up at a time when many a making record profits of billions of dollars!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
After a brief break we're back!And what a week it's been! The NDP's downward polling numbers in Calgary are rapidly becoming a bit of a trend, the Western Standard lowers the standard with a bigoted attack against Janis Irwin, The Emergencies Act was justified and Alberta's Justice Minister Tyler Shandro sure isn't happy about that despite the fact the UCP had asked the feds for help, Sheriffs in Calgary, Take Back Alberta continues their takeover of the UCP, and Preston Mannings panel is up and running with more than a few familiar faces!As always, Sarah Biggs joins us to try and make some sense of it all!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this episode of the Breakdown we unpack the conspiracy theory around "15 minute cities" and as well take a look at the recent uproar around Trans people in bathrooms before we get into a discussion and Q&A on how everyday Albertans can be prepared for and get involved in the upcoming provincial election with Politico and Strategist Sarah Biggs!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
If there was a theme to the last week in Alberta Politics, it was that who you know determines how much you're getting paid. There were multiple stories breaking about the UCP using sole source contracts to make sure their friends are making bank at the taxpayers expense. Plus, Danielle Smith continues to muse about how to introduce more private health care delivery in Alberta and an ex-PC minister is doing reputational rehab for for the leader of the Freedom Convoy and alleged architect of the occupation of Ottawa! All this and more!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
So it appears the APP had their own internal independence movement and their leader Conspiracy Theorist Denis Modry is running for the UCP? We go through that, the healthcare update and the impact of privatization in health care, the new provincial budget and Sarah Biggs helps us try to figure out what happened with those bizarre introductions of insurrections on bail was all about?As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Recently, a local website published an article that disseminated a story about a trans woman in a change room that provoked a very strong response. With escalating rhetoric and bigotry targeting the trans community, we take a look at how that "story" has evolved and highlight the fact that the Calgary Police Service has since called it.Additionally, we take a look at some of the bizarre legislation that the UCP announced that they will be introducing, the ongoing scandal around the $1400 limo ride, the provincial budget that is simultaneously a record budget for spending and an austerity budget and more with analysis from politico and strategist Sarah Biggs!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
With the Alberta EMS system simultaneously in crisis and not in crisis depending on who you ask, we get into the recent EMS report as well as the both political parties attempts to politicize the situation! Plus we talk Budget Blowback! Danielle's Drugs! Property Taxes! AP Problems! GP Police! Shandy Shenanigans and more with commentary from Sarah Biggs!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
There’s new required reading for followers of Alberta Politics in the form of the book “Blue Store - The Rise & Fall of Jason Kenney” and we were able to sit down with one of the editors of the boom, political scientist Dr. Duane Bratt!Not only does Dr Bratt share how this book, which is a compilation of essays by renowned political experts from across the province came to be, but he also shares his thoughts on the upcoming provincial election and why this book is so important to understand Danielle Smith and the possible future of the UCP!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this weekly run down of the major events in Alberta politics, we take a look at the impact of a drop in oil prices, UCP staffing scandals, the impact of exploitive political leadership on radicalization our weekly round up of Danielle Smith Scandals plus a look at Rachel Notley's recent award show appearances!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this episode we sit down with renowned economist Dr. Trevor Tombe to try and get some context and make some sense of the new provincial budget! Dr Tombe also addresses Alberta's reliance on the revenue roller coaster and provides some suggestions as to how our province could potentially get off of it!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Prejudiced Pastor Predicament! Alberta's Surpreme Court Challenges! Oil's well not ending well! Danielle Smith's Drug Problem!We try and make sense of all of these and more with Politico Sarah Biggs and we have an in-depth discussion with Ziad Fazel on how Danielle Smith's drug deal went so sideways.As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
With all of the recent disinformation and hate directed towards the LGBTQ2S+ community by questionable "pastors" and right wing media outlets, we decided to go right to the source to find out what the "Reading with Royalty" events are all about!To do this we sat down again with Drag King Shane Onyou to get the inside story on "Reading with Royalty", Drag Culture and the upcoming Trans Day of Visibilty on March 31st!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
With Transgender Day of Visibility coming up in March 31st, we sat down with advocate Mattie McMillan to have a chat dispelling some myths, addressing some misinformation and a whole lot more! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Another intense couple of days in Alberta politics!If the continued fallout from the recording with Danielle Smith's recorded conversation with extremist pastor Artur Pawlowski wasn't enough, this week also saw multiple UCP candidates resign, a UCP Minister who bowed out of politics dance back in, an increase to the carbon tax and apparently the last of the "Last of us" in Alberta!We break down all of this and more before we open up the conversation to our twitter spaces guests for their thoughts on the events of the week!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Another intense couple of days in Alberta politics!If the continued fallout from the recording with Danielle Smith's recorded conversation with extremist pastor Artur Pawlowski wasn't enough, this week also saw multiple UCP candidates resign, a UCP Minister who bowed out of politics dance back in, an increase to the carbon tax and apparently the last of the "Last of us" in Alberta!We break down all of this and more before we open up the conversation to our twitter spaces guests for their thoughts on the events of the week!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
There is no shortage of inaccurate misconcepions, misiformation and stigma when it comes to disorders like Tourette's and OCD.We sat down with Julian Fletcher from the Tourette's and OCD Alberta Network to dispel some of those myths and stigma and learn how family, friends, educators and all Albertas can help people navigating these disorders.As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Alberta politics only continues to get more dramatic and dynamic as we the province slouches towards the next election and we try and make sense of it on our weekly roundup!This last week saw the further privatization of EMS, worsening toxic spills up North, Danielle Smith continue to self immolate (and try and walk back her publicly stated goals of adding user fees to healthcare) and the UCP go on the offensive with the NDP in a profoundly out of context way!Plus we round out the last half of the show by opening up the mic to our Twitter Spaces listeners!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Over the last while, Steve Boots has made a major name for himself with his insightful and comedic TikTok videos on Alberta politics!We wanted to know more about what drives Steve's advocacy and where he draws his inspiration from, so we sat down for a chat with him!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Fingers are flying in Alberta politics as we take a look at the events of the last week!Danielle Smith is under investigation by the Ethics Commissioner, but what does that really mean? Plus Smith and the UCP clamp down hard on media questions and it appears that one of the individuals that was appointed to Smith's newly announced Council on Multiculturalism and Inclusion was rejected by the UCP as a candidate for sharing anti-semantic, holocaust denying memes...Plus we're joined by AISH advocate Don Slater for a conversation on what members of the disabled community would like to see from political parties in the next election before we turn the mic over to our audience for our regular town hall!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
With Alberta politics in what is quite possibly it's most extreme and polarized state in living memory, we sat down with the co-editors (and contributors) of a new book that tries to make sense of it all called "Anger & Angst: Jason Kenney's Legacy and Alberta's Right", Trevor W. Harrison and Ricardo Acuña!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The "election season" is only continuing to heat up and in the weekly roundup we do our best to break it all down!Between Danielle Smith doubling down on only taking one question per reporter going forward, the bizarre last minute changes to a major event in Calgary, another UCP candidate being disqualified, Smith's council member stepping down after we highlighted his racist ramblings, the shocking leak that the UCP is looking at how to force treatment of people against their will, there's no shortage of things to get caught up on!Plus on our regular open forum we hear from our audience on the question of what defines media and what defines journalism these days!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The Honorable Thomas Lukaszuk served a decade and a half in the Alberta Legislature with multiple Conservative Governments and under 5 premiers. He served as an MLA, a Minister and as the Deputy Premier and observed Danielle Smiths rise to power as leader of the opposition and her fall from it when she crossed the floor. In this no holds barred conversation, we sit down with Thomas to hear why he is so alarmed by the prospect of Smith being elected in May that he has not only endorsed the NDP, but he is even campaigning with them! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
It's Election eve!With a writ drop expected for Monday, May 1st Alberta Politics is getting ready to gear up to top speed and we're back with our weekly recap!Danielle Smith doubled down on forced treatment early on in the week, but that was just the start! We also saw a major announcement about a new arena in Calgary as well as another series of scandals from UCP candidates, including Smith herself as she posed for pictures with a convoy organizer who is still facing legal consequences! All this and we take a look at the recent revelations around the far right extremist group "Take Back Alberta" and the continued influx of conservative heavy hitters lending their support to the NDP in an attempt to stop the free fall into chaos that many see conservatism experiencing!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
It's our first episode of the 2023 election!We're only 3 days into the campaign and so much has happened already! Danielle Smith appeared at a press conference and saw her shadow which means there's at least 3 weeks left of campaign drama! The NDP continue to work on their audio issues! Tax breaks! The UCP get corrected on how they interpreted a report by the same folks who did the report for them! Plus Artur is guilty! All this an our regular call in where we hear from you on what you're concerned about with Alberta politics!As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab.If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the big events in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean with a special focus on the recent televised address from Danielle Smith and the kinda-sorta announcements she made!
