Alberta lost 179 souls to drug poisoning in April 2023, the most we’ve ever lost. Every one of those deaths was preventable. They were the product of a policy choice. 

An Edmonton cop who spoke at a Coutts area pro-border blockade rally and posted a tearful video on Instagram of her in uniform thanking Ottawa convoy protesters and saying she would refuse “unlawful orders” has been found guilty of discreditable conduct. She was reinstated with a reprimand that will stay on her record for five years.

The media business is doing incredibly poorly. Bell Communications laid off about 1,300 media workers last week, and are closing or selling nine radio stations. Postmedia is close to bankruptcy (and would have been bankrupt years ago if not for government subsidies). And all of this is all just the market doing what it does best. 

A proposed law enforcement and trucking industry training facility in Beaumont violated the government's own rules by having conservative-connected insiders lobby the government after the proposal had been submitted. This site could also potentially be used as a new training facility for a provincial police force. 

The city of Edmonton in concert with the Edmonton Police Service have set a new record by evicting unhoused people living in tents from the same location twice in six days, with one of those evictions occurring during a heat wave. 

During the 2019 provincial election I did everything I could to try and keep Jason Kenney away from power.

An infamous police brutality incident from 2017—in which crown prosecutors declined to lay criminal charges despite a recommendation to do so from ASIRT—has concluded. The police discipline process has ended and the professional consequences for repeatedly kicking and punching someone who was “clearly surrendering” has been decided. Thanks to a deal cut between the officers and Chief Dale McFee’s office the three cops got 35 hours of community service. Two of the three officers were also promoted before the discipline process was complete. 

After a long hiatus due to moving offices the Progress Report pod is back. Jeremy Appel joins host Duncan Kinney to sift through the wreckage of the Alberta election. They discuss the Alberta NDP's spin on their catastrophic loss as well as what is to be done about the coming UCP cruelty. 

By now, I’m sure you’ve seen Alberta’s election results. Bad news, eh?

There are a few ways to think about this thing.

The Pacey Dumas case, where an investigation found that an Edmonton cop had assaulted a young Indigenous man but crown prosecutors then refused to press charges showed how crown prosecutors shielded police from accountability. But a recent report from the Edmonton Police Service shows that the police have the power to quash charges from their end, too.