With 750,000 Alberta children due to head back to overcrowded classrooms during a resurging killer pandemic, now seems a great time for a pop quiz.

In June, Alberta’s United Conservative Party government handed management consulting firm McKinsey & Company a $3.7 million contract to comprehensively review Alberta’s post-secondary system. To understand why our post-secondary system is well on its way to being viciously ripped to shreds by the high priests of neoliberal ideology we look to Pete Buttigieg.  

Edmonton’s CFL team has still not changed its racist team name despite pressure continuing to mount on multiple fronts. 

Two Lethbridge police officers illegally surveilled NDP MLA Shannon Phillips and followed and ran checks on people she met with after an informal meeting she had at a diner when she was a cabinet minister. 

Our guest Abdul Malik makes the case for why the UCP's new union busting bill is actually good. Plus Duncan follows up on his story about the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator war criminal statue by going down the Ukrainian Nazi collaborator rabbit hole. 

As the cries for defunding the police and investing in community supports grows, police forces are blunting these with their own attempts at reform. Edmonton police are putting video cameras in cars and the Calgary police are expanding use of body cameras. But focusing on cameras is a smoke screen that doesn’t address the systemic racism in how policing works or stop police violence. 

Real heads have known since the passing of Alberta’s anti-union bills 9 (lifting bans on replacement workers and more oversight over bargaining) and 21 (which delayed wage arbitration for public sector unions) that something like Bill 32 was coming. 

Alberta’s about to Make Child Labour Great Again!

If you think this is a breakthrough, you’re probably a fast-food franchise owner.

A brief Jim update. He's still in the hospital. He has responded to treatment but he has also had some setbacks so you get me again for this newsletter. 

A quick thank you to all the lovely folks who sent Jim a message or who donated from the last email as well. We picked up 23 new monthly donors as well as several generous one-time donors Thank you so much. Like a lot of organizations we are concerned about our finances and this goes a long way. 

And if you wanted to become a monthly donor but for whatever reason you didn't get around to it last week here's the link to donate. Even $5 a month goes a long way. 

As statues of Christopher Columbus and Confederate generals are pulled down all over the United States in the aftermath of the uprisings against police brutality and systemic racism, Edmonton, Alberta has its own monuments to deal with.