Greta Thunberg is coming to Alberta. And while she’s been the centrepiece of a massive youth led climate uprising no one does this work alone. There are Greta Thunbergs all over the place and we were lucky enough to speak with a couple of amazing young Alberta based climate activists in Juan Vargas of Climate Justice Edmonton and Alyssa Tonnes of Edmonton Youth for Climate this week on the podcast.  

When something terrible and racist happens you often see well meaning folks go on about how “This isn’t us,” or “This isn’t Canada.” But when you scratch the surface and dig into the history of Canada you quickly find that’s not the case. In this episode we dig into Alberta’s not-so-secret and extremely problematic past with guest co-host Bashir Mohamed.

Justin Trudeau sucks folks. Author Martin Lukacs' recently released book The Trudeau Formula: Seduction and betrayal in an age of discontent, is a fantastically written and well reported exploration of how Justin Trudeau's style of individualized, hyper image-driven, symbolic statecraft is just a fig leaf for maintaining the status quo for Canada's rich and powerful. From Trudeau's complicity in the genocide to Yemen, to the Liberal Party's history of corruption and deep financial connections to corporate Canada, to the details on how Justin's "reconciliation" agenda was derailed by Indigenous folks this book is a must-read for when anyone tries to guilt you into "strategically" voting Liberal because the Conservatives exist. 

Despite what Jason Kenney (and Rachel Notley) say, our neighbors in BC are not our enemies. There has been so much hype and misinformation around the pipeline debate that we reached across the Rockies to dispel some of the myths. Kai Nagata of Dogwood speaks with us about left wing populism, why he and so many other folks are fighting the Trans Mountain pipeline and the political realities on the ground in B.C.

Guests Mack Lamoureux, Bridget Stirling and Katie Cutting break down organized white supremacy like a beat-em up side scroller – starting with the easiest baddies and moving on to the biggest and scariest villains at the end. We’ve also got a healthy dose of media criticism as we discuss the baffling decision by the Globe and Mail to platform Ezra Levant and the troubling trend of mainstream media getting played like a fiddle by Nazis.

This week on the pod: the other 9/11. On September 11th, 1973 a fascist coup, backed by the USA, overthrew the democratically elected socialist government of Chile and installed Augusto Pinochet, a brutal and murderous dictator. Two Albertans whose families were caught up in the coup tell the story and make the connections between current Alberta politics and Chile. 

The only way to defeat organized greed is with organized labour--so how much do you know about organized labour?

On Friday, August 16th, the UCP dropped a gigantic announcement. They appointed 61 people to some of the province’s most important and powerful institutions. Almost 20 separate agencies, boards and commissions saw people fired and replaced with more conservative operatives, donors, and CEOs than Alberta’s few remaining politics journalists can count. 

Well, we counted. We at Progress Alberta have attempted to document the connections between these new appointees and the conservative political project. Here are the lowlights:

If you haven’t yet go and read You Must Be This Conservative To Ride: The Inside Story of Postmedia’s Right Turn from Canadaland. It’s a crucial piece for anyone who wants to understand the current state of news media in Canada, and Alberta especially--the Postmedia corporation owns nearly all of Alberta’s newspapers.