Before that though, we get into Smiths continued heritage scandals, more Shantrums from Justice Minister Tyler Shandro and the recent communications debacle from the Alberta Paramedic Association!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On another live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the big events in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean! We start with the costs of the border blockades, Smiths false Cherokee claims, Indigenous condemnation for the “Alberta Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act” and we pull back the covers a bit on Danielle Smiths proposed train from Calgary to Banff and look at where the motivations might be coming from and who stands to gain! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Continuing with our new format of running episodes twice a week, we run down the last week in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean! With education minister Adriana Lagrange making blatantly false comments about masking at a recent press conference, we start by asking where the real leadership is on in addressing the respiratory virus that’s cutting through Albertas kids right now. From there we get into the new mandate letters, Danielle Smiths apparently debunked claims about her ancestry and a whole lot more! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On another live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the last week in Alberta politics with help from Sarah Biggs and Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean starting with the ongoing health care crisis before moving on to mandate laters, addiction myths and finally we somehow land on dinosaurs walking with humans! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
In a special live episode recorded on November 8th during the byelection that saw the election of Danielle Smith to the Alberta Legislature, we combined our weekly rundown of Alberta politics with a live play by play of the byelection and all of the implications with the help of political strategist Sarah Biggs and political pundit Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Danielle Smith is pushing a program called R* (R- Star) to encourage resource development and well sitecleanup, but there’s no shortage of critics condemning the program. We sat down for an in-depth discussion with Mark Dorin and Regan Sawchuk to learn a little more about this program and why it’s so controversial! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.56 - On our very first mid-week round-up, we’re joined by politico and strategist Sarah Biggs to try and get caught up on the events of Alberta politics since our last episode, and there’s a lot! Danielle Smith and the UCP continue to crank out scandals, we take a look at the Super PAC that has seized control of much of the UCP “Take Back Alberta”, we run down the Q3 political party fundraising numbers and we chat about the NDP decision to remove a candidate after that candidate spoke out against a racist video and criticized the Stampede Board! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.55 - On another live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the last week in Alberta politics starting with the new UCP cabinet, Danielle Smith's war against reason, healthcare and the WEF before navigating our way through the many ongoing conflicts of interest and scandals that have showed up in the Smith byelection campaign! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.54 - With Danielle Smith declaring a by-election on November 8th in Brooks-Medicine Hat in order to try and score herself a seat in the legislature, we sat down with one of her opponents, Leader of the Alberta Party, Barry Morishita! Not only does Barry have very deep roots in the constituency, but he has some pretty strong views on Smith and the kind of politics she’s trying to bring to Alberta! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.53 - On another live episode of The Breakdown, we run down the last week in Alberta politics starting with the new UCP cabinet before navigating our way through the many ongoing scandals of Danielle Smith and the UCP. We also take a look at the recent resignation by an AHS board member because of Smith and her policies and start to take a look at the UCP’s interest in the R-Star program before we open up the floor to one of our most robust town halls to date! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.52 - The Alberta Teachers Association is holding a rally for public education on October 22 at the Legislature in Edmonton! This comes at a time where a new premier with some deeply disruptive (and not necessarily in a good way) views on the future of education in Alberta has just taken office. To learn more about the rally and why it’s both important and needed, we sat down at Alberta Teacher Association President Jason Schilling for a conversation in the rally, the current state of education and why teachers need the support of Albertans who believe in public education! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.51 - On another live episode of The Breakdown, we start of by focusing on the bombshell press conference that followed Danielle Smith's swearing in as the new premier of Alberta. Her appalling comments about discrimination overshadowed other parts of the press conference, including what Smith would be focusing on and when she intends to do it, although re-indexing of AISH was notably missing. So before we began our weekly town hall, we shared another conversation with AISH advocate Don Slater where he reminds not only Smith but all of the UCP Leadership candidates of the commitments they made to reminded AISH. As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.50 - We sit down with the leader of the Green Party of Alberta, Jordan Wilke! The Green Party is stepping into election 2023 with an extremely unconventional platform built almost entirely around the idea of bringing proportional representation to Alberta, so we caught up with Jordan to get the story of what brought him into politics, the Green Party and their unusual approach to a provincial campaign! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.49 - On another live episode of The Breakdown, we round up the week in Alberta Politics by taking a look at the recent Parkland Institute report on the failures of the UCP Tax Cut that appears to have actually lost jobs, we do a mini deep dive on the recent firing and hiring of the board of directors for Athabaskan University, we take a look at the recent changes to opioid treatment, we try and keep up with the recent challenge of the oath to the king by three Indigenous women and we catch up on all of the spin and goalpost moving by premier elect Danielle Smith before we open it up to another town hall discussion! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.49 - The Louise Dean Center in Calgary is a unique school that’s provides educational services for young pregnant women and young mothers, and it’s future is currently uncertain. We caught up with two graduates from the program to find out what the problems are and why the school, and it’s critical programming are at risk! Most importantly, we actually have some ways that you can try and help this critical program and the support it brings underage mothers. You can help by because there will be an online info and feedback session held November 1st at 7:30pm - please email BoardOfTrustees@cbe.ab.ca for an invite and written feedback can be sent there as well. As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
4.48. - On another live episode of The Breakdown, minutes after the results we hosted a town hall on Twitter spaces to try and figure out what the election of Danielle Smith as UCP Leader means for the future of Alberta and democracy! In this extended episode, we heard from a number of engaged Albertans in a conversation that evolved from the starting point of Smith's election to a much deeper conversation on what engaged citizenship even means and how people can make a difference in Alberta politics! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating, and don’t forget to like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On this live episode of The Breakdown We update Danielle Smith and her vaccine go fund me debacle continues, Justice Minister Tyler Shandro asking the RCMP to not enforce the law, Doctors reaching a deal with the province, UCP Policy Resolutions, the appeal to develop Grassy Slopes is denied and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this episode we revisit how The Breakdown came to be and what the immediate future for our little show holds.
You can help at https://gofund.me/e47e0ea1
On this live episode of The Breakdown and with government shut down following the death of the Queen, we take a bit of a deep dive on two stories to try and make sense of things! FIrst we unpack all of the twists and turns of the scandal surrounding the appointment and then the revocation of he appointment of the chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
From there, we do a very deep dive into the gofundme scandal/confusion that has followed UCP Leadership candidate Danielle Smith for the last several months and which she inexplicably refuses to account for despite multiple seeming contradictions.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Danielle Smith is running to be the new leader of the UCP, which will in turn make her the new Premier of Alberta. But there’s more than a few questions that she has refused to answer.
On this episode we sit down with founder of The National Telegraph Wyatt Claypool to not only get his take as a very conservative voter on what the concerns are with Smith, but we also get into the gofundme scandal that has been dogging her since July and that she has refused to clearly address.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The Breakdown - Sunday Live edition!
Another live episode so big, we had to split it into two!
In Part One of this episode we are proud to present our regular weekly round up of some of the biggest stories of the week, including Mount Queen Elisabeth, ALL the the UCP Leadership things, fact check a bunch of lies from a certain UCP Leadership Candidate , a scoop on who ACTUALLY de-indexed AISH and more!
In Part 2, we start off with a rousing discussion on the state of the federal conservatives and what their futures look like, before jumping into an online townhall style discussion on UCP Leadership voting, and what the future leader of the UCP will have to navigate!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The Breakdown - Sunday Live edition!
Another live episode so big, we had to split it into two!
In Part One of this episode we are proud to present our regular weekly round up of some of the biggest stories of the week, including Mount Queen Elisabeth, ALL the the UCP Leadership things, fact check a bunch of lies from a certain UCP Leadership Candidate , a scoop on who ACTUALLY de-indexed AISH and more!
In Part 2, we start off with a rousing discussion on the state of the federal conservatives and what their futures look like, before jumping into an online townhall style discussion on UCP Leadership voting, and what the future leader of the UCP will have to navigate!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this episode we sit down with psychologist, advocate and artist Dr. Angela Grace!
Dr Grace has been advocating for better curriculum and after being asked by multiple NDP MLA’s and candidates to consider running, she threw her hat into the ring seeking a nomination candidacy!
And then, despite there being no constitutional mechanism to allow for it, her candidacy was rejected!
Dr Grace sat down with us for a discussion on why she was rejected and what it potentially means for the future of how political parties select their candidates!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
he Breakdown - Special Solar Flare edition! (Part 2)
Our weekly live episode this week had more technical challenges than any episode in recent memory, and required more than a little bit of editing to make presentable, so we’re splitting it into two parts!
In Part one, we presented our regular weekly round up of some of the biggest stories of the week, including Alberta Day, the UCP Leadership debate, the state of COVID in Alberta, the opiate crisis and more!
In Part two, we continue our live show with a conversation with LGBTQS2+ advocate Anna Murphy. On Friday September 2, Brian Jean sent out a fundraising email leveraging his position that here should be two categories in sport: One for biological men, and one for biological women, and Anna has a very clear and strong response for Mr. Jean.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
he Breakdown - Special Solar Flare Special Edition! (Part 1)
Our weekly live episode this week had more technical challenges than any episode in recent memory, and required more than a little bit of editing to make presentable, so we’re splitting it into two parts!
In Part one, we present our regular weekly round up of some of the biggest stories of the week, including Alberta Day, the UCP Leadership debate, the state of COVID in Alberta, the opiate crisis, convoy feedback with Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean and more!
In Part two, we continue our live show with a conversation with LGBTQS2+ advocate Anna Murphy. On Friday September 2, Brian Jean sent out a fundraising email leveraging his position that here should be two categories in sport: One for biological men, and one for biological women, and Anna has a very clear and strong response for Mr. Jean.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The EMS Crisis in Alberta has been making the news for quite some time now, with news outlets reporting stories of extremely long times for ambulances to arrive at an emergency, or even worse, increasing stories about no ambulances being available.
To get a better understanding of what’s going on, we sat down for a conversation with citizen FOIPer and Paramedic Ryan Middleton! Ryan has been FOIPing EMS data for a while now, and using this publicly available data, he is able to help us understand just how serious the current situation is in EMS and what that means for Albertans!
TO BE ABSOLUTELY CLEAR - All of the views expressed in this episode of The Breakdown are solely the views of those expressing them and should not be Interpreted as representing any other individual or organization.
Additionally, all data referred to is publicly available or obtained through FOIP requests. No personal, Health or business information is presented.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we are not only round up some of the events of the week, but we are also doing a deep dive on the recent APP/The Rebel UCP Leadership forum/debate, and there’s some quotes from the candidates you won’t want to miss!
After that, we’re joined by our new regular commentator, the one and only Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean to take a look at the what the impact the debate, the greater impact of the rhetoric and a whole lot more including one of our most active open mic’s to date!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With the front running candidate for the UCP Leadership Race seeming to bet her entire campaign on a piece of legislation that she claims will allow her to choose what federal laws to follow (supported by a provincial police force she says she will direct), we sat down with Lawyer and Associate Law Professor Martin Z. Olszynski to get a better idea of what this act means and what the implications for Alberta, and Canada are!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we are joined by our new regular commentator, the one and only Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean to take a look at the what the impact of Danielle Smith announcing that she won’t be seeking an MLA seat in a by election, what a provincial police force would potentially mean for Albertans, and we take another look at the Alberta Sovereignty Act, the Alberta Prosperity Project and we try and sort out what makes a person a “real” Albertan!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this episode, we sit down for a conversation on AISH with AISH advocate Don Slater!
Don Slater is an AISH recipient, a stage 4 cancer patient and one of the most amazing conversationalists that we have had on the show! In this episode, we debunk some AISH myths as well as talk about what the future of AISH could and probably should look like.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, instagram and twitter all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we take a look at the latest twists and turns in the UCP leadership race, the scandal surround the UCP Essay contest, and we take a bit of a deep dive on the Alberta Prosperity Project! Plus we’re joined by a few folks from our twitter spaces who share their thoughts on the events of the week!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Dr. Robert Ascah has a stunning amount of experience in Economics and Public Policy. Holding multiple degrees, experience as the director of The Institute for Public Economics at the U of A and someone who oversaw the transition of ATB into a provincial corporation, her brings a staggering amount of experience and knowledge to the table. As someone who has worked in both the public and private sector he has seen firsthand how ALberta’s economy functions, and he graciously joins us to discuss not only his position that despite the contention of multiple UCP candidates, Alberta does need a PST.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we talk about Canada’s ranking for quality of life, pediatric vaccines, the UCP Leadership debates, the Liberal leadership race, and we have a groundbreaking interview with NotDanielle Smith!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we talk pipelines, 4th doses, COVID comeback, UCP Walkbacks and gas prices and we take a look at Danielle Smiths doubling down on her race to the bottom with her hour long special on woo medicine and where she wants to take “health care” in Alberta.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we talk Carbon Tax Rebates, Alberta (Heritage?) Day, healthcare in Alberta, the Thomas Dang affair and apparent NDP cover up, and a deep dive on Danielle Smiths week where we try and sort out if she’s somehow set a record for being wrong about things (like facts and stuff)!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we take a look at COVID numbers during Stampede, Convoy Commander being denied bail, the healthcare crisis, and an extended update of the UCP Leadership Race!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we take a look at UCP Accounting Errors, the Safe SUpply report, The Alberta Provincial Police Force, Supportive Housing and update on the UCP Leadership Race!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
In this episode we sit down with another UCP Leadership candidate and MLA for Chestermere-Strathmore, Leela Aheer. Not only do we get into what inspired her to run, but we also ask some hard questions about the legislative history of the UCP, what direction she would like to lead the party and how she would address the division that exists inside the UCP.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode we talked a look at the impact of Roe V Wade, the fallout of the first UCP leadership candidate panel, the quietest cabinet appointments in recent memory, NDP nominations and we have a chat with strategist and campaign manager Sarah Biggs!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With the race to elect Alberta’s Premier through the UCP race kicking into gear, we’ve invited all UCP leadership candidates to sit down for an interview and we’re excited to present the first in that series!
