Very rarely does a journalist in Canada have to talk to their lawyer before attending a press conference and make sure they’re available that afternoon in case you get arrested. But this is what it’s like to cover the Edmonton Police Service as a journalist who aims to hold the police accountable.  

The expected provincial election may be this year’s big show, but adjacent to the spotlight, local power struggles continue apace.

A clear example: the muted but ongoing campaign against Edmonton’s mayor, Amarjeet Sohi.

The corporate potheads at Sundial Growers turned out not to be so mellow as Teamsters Local 987 have won an unfair labour practices complaint against the Olds, Alberta based cannabis producer and processor.

Paris Marx of the Tech Won't Save Us podcast joins Duncan Kinney to explore Danielle Smith's obsession with cryptocurrency and taking Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan. 

In an undated editorial from fall 2022 in a quarterly publication from the Alberta Federation of Police Associations, Chris Young, the president of the Alberta Federation of Police Associations and a vice president with the Calgary Police Association, wrote an editorial titled “Political Leaders Need to be Responsible” where he calls out a city councillor and makes several extraordinary statements. 

It might be a relatively harmless and money-losing affectation for a former talk radio show host turned business group lobbyist to have a mid-life conversion to the church of cryptocurrency. It becomes a lot less harmless when that person becomes the premier, can tell Alberta’s pension fund manager what to do and wants to take Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan. 

The Premier’s office is once again desperately twisting to get out of a scandal.

This time it’s allegations that Smith’s office was emailing and pestering Crown prosecutors to interfere with the investigations into the Coutts border blockade.

Meghan Grant and Elise von Scheel, two experienced reporters with the CBC, say that sources in the Crown prosecutor’s office told them that Smith’s people were trying to meddle. And it’s not hard to believe: Smith claimed so herself more than once, including in an interview with Rebel Media back in December, and also to real journalists on January 12.

Euan Thompson of Each + Every joins Duncan Kinney to discuss the incredibly evil "Alberta Model" of addressing the drug poisoning crisis and why it must be destroyed. 

When government officials only tell the media late on a Friday afternoon about a presser scheduled for Monday morning, you can tell they know it’s not going to be a crowd-pleaser. 

Edmonton city council officially killed the regional transit commission when it pulled out of the project during budget deliberations in December. And according to transit union president Steve Bradshaw, the cause of the commission’s death can be traced to February 2020 when Strathcona County, the second largest transit system in the region, pulled out.