Premier Danielle Smith and her UCP government, up to its figurative eyeballs in the murky and still-growing AHS procurement scandal, haven’t had much time to wage media war against the education support workers who continue to strike for better pay and working conditions in Edmonton, Calgary, Fort McMurray and elsewhere.

But that doesn’t mean their allies outside of the Legislature aren’t on the job. Spotted in the wild this week: a conservative Christian lobby group trying to convince Albertans that private schools are somehow more “accountable” than the public system.

Kim Siever joins us on the pod to talk about his labour-focused journalism with The Alberta Worker, and we chat for a bit about the still-developing AHS procurement scandal and Alberta's gigantic and ongoing education strike.

Working as a travel nurse involves some major trade-offs, sacrificing a pension and paid sick days for flexibility as a “private contractor,” says a nurse from Edmonton who worked for several agencies in Halifax after experiencing pandemic burnout in 2022.

After nine years with Progress Alberta, our executive director and editor of the Progress Report Duncan Kinney is getting out of the rascal business. Join us as we reminisce about some of Progress Alberta's greatest hits during his tenure, and discuss the thorny issue of 'activist journalism,' on the latest Progress Report podcast.

The parents of Anthony Heffernan, an unarmed 27-year-old who Calgary police shot in a motel room in 2015, have had their appeal of a limited Police Act investigation into his killing dismissed.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) records show that five companies have dominated Alberta’s agency nursing market, enjoying the major share of AHS contracts from 2015 to 2023. 

AHS spending on contract nursing increased steadily from $388,000 for contracts with two companies in the 2015/16 fiscal year to $5 million with five companies in 2020/21 before increasing exponentially to $81 million with 27 companies in 2022/2023.

It’s been a momentous week in Alberta—especially in Edmonton—for matters both theatrical and not. And you haven’t heard from me in a minute, so let me catch you up.

Now we know what at least one health care body is paying per hour to private for-profit staffing agencies. Jeremy Appel has an exclusive story for the Progress Report that we just published that reveals what Covenant Care is paying per hour for staffing agency registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs) and even health-care aides (HCAs).

Covenant Health is spending nearly $110 an hour per nurse to obtain registered nurses from private, for-profit staffing agencies, more than double the hourly wages of unionized nurses earning the highest possible hourly wage, according to figures provided by the province’s Catholic health-care body.

If you’re not a monthly patron to the Progress Report yet, we get it. Finances are tight, one red pepper is worth approximately $17 dollars and yet Galen Weston is still just walking through the streets mostly unmolested.