Bill Rock is the mayor of Amisk and while he has previously run for the Wildrose, he’s jumping all the way into provincial politics with a leadership bid!
We sat down with Bill for a conversation on rural Alberta, His positions on education, the opioid crisis, the provinces COVID response, the leadership failures of Jason Kenney and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
In Part 3 of our series taking a look at the inner culture of political parties, we wanted to hear from some people who have been as inside the system as you can get, so se sat down with Ex NDP MLA’s Robyn Luff and Stephanie McLean as well as EX Wildrose/UCP MLA Derek Fildebrandt to get an inside perspective on how political parties ensure and maintain “discipline”, and it’s definitely not the view of being an elected official that most people think! In this extended episode, not only does this exceptional group of people highlight the problems they see in how power is consolidated and wielded, they also sets out some possible solutions!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
In Part 2 of our look at the inner culture of the NDP, we sit down with ex-political staffer and party volunteer Sharie Valentine to hear her description of what she calls a toxic internal culture and what she believes could be done to address it.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live round up, we take on ⁃ the teachers contract, provincial police, Jason Nixon and performative politics, crime in Alberta and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
In what is going to be part 1 of a three part series on the problems of political parties, in particular how parties approach maintaining party discipline, we sat down with Krista Li, who up until earlier this year was a Constituency Asociation president and aspiring NDP candidate. It appears though, that the NDP had very different plans for Krista’s constituency of Calgary Bow, which led to a stunning turn of events that left Krista and others feeling very much like party central had pulled a fast one to control the outcome of the nomination process. In this episode, Krista shares her story and details why she feels that the party that she dedicated so much time to has lost track of their fundamental principals.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
There’s a lot of talk about carbon taxes and the transition to greener energy, but a critical missing piece of that conversation has to do with the development of new wells. We sat down with Omar Mawji of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis to learn more about how some oil companies are prioritizing making sure that shareholders are getting their money as opposed to making sure that they can remediate their oil and gas wells.
For the full report, visit https://ieefa.org/articles/ieefa-canadas-major-banks-continue-funding-oil-and-gas-companies-despite-growing-concerns
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our regular weekly Live at the Space Bar, we take on ⁃The revalations around the decision to remove masks from schools, the current state of the UCP leadership race, BC decriminalizing personal amounts of drugs, the UCP’s tepid harassment policy and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Teachers in Alberta will be voting on a mediator provided contract after 3 unsuccessful negotiations with the bargaining association that represents school boards across the province and the provincial government. That vote though, forces them into what many are calling a no win scenario, not only for them but for students across the province. In this episode we try and take a look at why.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this episode of The Breakdown, we sit down with self identified ex-political “fixer” David Wallace. David was identified by multiple media sources as being a key figure in the recent scandal involving the Jonathan Denis wedding (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/denis-alberta-justice-minister-former-fixer-phone-logs-reporter-1.6415532) and claims that he has been involved in attempts to “fix” political problems across Canada and in particular for the last few years in Alberta.
We sat down with David to hear his side of the story, and even we were shocked by some of the things that he shared.
We want to emphasize that this episode is presented as a conversation with David, and while his story surrounding the phone logs has been widely reported on and vetted by multiple journalistic outlets, we have not independently verified any of his claims.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode, we go through our top 5 Alberta politics stories of the last week! This week it’s the early end of the legislative session, Shandro moving his war on physicians tactics to the city of Edmonton, tension in caucus, a variety of candidate announcements and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode, we go through our top 5 Alberta politics stories of the last week! The ever changing state of Alberta’s premier, the ongoing legal case against the provinces removal of health protections in schools, the Alberta Parents Union, the ongoing health care crisis and more!
Of note… During the last segment of the show, Nate incorrectly identified two murder victims as First Nations and instead should have identified them as Métis. In order to recognize the nuance and differences, we wanted to share the feedback we received compliments of twitter user @sunnshiiny.
“Those men gunned down were Métis. Not First Nations. And they were exercising their right to hunt out of season because of their Métis status. A point of contention for white hunters who cannot do the same.
Métis have only had treaty rights since 2016. So there is a reason white hunters have negative attitudes towards Métis. First Nations have always had treaty rights. Exercising those rights since treaties were signed. Métis have not had this right and other hunters want it withdrawn. They believe it creates a two tiered society.
Métis have not had funding from the federal government, and Métis off of Settlements (about 80% of Métis people) have never received government benefits like FN. The reason those men were out there is because Métis losing jobs at the beginning of the pandemic meant food shortages. Providing meat was an assurance against starvation.
Their murder was particularly egregious because the victims’ family lost two hunters, not just one.
Might I request you clarify the differences between FN & Métis treaty status.
It’s an issue that has been overlooked, ignored and suppressed.
Which annoys the hell out of me. I’m Métis, not FN. while aspects of my culture are similar to FN, it is a distinct culture.
Métis have been ignored for decades. Cons, greens & NDP ignore Métis treaty rights.
The petition for acknowledgement of Métis people as an indigenous people distinct from FN took more than two decades & several court appearances. We’ve been ignored since confederation, even after a provisional Métis govt that negotiated the entry of Manitoba into Canada.
Métis were pushed west until there was no further west to go (BC already existed). English and French Métis are most prevalent in Alberta and Saskatchewan for this reason.
Many white hunters believe Métis don’t deserve treaty rights. They believe the Métis should assimilate.
Métis have suffered all the same discrimination as FN without & federal or provincial support. Same with non status FN. They’ve only had treaty status since 2016 as well. Métis and non status make up roughly half of the indigenous population. The first official accords with federal government recognizing their treaty status were signed in 2017. That’s 5 years ago.
When those men were killed was 3 years after the federal government recognized their treaty status.
There were 12 settlements originally. Now there are only 8. The 1885 rebellion started in Alberta. And changed the acceptance of indigenous people in society for the past 150 years. Métis were a large part of that rebellion. Each community has its own unique culture.”
We apologize unreservedly for the error.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
When is someone premier after they appear to have resigned? As always with Jason Kenney, the devil is in the details. To try and understand the confusing rapid fire turn of events that we saw with Jason Kenney’s Leadership review, we go back to where it started to try and make sense of things as well as speculate on what happens next!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode, we go through our top 5 Alberta politics stories of the last week! More changes to diabetes pumps, revelations around the lengths the UCP go to in order to avoid transparency, more leadership review questions, Bill C-69 and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode, we go through our top 5 Alberta politics stories of the last week! Changes to diabetes pumps, the premier potentially being compelled to testify, more leadership review questions, the legal aid scandal and the worsening Health care system crisis and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live episode, we go through our top 5 Alberta politics stories of the last week! Health care system in crisis, profanity in the legislature, rampant cronyism and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly Live at The Space Bar, we go through our top 5 (totally subjective) Alberta politics stories of the week!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On April 19th we made a joke some people didn’t like about a public figure…
Some folks decided that they needed to tell us what we’re allowed to joke about.
Nate has some words for them.
On our Easter holiday Live at the Space Bar, we take a look at what’s causing the availability shortage of COVID tests, Adriana Lagrange’s recent CRT fumble, the Pierre Poilievre tour in Alberta and a whole lot more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Ever since the UCP were elected, it seems that politics has moved at such a fast speed it’s almost impossible to keep up with it all.
But in order to understand just how much really, terrible stuff the UCP are willing to overlook in their pursuit of power, it helps to go back once in a while to recalibrate. That’s why this week, we’re taking a look at the continued rise of Tyler Shandro despite a staggering number of scandals and failures of character in an episode we’re calling, “The Trouble With Tyler!
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On this weeks Live at The Space Bar, we recap the UCP SGM launch and PR specialist/Politico Sarah Biggs helps us make sense of the messaging that went into the event and into Jason Kenney’s deeply polarizing speech to his membership! Plus, things get extra heated towards the end as we get into some of the UCP’s more offensive messaging from the week!
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With the sudden firing of AHS CEO and President Verna Yiu at a time when Alberta is heading into what many are calling a 6th wave of COVID, we sat down to try and untangle the incredible complex political factors that brought us to where we are and what this sudden move might mean for the future of Alberta in the short and long term.
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On this weeks extra spicy live, we have a whole lot of ground to cover!
With the help of Sarah Biggs, we break down Jason Kenney’s new fascination with memes, we get into the speed bumps for both the NDP and the UCP on carbon pricing, catch up on the MANY updates on Jason Kenney’s leadership review, the worsening decorum in the legislature, rising COVID numbers and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With nominations ramping up for the next provincial election, so it seems, does the controversy and scandal that comes with them. Recently, a challenger to UCP minister Jason Nixon in the nomination race for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre put their name forward and after a campaign that was showing significant momentum was abruptly disqualified.
Tim Hoven is no stranger to politics either. Having already served at the municipal level, there were a lot of questions raised when he was suddenly disqualified. THE UCP claimed that Tim was unfit, but given the scandals that have dogged Jason Nixon since before his political career even started, the explanations for his disqualifications created significant dissonance and a lot of questions.
So we decided to take some of those questions straight to the Tim himself.
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It’s a supersized weekly Live at the Space Bar!
This week we have a boatload of surprise guests!
The one and only Jeremy Klaszus from the Sprawl!
Ex-UCP Press Secretary Payman Parseyan!
And we break down the NDP and the failed confidence vote, the innumerable scandals swirling around Jason Kenney and the UCP’s leadership review, including some late breaking scandals involving “voting irregularities”, the latest in the Thomas Dang white hat hacking, the continued erosion of healthcare in Alberta and the the province wide “Ditch the draft” protest scheduled for April 2!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our regular weekly Live at the Space Bar, we take on ⁃ The Kenney Leadership Pusch, stolen polls, Brian Jean saying that he would have brought Rachel Notley into the COVID response decision making process, Kenney invoking Russia in his legal defense, the difference between Ammolite and Ammonite and the province wide “Ditch the draft” protest scheduled for April 2!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With Brain Jean having handily won his byelection, we held a special byelection Live At The Space Bar to try and sort through the not only the low turnout but also the incredibly differences in votes between the parties and their candidates!
As an added surprise, we also got to have a surprise chat with disqualified (under what is, at the very least hypocritical reasons given the circumstances) UCP nomination hopeful Tim Hoven!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With the UCP continuing to push through a curriculum that only 5% of teachers view positively and that many curriculum experts have panned as dangerous and harmful, grassroots groups across the province are banding together to raise awareness and to try and fight back. One of the ways that they’re doing this is through is through a province wide protest and rally on April 2nd.
To learn more about the how and why of this rally, we sat down again with organizer and activist, psychologist Dr. Angela Grace who is leading the charge on the Calgary event!
To learn more about the protest and find out how to get involved in your area, you can visit www.ditchthedraft.ca.
