Learning to live with no government
Jason Kenney is finally back to work—not that it seems to make much of a difference.
Alberta is unquestionably in its fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and our UCP administration is flailing incompetently, when it’s doing anything at all. Last week, the Premier, desperate to look like he’s doing anything, announced a $100 reward to everyone who goes out and gets vaccinated, which had virtually no impact: Alberta’s vaccination rate went up a mere 22% after the announcement, while bolder plans in other provinces were able to get their rates to entirely double.
Read moreSenior Kenney staffer leaves premier’s office to become CEO of environmental org that’s received $429 million in foreign funding
On August 19 Larry Kaumeyer, Jason Kenney’s principal secretary and interim chief of staff, announced he was stepping down from his position to become the CEO of Ducks Unlimited Canada, an environmental NGO that received $429 million in foreign funding between 2003 and 2019. Ducks Unlimited is in Steve Allan’s inquiry list of anti-Alberta NGOs—but curiously, they’re one of the few organizations whose name was redacted out of the inquiry’s draft report.
Read morePOD: Life in the City of Dirty Water
Clayton Thomas-Müller discusses what it's like to be on Jason Kenney's enemies list, why Indigenous climate resistance is absolutely key to effective climate action, how George Soros works for him and more details of his incredible life that you can find in his new book, Life in the City of Dirty Water.
Read moreEdmonton facility with Nazi statue received government funding to reduce ‘hate motivated crime’
The Ukrainian Youth Unity Complex in north Edmonton received more than $35,000 in 2020 through the Communities at Risk: Security Infrastructure Program through Public Safety Canada. The grant paid for a security system at the facility which is home to a statue of Nazi collaborator Roman Shukhevych who was responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Poles, Romani and Ukrainians during World War 2.
Read moreWho will stand up for Mary Burlie Park?
Last month MacEwan University, Boyle Street Community Centre and Edmonton City Councillor for Ward 6, Scott McKeen, proposed a Mary Burlie Day for the City of Edmonton. While time will only tell what comes of this proposal, a more tangible tribute to Burlie’s legacy is Mary Burlie Park, which itself has become a point of conflict between the locals who use it and the businesses that surround it.
The long-quarrelled tribute to Burlie is wedged between the Edmonton Remand Centre and 95th Street downtown. The park’s one champion on city council is about to step down.
Read moreThe fourth wave wave is the cruelest
Jason Kenney was last seen in public on August 9. At that time 129 people were in hospital with COVID with 26 in the Intensive Care Unit or ICU.
It is now August 31. Kenney is on vacation, somewhere, and has been invisible as infections, hospitalizations and deaths spike.
Read morePOD: Make this election a climate election
What should you be looking for in your municipal candidates this year? Alison McIntosh and Carter Gorzitza from Climate Justice Edmonton join us to explain what you should be demanding from the local politicians at your door this fall.
Read moreWIth crises in every direction, Alberta prepares to go to the polls
So now, on top of municipal elections, a provincial by-election in Fort McMurray, a fake senate election, and an even faker equalization referendum, we’ve got a federal election coming.
There’s just a plenitude of things to keep track of now. COVID-19? Still with us, and on the upswing, actually, as we’re more than a week into Alberta’s fourth wave. The opioid overdose crisis? Well, there’s been no firm action on that all year, so it’s still with us too—and getting worse. And investigators continue to identify more graves at the sites of Indian Residential ‘Schools’, with the count now well above a thousand.
And just in case that wasn’t all enough, climate change has been wreaking utter havoc worldwide all summer, and a rapidly-developing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is displacing hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom are arriving now as refugees. These are interesting times, to put it mildly. It’s hard to tell how to proceed.
Read moreFOIP shows likely political interference in curriculum drafting process
On the campaign trail, Jason Kenney promised to depoliticize Alberta’s school curriculum, which he alleged was being injected with leftist ideology and “black armband history” by the former NDP government. But the paper trail shows that the UCP’s controversial replacement curriculum has repeatedly been sent to the Premier and his inner circle for approval—even before the education minister ever saw it.
Read morePOD: Jason Kenney's Victims of Communism memorial received donations honouring fascists, Nazi collaborators
The Liberal government is spending $7.5 million dollars on a Victims of Communism memorial that was started by Jason Kenney 14 years ago. Dan Boeckner of the Bottlemen podcast joins us to discuss the bipartisan consensus on the controversial monument, the news that the organization behind the monument received donations honoring fascists and Nazi collaborators who were responsible for the massacres of hundreds of thousands of people in Europe during World War 2 and much more.
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