To attend Dr. Grace’s deep dive into why the curriculum is so harmful, you can sign up at https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/unwellness-a-deep-dive-into-the-ucps-wellness-curriculum-tickets-292575510227?aff=erelexpmlt
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our regular weekly Live at the Space Bar with politico Sarah Biggs, we take on the new “Jason Kenney Power Hour” and it’s assorted abuses of power and falsehoods, the continued misbehaviour of Shane Getson, the disqualification of UCP nomination candidates Jodie Gateman & Tim Hoven DQ, proposed healthcare wage cutbacks, the pipeline pipedream of KXL and we get into the province wide “Ditch the draft” protest scheduled for April 2!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our new episode, we’re taking a look at the wild world of “Freedom Convoy” finances!
You may recall that after raising millions on Gofundme, convoy organizers were forced to move their fundraising efforts to Christian platform, GiveSendGo. Problem was, GiveSendGo didn’t take the appropriate measures to ensure that the “private” data of donors was kept private and it was leaked out to the internet! Chad Ohman has spent the last several weeks going through that data and comparing it to the donations people made to politicians federally and in Alberta, and while some of it is very much what you would expect, a good chunk of it definitely is a bit of a surprise!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our regular weekly Live at the Space Bar, we take on the continued efforts by the UCP to silence their critics, the rise of the right against the right, the prospects of an early election, the ongoing EMS crisis and a whole lot more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On a supersized episode, we try and tackle the major events of the week, and it’s been a busy one!
With a throne speech, a cabinet shuffle that sees Kaycee Madu remain in cabinet despite the findings that he attempted to interfere in the administration of justice and a new justice minister who is under investigation from the law society with pending hearings, Tyler Shandro, plus a throne speech, a new budget and ongoing scandal with the NDP in Calgary Bow, there’s no shortage of things to break down in this episode!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Another busy week in Alberta Politics, and Sarah and Nate are here to try and break things down! With yet another week of significant scandals plaguing Jason Kenney and the UCP, Jason Kenney was lashing out at pretty much everyone this week. We take a look at some of the things that Kenney decided to try and make targets out of plus a whole lot more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With the Emergency Act being invoked, UCP MLA’s sharing hate group memes and a whole lot more going on in the last couple of days we knew we had to do another emergency episode!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With a provincial conservatives in Alberta heading into a leadership review and the federal conservative leadership imploding, we sat down with Jennifer Sanford from the Conservative Like Me podcast to try and get a sense as to what is going on and what is driving these events. This is a pretty spicy and at times challenging episode, but the greater themes that we get into towards the end make it worth it!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
If the announcement that Alberta is rolling back restrictions effective at midnight wasn’t enough to necessitate an Emergency Episode, Jason Kenney’s shocking comments about AIDS victims and the need to eliminate calling some protestors racist definitely were. Sarah and Nate got together to unpack what was quite possibly Jason Kenner’s most shocking press conference to date!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With so much going on in provincial politics (and frankly, federal politics), it’s easy for ongoing issues to fall through the cracks. Recently, the province began an “engagement” process to get feedback from Alberta’s on the extremely controversial curriculum draft. To get a better understanding of what that process has looked like and whether or not participants feel like their feedback will have any weight, we reconnected with some folks from the Alberta’s Reject Curriculum Draft advocacy group to learn what their experiences were like and to try and understand what needs to be done next!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this weeks Live Twitter event, Nate & Sarah broke down the week in Alberta politics with a particular focus on the events surrounding the border blockades and the UCP’s caving to the demands of people who fit the definition of terrorists under the Canadian Criminal Code.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
This week we sit down with Barry Morishita, the new leader of the Alberta Party! We get into Barry’s political history, get his (and the Alberta Party’s) positions on SCS, the new curriculum, Safe supply, a provincial police force an a whole lot more!
(Plus we’re especially proud of the intro)
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
This weeks live event comes on the heels of a dark weekend for Canada. A protest convoy arrived in Ottawa and caused all kinds of havoc, including the desecration of multiple war memorials, the Terry Fox memorial, shut down a vigil to observe the anniversary of the Quebec mosque shooting, assaulted a homeless man after coercing a soup kitchen to give them food and a whole lot more. We try and sort through these events and at the same time try and make sure a boatload of events in Alberta (including our own border shut down) don’t fall through the cracks!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Alberta politics is never without controversy, but one of the most unexpected political controversies in recent memory has to do journalist Wyatt Sharpe. Wyatt is a 12 year old from Ontario who hosts “The Wyatt Sharpe Show” and his list of interview subjects and contributions to journalism in Canada really shouldn’t be underestimated. Nonetheless, when he began calling in to UCP press conferences and asking some very hard hitting question, people on all sides of the political spectrum expressed either support or condemnation for him playing a role in the Alberta political discourse.
We caught up with Wyatt to go through some of his accomplishments and get his thoughts on the future of journalism, media and perhaps most importantly, youth engagement in politics!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this weeks Live Twitter event, Nate & Sarah broke down the week in Alberta politics and possible rationale for the recent explosion in dig whistle commas we’ve seen form the UCP. Plus, Madu Monday! COVID! Testing kits missing pieces! And so much more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
While many have been paying close attention to the Bills that the UCP are passing, it’s equally important to pay attention to the ones they have failed to pass.
Bill 220 is a bill that would legislate that parents who experience the loss of a child through miscarriage or stillbirth have the right to take three unpaid days from work, and it’s in danger of falling through the cracks.
To learn more, we sat down with Founder and CEO of the Pregnancy and Infant Loss Dupport Centre, for a very challenging but very, very important conversation.
Please write your MLA!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate the big political stories of the last week and this one is a spicy week!
The new legislative session has been announced, and with it, there have been some bills that have now fallen through the cracks, not the least of which is Bill 220 which supports grieving parents of miscarried and stillborn children, and Sarah Biggs helps us make sense of how this happened and what we can do, as well as more self inflicted UCP communications moves, First week of back to school while post secondary schools are staying online, the drama in Chestermere-Strathmore and a whole lot more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
For more than two years, Albertans have had to endure “Freedom protests” with increasingly alarming behaviour from some of the primary figures. With their behaviour growing more bold and more threatening, it’s also becoming increasingly clear there is more going on than what they claim.
To learn more about the dark undercurrents of these movements, We sat down with Kurt Phillips of the Anti Racist Collective and Canadian Anti Hate Network to chat about freedom rallies and the predators who are taking advantage of vulnerable and scared Albertans!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly live Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate the big political stories of the last week and this one is a spicy week!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
We’re starting of the new year with a spicy conversation that we recorded with the host of the Cross Border Interview Podcast, Chris Brown!
This conversation was recorded at the very end of November and covers provincial politics, Calgary municipal politics, how the Cross Border Interview Podcast came to be and a whole lot more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On a special (and last of 2021) episode of our weekly live Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us count down our totally subjective top 10 of the biggest events in Alberta politics of 2021! There’s a few of the obvious contenders as well as a few surprises!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the events of the week, and this week we talk the massive changes to health restrictions in Alberta, the confusing launch of rapid testing, the announcement police will be facilitating IOAT (Injected Opioid Antagonist Therapy) in municipal jails, curriculum changes, the ongoing saga of the Brian Jean nomination and a VERY spicy conversation on Quebecs Bill 21 and Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s response to it!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The recent announcement by the UCP that they would be (somewhat) taking the social studies curriculum back to the drawing board has given some Albertans hope, but as has been pointed out there are still many problems with the framework that will be used, and many other parts of the curriculum draft.
In our final conversation with advocates from the Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft advocacy group, we chat with parent, teacher and advocate Wade Hutchinson about what drew him to an advocacy role, his concerns with the curriculum and the fact that the majority of this curriculum is being implemented at a time when many teachers are struggling under the weight of an already deeply stressed education system.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the events of the week, and this week we talk about Alberta’s newly appointed status as the most Canadian Province, the UCP Board seemingly dismissing the Leadership review request from 23 UCP Constituency Associations, EMS Red Alerts, Angela Pitt, The newly announced Safe supply panel, Curriculum NDA’s expiring and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Is EMS in crisis and failing across Alberta?
With reports all across Alberta of EMS in crisis and being pushed past the breaking point every day, we sat down with President of HSAA (the union that represents paramedics) Mike Parker to try and tell the story of the EMS crisis in Alberta, how we got here, what can be done and also addressed some of the blatantly false information that has been presented by the provincial government in what appears to be an attempt to minimize the extreme severity of the situation!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the events of the week, and this week we talk about our recent Harm Reduction Episdode, Matt Wolfs departure from his government role, the many lawsuits of Jason Kenney, The Schweitzer flip-flop, our upcoming episodee on the EMS crisis in Alberta and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The Street Cats are a grassroots harm reduction group that has formed as a reaction to what aren’t cracks in the system, but gaping chasms in it that all too many vulnerable Calgarians are at risk of falling through. With a commitment to radical compassion and the principles of harm reduction, the street cats are reaching out to vulnerable Calgarians in incredibly effective ways. We not only sat down with them to learn more, but we also were grateful to be able to join them as observers for one of their outreach nights and it was an incredibly powerful experience.
If you would like to support the Street Cats you can do so at their go fund me at https://www.gofundme.com/f/street-cats-yyc-mutual-aid-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cp_guide_do&member=12272045 or via e-transfer at Streetcatsyyc@gmail.com!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the events of the week, and this week we talk curriculum, Matt Wolfs departure from his government role, the ongoing conversation around the UCP Leadership review and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
We’ve done a few episodes on the proposed UCP curriculum now, but all of those have been on the level of academic critiques by subject matter experts.
But this proposed curriculum has also mobilized everyday Albertans in tremendous ways. To get a better understanding of what their concerns are, we reached out to the Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft Facebook page and had conversations with 3 of the members, which we’re presenting in 3 separate episodes.
In Part 3, we chat with Dr. Angela Grace, a Psychologist who is deeply invested in the quality of the curriculum that Alberta’s kids are taught, not only because she views it through the lens of a Counselling Psychologist but also because before the obtained her PHD in psychology, she was a teacher who saw first hand the impact that curriculum can have own the wellness and development of children. Dr. Grace also has the insight of having worked on the previous curriculum draft and was generous enough to share her serious concerns as to how Jason Kenney’s curriculum draft was created and what she believes the catastrophic long term impact of it will be.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the vents of the week, including the UCP AGM, their conscience rights policy (with a surprise appearance by a ex-UCP press secretary Payman Parseyan), the leadership review and the discussion on the people who want Jason Kenney’s job heating up, the shortfalls of the new childcare deal with some very important perspective from Dr. Stephanie Cooper and more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
We’ve done a few episodes on the proposed UCP curriculum now, but all of those have been on the level of academic critiques by subject matter experts.
But this proposed curriculum has also mobilized everyday Albertans in tremendous ways. To get a better understanding of what their concerns are, we reached out to the Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft Facebook page and had conversations with 3 of the members, which we’re presenting in 3 separate episodes.
In Part 2, we chat with Andrea Willman, a parent, a small business owner and a teacher in the Alberta School System who looks at the draft curriculum through all of those lenses. In particular though, Andrea highlights the fact that the education system is already strained last any reasonable measure, and the effect that the draft curriculum will have on teachers may well be what pushes many of them over the edge and out of teaching entirely.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The UCP AGM is starting, so we wanted to break down what all the controversy is about (including the stuff that involves us) and we also got to catch up with none other than Dave Khan to talk about some of the peaceful protests going on this weekend!
We’ve done a few episodes on the proposed UCP curriculum now, but all of those have been on the level of academic critiques by subject matter experts.
But this proposed curriculum has also mobilized everyday Albertans in tremendous ways. To get a better understanding of what their concerns are, we reached out to the Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft Facebook page and had conversations with 3 of the members, which we’re presenting in 3 separate episodes.
Dustin Archibald is an admin for the Facebook group, a parent and a small business owner who was generous enough to take some time from his day to share his concerns and what is motivating him to push back against the curriculum draft.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
It’s our second livestream where we breakdown the events of the week, including our Aheer interview, the changes around the UCP AGM, the good things about nazis doc, leadership review requirement change, John Carpay getting sued and what started the whole week of abpoli off, the pub presser!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
November is Family Violence Prevention Month.
In order to better understand what Family and Domestic Violence is, what causes it and what can be done, we sat down with Lana Bentley, an social worker and advocate with extensive experience in dealing with family and domestic violence.
If you or someone you know is experiencing family or domestic violence, please reach out for help.
Calgary
24-Hour Family Violence Helpline: 403.234.7233 (SAFE), Toll-free: 1.866.606.7233, TTY: 403.262.2768. email at help@cwes.ca or text at 403.604.6689.
Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse (403) 237-5888
Alberta wide
Family Violence Info Line 310-1818 (Province Wide & Multiple Languages)
Alberta's One Line for Sexual Violence Telephone & Text 1.866.403.8000
Nation wide Women's Shelters Canada Sheltersafe.ca
Hand signal for help Canadianwomen.org/signal-for-help
In what is a significant first for us here at the Breakdown, we are proud to present our very first conversation with a UCP MLA.
First elected in 2015 under the Wildrose banner and then again in the 2019 election under the UCP Banner, MLA for Chestermere-Strathmore Leela Aheer is the Deputy Leader for the UCP and was appointed as Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women. After photos of Jason Kenney and some of his cabinet were leaked (cough, cough) showing them disregarding their own public health restrictions and drinking on the legislature grounds, Leela condemned the behaviour and shortly after was stripped of her ministry.
Following several other scandals, including a harassment lawsuit launched against the premiers office by a former government Chief of Staff who was fired after raising concerns regarding harassment and alcohol abuse, Leela began to publicly call for Jason Kenney’s resignation.
And on this episode, she joins us to discuss these events, and more.
(As a minor point of clarification, which to be clear came at the request of Leela Aheer, Jody Wilson-Raybould was first elected as a Liberal in 2015 and then after being expelled from the Liberals in 2019 ran and was elected as an independent. )
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Our first live episode! We’re joined by politico and PR professional Sarah Biggs ( to breakdown some of the biggest stories of the week in Alberta Politics! We’ll be doing these every Sunday at 7 and then making the audio available shortly after!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
There’s a lot of people who are highlighting the lukewarm equalization referendum results as a reaction to Jason Kenney and the UCP government, but there’s also an argument that a better measure is the sweeping election of school board trustee candidates who campaigned against the new UCP curriculum.
With these new developments, we sat down with Dr. Carla Peck to recap how we got to where we are with the curriculum, and perhaps more importantly what can be done going forward.
To keep up to date on the staggering flaws with the curriculum, a great resource is www.Alberta-curriculum-analysis.ca!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
It’s been way too long since we’ve done a roundup episode, so we went up to Edmonton to do exactly that!
Not only that, but we have an exclusive interview with one of the candidates from the recent municipal elections!
Plus some exciting announcements!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
If there is a silver lining to be found in the current UCP government in Alberta, it’s the way that creatives have risen to push back!
On this episode, we sit down with two of the creators of The Jason Kenney Poetry Project Jackie Seidel and Darlene St. Georges. The Jason Kenney Poetry Project is a book and a research project based around “found poetry” left in the wake of Jason Kenney and the UCP. The book is a combination of statements made by the Jason Kenney and the UCP and presented here as “found poetry” and original poetry inspired by them as well.
Combining the written word, visual arts and an unflinching use of humor and tragedy, the book is a heartbreakingly accurate artifact of Jason Kenney and the UCP so far.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
There’s been a lot of speculation as to the future of not only Jason Kenney but the UCP itself over the last weeks, and we wanted to try and make some sense of things.
To help us do that, we sit down with Duane Bratt, political science Professor in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University, and we cover a lot of ground!
We break down Jason Kennedy’s response to COVID, what’s likely going on in the back halls of the legislature and try and nail down what the last two and a half years of the UCP in power will likely mean for the 2023 provincial election!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With the new measures that have been introduced by the Alberta Government, we figured it would be a good time to sit down with a legal expert on health law and dispel some of the misinformation out there, so we reached out to Lorian Hardcastle (@lorian_H) to break down…
CMOH powers! The Best Summer ever! Vaccine passports! (What are they and how do they work) Legality of making vaccines a condition of employment! Forced vaccinations Personal Freedoms! Freedom of Speech! Protests at hospitals! Healthcare waivers! And the return of Bob’s House of Tacos!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Back in January, we released a boatload of information that we obtained through a FOIA request that we submitted to try and find out how a company owned by a donor to Adriana Lagrange got awarded a major contact for mask for schools.
That FOIA triggered an investigation by the Ethics Commissioner, the results of which were released on August 18th.
While many media outlets reported that Lagrange had been “cleared” in their headlines, that wasn’t at all accurate.
So to start this episode, we break down what the ethics commissioner found, what her recommendations mean and how badly the system appears to have been abused.
We also were able to have a conversation with Claire Theaker-Brown, the founder of Unbelts (one of the original companies identified by the government as potentially able to fill the mask order) to get a bit of extra perspective as well as to find out what everyone can do to help get more masks to teachers and students across the province.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With protests and a government that seems to demand more activism, one of the questions facing concerned Albertans is how can they better coordinated their efforts to maximize their impact?
Enter Albert Nobbs and the Alberta Activist Collective!
Albert sat down with us to discuss the formation of the Alberta Activist Collective, explain what brought him and his team to make it a reality and chat about what the future looks like!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this episode of The Breakdown we catch up with Robert Tremblay and Dr. Joe Vipond from the Calgary Climate Hub.
A few months back we chatted with Rob and Joe about the Cliomate Hub’s efforts to get Enmax to commit to a net zero carbon footprint, and they’re back to share an important update! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Each and every is a grassroots association of business who fly in the face of the assertions that all businesses hate Supervised Consumption Sites. With a growing number of businesses, particular in Calgary stepping forward to be a part of this important network, it’s clear that the conversation around Supervised Consumption Sites isn’t as cut and dry as some want people to believe.
To learn more, we sat down with @sup_beebah and @Shanabeysinghe to learn more about this amazing organization and the work they’re doing!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
There has been an alarming increase in hate crimes towards Muslims, particularly Muslim women.
Saima Jamal is an activist, community leader and advocate for marginalized people and especially refugees. She is also Muslim. Saima generously agreed to sit down to talk about what she sees as the roots of the problem as well as what’s needed to combat it going forward. As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Finally, right?
Given that it’s Pride month, we decided to sit down again with Calgary Drag King Shane Onyou to learn how the Drag community has been weathering COVID, discuss what it means to be an ally and talk about some of the finer points of fashion! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
What’s at risk when we start to see the erosion of political norms?
We sat down with Dr. Melanee Thomas to try and get a clearer picture as to what the risks are when political norms start to break down. Not only that, but we got well into the Drewdatah, Political Leadership, Colonialism, the Calgary Stampede and even The Green Line! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
In the run up to the provincial election, there were a lot of straw man arguments that were deployed by a lot of political parties to keep people from talking about the actual issues that the province of Alberta was facing.
One of the most contentious though, has to be the debate that occurred around GSA’s.
Today, we want to revisit that debate a little.
For those of you that are unfamiliar with what a GSA is, GSA stands for Gay Straight Alliance and they’re effectively school clubs that exist to create places where LGBTQ2S+ youth can interact with other youth, gay and straight without fear of bullying.
The debate around GSA’s often centers around stories about kids being taken off of school property, and more.
The source of the vast majority of these stories can be traced back largely to a court case filed by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms or the JCCF.
The JCCF is the organization that has deeply religious roots and regularly takes up causes that they perceive infringe on freedoms, particularly religious freedoms and files lawsuits. Before the election they filed both a suit against Bill 24, and then an appeal.
That appeal included multiple affidavits from relatively anonymous sources that had some pretty sweeping claims about goings on in GSA’s.
The crown objected heavily to the use of these affidavits. They were self-contradictory, misleading and full of emotionally loaded language that had no bearing on their actual contents. A judge called them to be heresay and unreliable.
But they were reported on heavily, particularly by right wing deeply religious opinion columnists.
And from the original affidavits, they morphed into stories that pundits and politicians picked up and used.
One of the affidavits introduced by the JCCF in their appeal on Bill 24 was one that detailed a person who attended an event where multiple speakers spoke on a variety of issues. One of those speakers spoke about her experiences volunteering to ensure that her community kids had access to a GSA.
We are extremely proud to be able to help try and correct the record and welcome the person who presented that talk and who volunteered her time and energy to ensure that LGBTQ2S+ youth had a safe place to be who they are.
Consultation (or not)! Ideology! (Dr. Carla Peck and the Curriculum - Part 3) Since the provincial government release their new “curriculum”, there’s been no shortage of outcry, frustration and condemnation, particularly in regards to the social studies “curriculum”. One of the UCP’s campaign promises was to “throw the NDP curriculum in the shredder” and come up with their own, but what they have produced, particularly the Social Studies curriculum has created a lot of anger and concern.
To try and figure out how things got as bad as they are, we sat down with Dr. Carla Peck, Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta.
This episode turned into a pretty deep dive on Curriculum development, so we’re breaking it up into three parts, this is Part 3.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Plagiarism! Editing on the fly! All this and so much more! Since the provincial government release their new “curriculum”, there’s been no shortage of outcry, frustration and condemnation, particularly in regards to the social studies “curriculum”. One of the UCP’s campaign promises was to “throw the NDP curriculum in the shredder” and come up with their own, but what they have produced, particularly the Social Studies curriculum has created a lot of anger and concern.
To try and figure out how things got as bad as they are, we sat down with Dr. Carla Peck, Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta.
This episode turned into a pretty deep dive on Curriculum development, so we’re breaking it up into three parts, this is Part 2.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
School is in! (Part 1) Since the provincial government released their new “curriculum”, there’s been no shortage of outcry, frustration and condemnation, particularly in regards to the social studies “curriculum”. One of the UCP’s campaign promises was to “throw the NDP curriculum in the shredder” and come up with their own, but what they have produced, particularly the Social Studies “curriculum” has created a lot of anger and concern.
To try and figure out how things got as bad as they are, we sat down with Dr. Carla Peck, Professor of Social Studies Education in the Department of Elementary Education at the University of Alberta.
Our conversation turned into a pretty deep dive on Curriculum development, so we’re breaking it up into three parts, this is Part 1.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Jennifer Sanford is back with a whole new season of “Conservative Like Me” dropping on April 9th! So we decided to sit down with her to discuss the new season, the many flavours of conservatism, the state of conservatism federally and provincially and so much more that we needed to split the episode up into 2! We hope you enjoy Part 2, where we really begin to drill down into the state of Conservatism in Alberta and Jenn extends a special invitation to the premier of Alberta!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Jennifer Sanford is back with a whole new season of “Conservative Like Me” dropping on April 9th! So we decided to sit down with her to discuss the new season, the many flavours of conservatism, the state of conservatism federally and provincially and so much more that we needed to split the episode up into 2! We hope you enjoy Part 1!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Alia is back!
In a return to our original format we break down the latest happenings in Alberta Politics! Physicians pay! Jobs! Recall Legislation! Internet blackmail! Bigfoot!
Plus a revealing interview with NotJason Kenney!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Deirdre Mitchell-Maclean is the host of one of a very particular podcast on Alberta politics, but the current format is the result of an evolution over several years.
As well, with Deirdre’s experience covering politics as both a journalist and a pundit, as well as someone who not only identified as a centrist but also actively volunteered for the only political party in Alberta that openly described itself as centrist, she is uniquely prepared to offer us a glimpse on what the often vaguely defined space on the political spectrum known as centrism is all about in Alberta as well as whether or not the Alberta Party is the only party to occupy that space. In Part 2 of this special two part episode, Deirdre tries to help us nail down what’s going on in the middle of the political spectrum. The middle ground in the political spectrum seems to be where a lot of politicians want to be seen to be coming from when they aren’t actively appealing to their base. But what does this mean for the future of politics in Alberta?
Well that’s what we get Deirdre to help us try and figure out!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Deirdre Mitchell-Maclean is the host of one of a very particular podcast on Alberta politics, but the current format is the result of an evolution over several years.
As well, with Deirdre’s experience covering politics as both a journalist and a pundit, as well as someone who not only identified as a centrist but also actively volunteered for the only political party in Alberta that openly described itself as centrist, she is uniquely prepared to offer us a glimpse on what the often vaguely defined space on the political spectrum known as centrism is all about in Alberta as well as whether or not the Alberta Party is the only party to occupy that space. In Part 1 of this special two part episode, Deirdre shares how the groundbreaking Alberta politics podcast that she hosts with Kathleen Smith came to be. Not only that, she also lets us in on what drove the “Women of AB Poli” podcast to make some of the choices that they make in regards to not only how they present their information, but perhaps most importantly, who they have as guests to present it.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
There was quite a media storm a few weeks back when footage surfaced of the Edmonton Police Service kicking a group of homeless Albertans into blistering cold temperatures. That storm prompted yet another conversation about homelessness in Alberta, but no major changes have been announced.
To get a better grasp on the homeless situation in Alberta as well as get some ideas as to what may need to be done in order start to take meaningful steps towards addressing houselessness (the preferred term), we sat down with Dr. Cynthia Puddu. Dr Puddu is an associate professor at Macewan University who has made houselessness and in particular, youth houselessness her specialty.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
As a follow up to our last episode, which was our controversial interview with President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom John Carpay, Constitutional Lawyer David Khan was generous enough to to agree to sit down with us to provide his perspective and interpretation of our interview. In addition to his work as a lawyer, David has worked passionately as an advocate for a number of issues, up until recently he was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and he recently began work as council for Ecojustice.
And he definitely had some things to say about our interview with Mr. Carpay.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
John Carpay is probably one of the more polarizing figures in Alberta politics. As president of the JCCF, he leads an origination that proclaims to be champions of the Constitution and Charter, but that often finds themselves in the media spotlight for the types of issues they champion. And of course there’s the matter of the comment on the symbolism of the rainbow flag.
We sat down with John to try and understand where he’s coming from with his campaigns, but the conversation definitely got pretty spicy!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Troy Wason has been a fixture in Alberta politics for decades, and was a previous director for the Progressive Conservatives. Recently, he took on the role as Executive Director of the Alberta Party. We sat down with Troy to learn more about how he views the current state of Conservatism in Alberta, to get caught up on what’s going on with the Alberta Party, particularly with the news that having gone for almost 2 years without a permanent leader they have finally pulled the trigger on a leadership race!
Plus we manage to get him on board for making sure that Alberta gets to lay claim to the title of longest water slide in the world!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Alberta winters can be cold, but who would have ever thought that penguins would be at the forefront of Alberta political conversation? You may have heard about the penguin protest that occurred earlier this week at the legislature where 800 protesting snow penguins were destroyed...
We managed to catch up with one of the organizers of the protest, Rowan Ley to get the scoop on what the protest was supposed to be about as well as what the proactive penguin plans are in the immediate future!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Episode 3.06
Alberta politics has often been referred to as divisive, but recently a conversation has started in Alberta that has united Albertans in way that we haven’t seen in a long time.
With land designation changes and the fate of large areas of the Rockies as well as water quality being threatened, we sat down with Katie Morrison, Conservation Director for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) to get a better grasp of the history of what got us here, what the potential damage is to our wilderness and water supply and what people can do.
And if you want to get a look at the complete Breakdown Collection of apparel, visit https://ballergear.ca/collections/breakdown and remember that all profits are going to support @bethechangeyyc!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With the UCP stumbling from one scandal to the next, the only thing that they seem to be able to do reliably is make matters worse with they way that they manage their communications and the way that they communicate to Albertans.
In order to try and gain some more insight what might be driving the communications decisions being made by the UCP, we sat down with a professional communicator @brrittannyh to break down the provincial governments management of COVID-19, Alohagate and a whole lot more!
Plus a big announcement!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
In the last days of 2020 we recorded an interview with Dr. Joe Vipond and Robert Tremblay from the Calgary Climate Hub to discuss their campaign to work with Enmax to get them to commit to becoming a Net zero company.
Little did we know at the time that we were only a few days away from Alohagate and the Adriana Lagrange mask scandal...
So while it’s a little bit later to be presented than we intended, and parts of it are alarmingly prescient, we’re glad to be able to bring you this important conversation.
Finally.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Back when we went back to school in September, there was a lot of controversy over the awarding of a contract to a company whose owner had donated to UCP Minister of Education Adrianna Lagrange’s election campaign.
Lagrange and the UCP dismissed those concerns, saying that Alberta Education played no role whatsoever in awarding that contract.
It seemed a little off to us, so months ago we filed a FOIA request.
Turns out, it’s no so much that Alberta Education didn’t play a role in getting their donor company a huge contract.
It seems that they’re pretty much solely responsible.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab
Kim Siever has built himself a reputation as an independent news man over a variety of formats over the last several years. His focus on deep dives into empirical evidence has garnered a strong following in Alberta that reaches outside of the province across Canada.
With Kim Siever News, be built a significant loyal following, with a particularly strong presence on Twitter where he served up daily stories on Alberta Politics and more.
And then one day, suddenly, he disappeared from Twitter.
We caught up with Kim to talk about the role of independent news and independent media in the current landscape as well as get the definitive answer on what caused his disappearance from Twitter as well as his next plans!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab
The world of Alberta politics started 2021 with a bang that was louder than any fireworks set off the night before!
When news started to break that multiple UCP staffers and MLA’s had been travelling inter-provincially and internationally in open defiance of travel advisories issued by their own government, things started moving fast!
So what happened? And what does it mean? In our first episode of the new year, we break down where we are as of afternoon of January 5th and we take a look at what some of the ramifications for Albertans might be!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
It’s our year end panel discussion blow out that’s so big, we had to break it up into parts! (PART 3!)
We wanted to do a bit of a follow up on the research that the Common Ground Initiative has been producing, so we assembled an expert panel to discuss some of the research, what it means for the future of political parties in Alberta, and a whole lot more! With an panel made up of...
-One of the political experts who is involved in Common Ground, political science professor at the University of Alberta, Dr. Feodor Snagovsky (@FSnagovsky) -Journalist, podcaster, and political commentator Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean (@Mitchell_AB)
-Journalist and commentator Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett)
-Commentator and political organizer Scott Harold Payne (@scottpayne) In part 3 we talk about the reality that as long as the small c conservatives and the theocrats in the Conservative party are willing to coexist, the future of alberta will require a lost less division among progressive minded Albertans. As well, what tools will political parties need to use in the next few years!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
It’s our year end panel discussion blow out that’s so big, we had to break it up into parts! (PART 2!)
We wanted to do a bit of a follow up on the research that the Common Ground Initiative has been producing, so we assembled an expert panel to discuss some of the research, what it means for the future of political parties in Alberta, and a whole lot more! With an panel made up of...
-One of the political experts who is involved in Common Ground, political science professor at the University of Alberta, Dr. Feodor Snagovsky (@FSnagovsky) -Journalist, podcaster, and political commentator Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean (@Mitchell_AB)
-Journalist and commentator Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett)
-Commentator and political organizer Scott Harold Payne (@scottpayne) In part 2 we talk about the Alberta Party’s future, whether the NDP are left wing enough for Alberta’s left, and what it will take to make more Albertans realize that they’re Albertans!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
It’s our year end panel discussion blow out that’s so big, we had to break it up into parts!
We wanted to do a bit of a follow up on the research that the Common Ground Initiative has been producing, so we assembled an expert panel to discuss some of the research, what it means for the future of political parties in Alberta, and a whole lot more! Our Panel...
-Dr. Feodor Snagovsky is one of the political experts who is involved in the Common Ground Initiative, he’s a political science professor at the University of Alberta. (@FSnagovsky) -Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean is a journalist, podcaster, and political commentator. (@Mitchell_AB)
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Max Fawcett is a journalist, avowed centrist and commentator. (@maxfawcett)
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Scott Harold Payne is a political commentator and political organizer (@scottpayne) In part 1 we talk branding, what makes voters vote the way that they do and ask some pretty big questions, including whether or not the Alberta NDP needs to separate from the federal NDP!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Dr. Jared Wesley is a political scientist and an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. He’s also the lead on the Common Ground Initiative, which aims to identify and define the values that drive politics in Alberta. Dr. Wesley has done extensive work to explore what Conservatism means in Alberta, and the Common Ground Initiative has done extensive work to determine how Albertans relate to politics.
Dr. Wesley joined us to talk about what defines modern conservatism in Alberta, some of the findings of the Common Ground Initiative, how Albertans view themselves and most importantly how much work remains to be done to help more Albertans engage in not only politics but to make them feel at home in their own province.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Zoe Lambert delivered a powerful speech on addiction and harm reduction as part of our International Human Rights Day Special. By popular demand, we’ve added it as a special episode!
With Jason Kenney waging an ideological war on addiction and addiction treatment methodologies as well as shutting down a supervised consumption site in one of the areas of Alberta that needs it most, we wanted to have a conversation on what addiction is and how it can potentially be managed, including the role that harm reduction services like Supervised Consumption Sites should play.
Fortunately, we were able to catch up with addiction and harm reduction advocate Zoe Lambert. Not only does Zoe have real lived experience with addiction and helping others navigate it, but she currently runs a mental health coaching service called Abscission Wellness while Zoe is pursuing her masters in counselling and it’s a chat you don’t want to miss!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With in person protests not really an option because of COVID 19, we teamed up with The Community YYC, albertaprotests.ca and Inclusive Canada to create a virtual protest!
With speakers covering topics including EMS Red Alerts, AISH, Harm Reduction, Municipal Elections, submissions from Albertans from across the province and special remarks from CUPE President Rory Gill as well as remarks from MLA Kathleen Ganley, this episode highlights the very real impact of UCP cuts and their approach to governance!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
What’s going on inside the UCP government?
The issues managers and press secretaries for the current government of Alberta have been the source of some pretty significant frustration and offense for a lot of Albertans, particularly for those who spend time on Twitter.
With issues managers like Matt Wolf and Brian Bateson engaging in what many are calling trolling and the apparently deliberate tweeting of offensive content, issues managers for the UCP appear to be playing from a very different, distinctly trump-esque playbook that Albertans haven’t really seen before.
Payman Parseyan is someone who has been a nomination candidate, a political candidate, a campaign manager, he’s a current UCP member and he has also been a press secretary to a minister in the UCP government.
Payman graciously offered to come on the show to provide an insiders perspective as to what this government is doing and why.
The conversation between he and Nate was probably the most funny and fiery we have had on the show to date, making this an episode you absolutely don’t want to miss!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Emma Deady (pronounced Deedee) is a Calgarian who found herself facing significant boredom when the first “lockdown” occurred in Alberta. To help fill the time she started spending more time with the app TokTok.
It wasn’t long until Emma began to produce satirical videos heavily focused on Alberta Politics and particularly targeting the UCP government.
But her short viral videos have done much more than simply make people laugh, they’ve given people hope with Emma receiving messages from healthcare workers across the province, not only thanking her for her videos but also asking for her help in elevating the challenges that they’re experiencing.
We caught up with Emma to chat with her about her fascinating journey from being a bored twenty something to finding herself on the cutting edge of political satire in Alberta.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
And wear a mask!
Kathleen Smith has been a part of Alberta’s online community since pretty much the start of online in Alberta.
She’s provided thoughtful and insightful online commentary in Alberta for more than 25 years and in conjunction with the “Political RND” platform is now co-hosting a podcast with the intent of reaching and engaging women in Alberta on political issues and happenings.
On this episode, we get Kathleen’s take on the COVID response, the UCP’s communications disasters, what parties might be contenders in the next provincial election and the lowdown on the new format for the Political RND podcast.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
And wear a mask!
Kevin Smith is a physical fitness trainer and independent gym operator.
With mental health at the forefront of many Albertans as the battle against COVID is coming up to almost a year. Kevin is in the progress of organizing a fundraiser he’s calling “Train the Trainer” to raise fund to support people who are struggling with mental health.
We caught up with Kevin to get the specifics of what his fundraiser is all about!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
And wear a mask!
We’re back with another round up episode and a very special interview!
There’s been a lot going on, so in this episode we catch up on a few important stories...
UCP MLA’s run amuck! Hail damage! Health Care cuts! A milestone for the show! Masks and more!
And our guest this episode is none other than Rachel Notley!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
And wear a mask!
Got Milk?
Les Landry is an Albertan who has relied on supports from the government to make ends meet due to his disabilities for quite some time. When the UCP Government rolled back indexing of AISH, it presented some very real financial challenges for him as many other AISH recipients.
These challenges were exacerbated when the minister of Community and Social Services Rajan Sawhney made the decision to push back AISH payments in order to make it appear that her ministry had managed to come in under budget, a decision that the Auditor General has since condemned as disingenuous, reckless and that place AISH recipients at unnecessary risk.
Les has been extremely fortunate though, because through social media, fellow Albertans stepped up to help him bridge the gaps that he experienced, and he’s used his own experience to try and create a grassroots system where he can help connect people in poverty with people who want to help, like those who helped him. We caught up with Les to hear his story and learn more about his initiative.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Emergency podcast for (sorta) emergency powers!
With confusion running rampant in Alberta politics as to what powers the Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw possesses and how she can use them, we decided to get a legal opinion from a legal expert.
Dr. Ubaka Ogbogu is an Associate Professor in the Faculties of Law and Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the Katz Research Fellow in Health Law and Science Policy, at the University of Alberta who teaches, among other things, Public health law and policy. We caught up to him to get an accurate picture as to what Dr Hinshaw’s powers are as well as to how she might have to navigate the use of them.
We also try and put to rest (hopefully once and for all) the question of whether or not masks and limiting activities represent a legal overstep by governments, be they municipal, provincial or federal!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Scott Harold Payne is a writer and politcal organizer who recently wrong a series of articles called “The Bully Pulpit”.
One of the most bizarre elements to come out of the Jason Kenney administration has been the advent of taxpayer funded “issues managers” whose duties apparently include, among other things, aggressively demeaning and harassing private citizens. Scott Harold Payne (@scotthpayne) wrote a series of articles on the subject of these issues managers behaviour, and also spoke to some of the victims of their tactics.
We sat down with Scott to get his take on the new phenomenon of taxpayer paid social media assassins and what they might mean for the future of politics in Alberta.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
This episode is all about rural Alberta!
We sat down with Kevin Van Lagen who is a principal, educator and who also lives and works in rural Alberta.
So in this episode, we talk rural education, the importance of public education in rural Alberta, what the recent changes to municipal revenue structures have done to erode UCP support in rural Alberta and how Kevin sees the future of rural Alberta and potential pathways to seeing small town thrive again!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
For Episode 23 we sat down with Shifrah Gadamsetti from Ask Her YYC to learn a little bit more about what Ask Her YYC is and what they’re up to, including the launch of their Parity Cup initiative with Parity YEG!
From there, we got into a variety of topics that are going to effect the upcoming municipal elections, including the introduction of PAC’s, the referendums that many are concerned will only distract from critical municipal issues and a whole lot more!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The Alberta curriculum update has been a roller coaster ride for the last few months, and not in a fun way.
First, Albertans heard that Chris Champion, a historian with no background in early childhood development or curriculum design and who had a history of profoundly racist writings had been tasked with “re-designing” the previously completed curriculum update.
Then, his updated design was leaked.
And things seemed to go from bad to worse.
To get caught up, we caught up with Dr. Carla Peck, Professor, Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta who specializes in Early childhood education with a focus on social studies curriculum development for her take on where we are and how we got here!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The landscape of media and journalism is changing.
To try and better understand some of these changes as well as to try and get a sense of what the future of media and journalism might look like, we sat down with someone who has extensive history in both.
Joe McFarland has been both a journalist as well as a talk radio host in Alberta and we caught up with him to get his thoughts on what has been driving the changes that we’ve seen in the media landscape and what they might mean for the future of journalism.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Marie Renaud is the MLA for city of St. Albert, and also the NDP Caucus critic for the ministry of Community and Social Services, and is the first sitting MLA to appear on The Breakdown!
We caught up with Marie via Zoom to get her take on the current status of not only what the UCP Is doing with AISH and her current campaign to bring awareness to how difficult it is to make ends meet on AISH, but also the current state of the government, UCP issues managers harassing private citizens and a whole lot more!
Let us know what you think in the comments!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Jennifer Sanford (@thejennsanford on Twitter) is a professional communicator, an advocate, a politico, and the host of the podcast “Conservative like me”, which explores what the future of Conservatism could look like at a provincial level as well as at the federal level.
We caught up with Jennifer to get her take on the current status of Conservative politics, where she sees successes with the current UCP government and where she sees that they’re falling down.
In this extended episode (bring a lunch) we cover AISH, MAID, the influence the religious right has on Conservative Parties, and perhaps most importantly, we explore how we can move beyond tribalism to start to have real conversations about how to move our province and our country forward.
If you would like to listen to an amazing podcast that presents a different view for what Conservatism can and perhaps should be, please check out Jenn’s podcast “Conservative like me” available wherever you listen to podcasts.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
With municipal elections coming up across the province, we’re trying to connect with candidates to give Calgarians a bit of an in-depth look into who is vying for positions on City Council.
We are thrilled that our first candidate interview for the 2021 municipal election in Calgary is declared Ward 8 Candidate, Anna Murphy!
In this sit down, we get into property taxes, EMS dispatch and what Albertans should be paying attention to heading into the next election!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
We’ve got some real treats for this episode!
To start with, we untangle the bizarre decision by the UCP to cut AISH, not cut AISH and then yeah, cut AISH. We also go through the recent closure of the Supervised Consumption Site in Lethbridge, the continued signs from global markets that a major shift in energy production and usage is coming, we unpack Jason Kenney’s bizarre response to the federal throne speech, we have a very special interview with Calgary Ward 3 City Councillor Jyoti Gondek and we end the episode with a surprise look at the UCP’s website presence that you aren’t going to want to miss!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On this episode we sit down with activist, social worker and therapist Lana Bentley to continue our ongoing discussion on racism and systemic racism in Canada.
Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Welcome to episode 2.15!
In this episode, we take a look at the recent accreditation of 2 rebel media personalities as journalists, we examine the recent news that more investors are stepping back from Oil and Gas, we talk about the recent embarrassing behavior from UCP “Issues Managers”, we talk chalk protests and we have a very special interview with The Right Honorable Not Premier of Alberta, Not Jason Kenney for his thoughts on the fiscal update and a safe return to school!
Plus, the return of our blooper reel!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Is the UCP above the law, or are they just really good at manipulating it?
Back in July, we did a segment on how we stumbled across the fact that the taxpayer founded war room also known as the Canadian Energy Centre is using taxpayer money to advertise PACs that are known to try and influence the outcome of elections through at the very least, the Canadian Energy Centre Facebook page.
We sent that information to Alberta’s Private Commissioner, The Auditor General, and the Ethics Commissioner.
We heard back from the Ethics Commissioner, and the answer was both illuminating and disappointing.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Thank you for your attention.
In this jumbo sized pop-up podcast, we catch up with Dr. Carla Peck (on Twitter as @cpeck3), award winning Professor with the Faculty of Education who specializes in Social Studies Education for kids.
This episode is an absolute barn burner as we work our way through the history of the curriculum review panel, the deeply concerning elements of the current curriculum revision that the UCP has initiated as well as her thoughts and concerns on the various plans to get students back to school.
In short, if you want to get caught up with what the biggest developments are in education in Alberta right now, this is an episode that you absolutely don’t want to miss!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
On June 13th, the NE end of the city of Calgary was hit by a hail storm that was the 4th largest natural disaster in Canadian history. Damages are estimated at around 1.2 Billion dollars, and that figure only represents the current costs.
North East Calgary is an incredibly diverse area of the city, with many new Canadians making their homes there. Many of these new Canadians face not only language barriers but also systemic barriers when it comes to not only purchasing home insurance, but also in regards to beginning to initiate a claims process. Out of all of the chaos of the disaster, a group of community members started to organize, not only to support their neighbours but also to try and petition the government for additional support as they found that many residents of North East Calgary were, and still are, facing insurmountable obstacles in getting their homes repaired.
Despite their efforts to stand up for their neighbours, this grassroots group has come under fire from UCP MLA Rajan Sawhney, with the MLA suggesting that their efforts are nothing more than political strategy.
To try and better understand who this group is and what they want, we sat down with one of their organizers, Khalil Karbani.
As always, if you appreciate what we’re trying to do here at the breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site, www.patreon.com/theBreakdownab and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook twitter and instagram.
Thank you for your attention.
Even during the restrictions that COVID-19 has presented for public gatherings, there have been protests around the world centered around the movement and organization Black Lives Matter.
In order to better understand Black Lives Matter we sat down with both the president and the Vice President of the Calgary Chapter of Black Lives Matter.
It’s makes for a longer episode than normal, and we definitely feel like it’s one of our intense episodes to date.
We would love to know what you think!
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In this pop up podcast, we catch up with Adam Quraishi, an educator and teacher with the Calgary and Rockyview School Boards to discuss (among other things), the return to school plan (?) from the provincial government, his concerns with the risks that exist in a classroom that as of yet have going unaddressed, the Sword of Damocles that Education Minister Adriana Lagrange has hung over the Calgary School Board AND we talk about possible solutions!
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
Jason Kenney and the UCP have announced that they will be holding a referendum on equalization next year.
In this episode we sit down with renowned economist Dr Trevor Tombe to not only take a look at what sort of power this referendum will have to affect change to the current equalization formula and debunk some common myths in regards to equalization.
We also discuss a few of the other reasons that Jason Kenney and the UCP might have for pushing this referendum through.
We also launch out new campaign to help inform Albertans about what equalization actually is and how it works.
As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leaving us a review and a rating and don’t forget to like and follow us on facebook, twitter and instagram all at @thebreakdownab.
The Alberta UCP campaigned in part on ending publicly funded partisan advertising by governments but also on the promise of creating a “War Room” to advocate for Alberta’s Energy sector.
Instead, it appears that the UCP instead created an organization funded by taxpayers that is not only using taxpayers money for partisan advertising, but it appears that they’re using taxpayers money to fund third party advertisers and PAC’s data mining efforts.
For the full document that contains our findings as well as includes our complaint to the Office of the Ethics Commisioner, The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta and the Auditor General Of Alberta visit https://www.scribd.com/document/468961845/The-Breakdown-CEC-AG-and-PC-Complaint
We drove all the way up to the Alberta Legislature to film/record our mid year special!
In this episode we break down the recent changes to election finance and we break down Bill 1, supervised consumption sites, more Shantics, alarming changes to the Victim Support Fund we have an interview with economist Kelly Rudyk and we kick the whole thing off with a surprise press conference!
There’s no doubt that education has been a hot topic since the UCP came to power in Alberta. But while a lot of the more publicized changes have been in the K-12 realm, Advanced Education has also experienced a pretty significant amount of upheaval as well. We caught up with Alberta Party Advanced Education Critic Myles Chykerda to get his thoughts on some of these changes!
On this special episode of The Breakdown Nate sits down with Calgary activist, educator and Drag King Shane Onyou to get his perspective on the reduction of protections that the Alberta UCP government has made to GSA’s (Gay Straight Alliances), the recent bylaw by the City of Calgary banning Conversion Therapy and a whole lot more!
There’s been a lot of developments surrounding education and the education minister in Alberta.
Particularly, there’s been a lot of confusion surrounding the recent education survey and secondary to that, why literally thousands of results were thrown out.
To help understand these developments around education as well as and some of the history behind those developments, we reached out to Sean Dunn with Support our Students.
This is my conversation with Sean
On this episode we take a look at the recent Conversion therapy ban by the City of Calgary (remember to check out our supplemental podcast with Dr. Kristopher Wells), we look at the recent abandonment of investments into the oil sands by the largest wealth fund on the planet, we break down the major changes that the Jason Kenney and the Alberta Government have recently made to not only environmental monitoring but also to the expansion of strip mining in environmentally sensitive areas, we look at the hypocrisy of the UCP government when it comes to protests and so much more!
On May 25th, the City of Calgary joined the ranks of a growing number of municipalities taking a stand against conversion therapy and actually crafting a bylaw banning the practice of conversion therapy.
This didn’t come without some controversy though.
To help understand the controversy and some of the history behind it, we reached out to Dr Kristopher Wells.
Dr Wells has an extremely well established history of advocating for better protections for the LGBTQ community, and was one of the subject matter experts consulted by the city of calgary during the crafting of the new bylaw that has banned the practice of Conversion Therapy in Calgary
On May 28th and 29th, the same group that organized the mega protests across ALberta in February is organizing another one, this time with more of an emphasis on art, communication and of course all with keeping social distancing in mind. We caught up with James from the grassroots or Alberta Forward to find out all the details!
On this episode of The Breakdown we try and take a look at why seniors homes across Canada have been hit so hard with Covid 19, we break down the provinces response to the challenges affecting Alberta’s homeless population as well as the tremendous amounts of criticism that have been levelled at the province and the Minister of Community and social services, we thank paramedics, we take a look at domestic violence in the time of #stayathome, and we breakdown even more of the scandals and Shantics that Health Minister Tyler Shandro just can’t seem to shake.
All this and more on episode 2.6 of The Breakdown!
It’s extremely hard for any sort of collaboration between two groups when one group holds all the power and can unilaterally change the rules of their partnership.
And yet, since the introduction of Bill 21that’s exactly what the UCP government has done with physicians in Alberta.
The UCP has repeatedly said that their goal is to reduce costs, but they have continuously tried to make systemic changes to how health care is administered in our province.
On the other side, physicians have repeatedly acknowledged the need to find savings given Alberta’s economic situation, but are committed to making sure the public health care system remains intact.
To get a bit of a better understanding of the situation, I caught up with Dr Liana Hwang. Dr Hwang is a family physician with surgical obstetrical skills in Banff and Canmore who recently found herself in the position of having to advocate strongly for rural health care because of the governments approach to rural medicine.
On this special podcast version of The Breakdown, we are proud and excited to share a conversation with Founder and CEO of “Be The Change YYC”, Chaz Smith.
As the expression goes, the measure of any society is how they take care of their most vulnerable.
There’s no question that some of the most vulnerable Albertans are the ones who survive on the streets. The number of homeless Albertans in our province continues to grow, and their vulnerability has only increased during the Pandemic.
As part of the early pandemic response, the government of Alberta set up several warehouse style shelters across the province, but those shelters have received a lot of criticism.
In Calgary, part of the initial response to care for the homeless population was to house members of the homeless population in vacant hotel rooms, but this option was squashed by the province citing suicide concerns and stating that the rooms would have to be retrofitted to removed string and wires, despite the ready availability of these items on the streets where the homeless spend most of their time.
Additionally, the province obtained exemptions to decrease the required social distancing from 2 meters to 1 m inside of homeless shelters, which to many, created a significant double standard.
This is our extended conversation.
On this special audio only version of The Breakdown, we sit down with Alberta Liberal Party Leader and practicing constitutional lawyer, David Khan to discuss the implications of the significant powers that the UCP granted themselves under Bill 10. In our conversation, we discuss the serious lack of legislative oversight with Bill 10, the UCP’s war on physicians and the fact that Alberta physicians are currently launching a lawsuit against the government for their mishandling of healthcare (all of this during a global pandemic), the perception that the Alberta Government consistently places political theatre above good governance AND (yes there’s an and) we get into the Alberta Governments creation of a literal second class of rules for Albertans dealing with homelessness that not only potentially puts them, but all Albertans at greater risk.
We’re back! It took us a while to find out footing but. On this episode we have two deep dives! We do our best to break down a bit of Covid 19, bust some Covid myths and then do our second deep dive into the whole Tyler SHandro debacle. As an added bonus we’ll be following up this episode with two more mini episodes over the next week, so look forward to that too!
On this episode we Breakdown the Teck cancellation, the provincial budget, some of it’s serious cuts that will affect a lot of Albertans, the SCS review, an interview with Dr. Jillian Ratti, protests across the province, bad social media from political parties and so, so much more!
We even have the Calgary Raging Grannies on as special guests to try and offer a little help resetting the moral compasses of a few press secretaries.
As always, please consider visiting our patreon page at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab and becoming a supporter of what we’re trying to do here!
On this extended edition of The Breakdown we take a look at the Teck Frontier mining project, the recent alarming changes to the AISH schedule, catch up on some of the embarrassing recent missteps from the Alberta Party and for our deep dive we sit down with Stoney Nakoda elder Rachel Snow to try and get some better context on the Wet'suwet'en crisis and the state of First Nation relations in Canada.
We know that this is a much longer episode than normal, but the interview with Rachel is something that we're all extremely proud of, so we would encourage you to set aside some time and listen, as her perspective is a very important one.
On our second episode of 2020, we’re taking a look at the back and forth that happened surround the apparent removal/then not removal of water and tissues for people testifying in the Alberta Court System, and then we have two deep dives this episode!
The first is on what happens when smaller oil and gas companies start to fail, who picks up the tab for their back rent and taxes, and then most alarmingly what is going on with the increasingly overlook problem of orphan wells.
Our second deep dive is on the recent efforts by CIty of Calgary Councillor George Chahal to get Calgary Taxpayers to foot the bill for a public safety tax force, which several other city councillors say is a waste of money because it duplicates the existing services already provided by the City of Calgary Police and the Calgary Police Commission. We also take a look at why despite this duplication of costs the premier and the minister of Community and Social Services are backing Mr. Chahal up.
As always, please share and leave a comment and if you’re inclined to help support our efforts, please visit our Patreon page at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab!
Thanks for tuning in!
On our first episode of the new year, we have an interview with the current Acting Leader of the Alberta Party, we take a look at the recent news about the Rutherford Scholarship from last summer (hint: it wasn’t an IT problem) and we break down the incredible (and it really is incredible) list of missteps of the UCP War Room (the Canadian Energy Centre) and ask the fundamental question, are Albertans getting what they’re paying for in the War Room or is this the UCP version of the Redford Sky Palace?
We also officially are launching our patreon account! It turns out that travelling to Edmonton, equipment and renting spaces costs money, so please visit https://www.patreon.com/Thebreakdownab and help us keep doing whatever it is that we're doing here!
Our last episode of the year!
For our year end wrap up we drove up to the Alberta Legislature to cover off a few of the major stories of the last few weeks. On this episode, we break down the firing of the election commissioner, surging domestic violence in our province and the problem with the UCP government deciding not to keep an eye on Alberta’s growing classroom sizes! Plus we have a holiday sized reel at the end!
For the supplemental podcast, you can listen at https://anchor.fm/the-breakdownab/episodes/The-Breakdown---Episode-11-Suplimental-Podcast---Classroom-Sizes-e9lvd5
The UCP Government has decided to discontinue monitoring class sizes across our province. We sat down with Sean Dunn from Support Our Students to break down how this happened and what it means for the future of Alberta Education.
With the new High School for North Calgary finally approved, this is our last episode in the empty field! With the new provincial budget cutting deep, we take a look at its effects on first responders and AISH recipients. We also do a deep dive on Wexit and we have a rebuttal to several key Wexit platforms and beliefs by constitutional lawyer David Khan!
Here’s our full segment from Episode 9 on Canada Action where we go through how they’re very much more than they seem and how they have some pretty established ties to the UCP.
We sat down with Constitutional Lawyer David Khan to try and Breakdown what Brexit is about and the many, many obstacles that it faces.