Alberta Advantage Podcast (Team Advantage)

Building a Community Movement for Better Transit feat. James Wilt: Saturday, March 18th | University of Alberta. RSVP: michaeljanz.ca/transitcamp2023

A few short years into Alberta PC Premier Ralph Klein’s deficit-slashing austerity regime, Calgary’s hospital laundry workers were given devastating news: they were going to be fired. Having been pushed to the brink, they took to the streets the next day on a wildcat strike. Soon, the city would be galvanized by the strike, with sympathy strikes soon forcing Klein’s government to cancel health spending cuts and talk of a general strike in the air. 

Our episode ends with an excerpt from Yvette Lynch, laundry worker and CUPE 8 member. 

Listen to our previous episode on TORIES: Peter Lougheed, and check out our two-part series on why Ralph Klein sucked: Part 1, Part 2.

Further Reading:

Chambers, Allan. Fighting Back: The 1995 Calgary Laundry Workers Strike. Edmonton: Alberta Federation of Labour and Alberta Labour History Institute, 2012..

Foster, Jason. “Revolution, Retrenchment, and the New Normal: The 1990s and Beyond.” In Working People in Alberta: A History, edited by Alvin Finkel, 205–241. Edmonton: AU Press, 2012.

Reshef, Yonaton, and Sandra Rastin. Unions in the Time of Revolution: Government Restructuring in Alberta and Ontario. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.

Taylor, Jeff. “Labour in the Klein Revolution.” In The Trojan Horse: Alberta and the Future of Canada, edited by Gordon Laxer and Trevor Harrison, 301–313. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995.

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The Bank of Canada is explicitly trying to increase unemployment by raising the cost of borrowing money. Is excessive employment the cause of inflation, and if not, what are the consequences of this policy likely to be? Economist Jim Stanford joins Team Advantage to talk about profiteering, the housing market, and the potential for a recession within the next year.

Follow Jim Stanford on twitter @JimboStanford, and check out Economics for Everyone at economicsforeveryone.ca.

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What's a strike? Why do they happen? What's a picket line? How can I support a strike? What is the mass media likely to say about a strike? What role do the courts and labour board play? What dirty tricks might be expected from employers? Team Advantage addresses all this and more in our overview of labour action basics.

Elizabeth Rowley, leader of the Communist Party of Canada, joins Team Advantage in a busy community hall in Calgary. What does the Communist Party propose in its program this election, particularly in terms of a response to the pandemic and growing inequality?

Learn more about the CPC by contacting them at info[at]cpc-pcc.ca, 416-469-2446, and communist-party.ca

The opioid crisis is killing more Albertans than the COVID-19 crisis— but Jason Kenney's UCP government is intent on pursuing an abstinence-only model that rejects harm-reduction approaches. Joining Team Advantage are Garth Mullins, host of the CRACKDOWN podcast, and Jeremy Appel, author of a recent Progress Report piece titled The Alberta Model: Who benefits from the Alberta government’s shift away from harm reduction to abstinence-only recovery.

Follow Jeremy Appel on Twitter @JeremyAppel1025, and follow Garth Mullins on Twitter @garthmullins. Listeners may also be interested in the work of @momsstoptheharm and @HIVCommLink.

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Western Alienation! Wexit! Separation! Are these merely tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing? Team Advantage convenes to discuss the phenomenon of western alienation, examining its long history, how it obscures capitalist alienation and reconstructs it to defend regional capitalist interests, and shapes an explicitly right-wing collective identity for Alberta. How is it that western alienation coincidentally makes the concerns of oil millionaires "everyone's problem?" Does blaming Ottawa for everything really distract from policy failures here in Alberta?

Visit LeftWexit.com for a real plan to guarantee Alberta's independence.

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Remember when the Liberals campaigned on expanding national child care, but eviscerated the welfare state instead? Oh, the 90s!
Doug Nesbitt, founding editor of rankandfile.ca, joins Team Advantage to discuss the reign of Canada's Liberal Party through the 1990s. How did austerity and double-digit unemployment become normalized? What happened to Canada's social programs? How did the business lobby exert such influence? How did the media manufacture a fiscal crisis?

Calgary-based 660 CityNews reporter Tom Ross asked Jason Kenney about the Green New Deal, spurring Kenney to have a bit of a meltdown. Tom joins Team Advantage to discuss what prompted him to ask the question, Kenney's reaction, the state of journalism in Alberta, and what's important when doing journalism today.

Follow Tom Ross on Twitter @Tommy_Slick and on Instagram @tommy.slick.

In the 1980s and 1990s, free trade and economic integration were intensely debated topics and the subject of debate in national elections, and generally opposed by the political left. Most recently, right-populist political formations — like Trump and Brexit — have resurfaced the issue of free trade, critiquing it for their own purposes. Why is it that nobody except the political right wants to talk about free trade anymore, especially when our countries have strategic decisions on the horizon— like resourcing pandemic responses and mitigating climate change?

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What happens when a government adopts the Fraser Institute's policies wholesale, pushing cutbacks, austerity and a rollback of rights? How does labour leadership respond to widespread discontent with a government— and how does it act to contain this discontent? Team Advantage explores Operation Solidarity, one of the largest political protests in British Columbia's history.

Historical audio clips are sourced from Common Cause: The Story of the Operation Solidarity Coalition.

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What is ideology? How does it function? Is it something that affects only our opponents— because they're blinded by ideology, forced into believing a cult-like worldview? Could it be that ideology is also present among experts and people who consider themselves "objective," free-thinking individuals? Join Team Advantage as we explore ideology in theory, history, and practice.

For more examples of ideology critique, you might enjoy our previous episodes: Oil Propaganda Breakdown: Enough Is Enough, and The $30M Ad They Don’t Want You to See: War Room Holiday Special.

Culture wars, long-term injury, workplace violence, sexual assaults, nationalistic militarism, and the appropriation of working-class aesthetics... is it possible to like hockey from the left? Can sport unite the working class? Is hockey a serious game for serious men, or a silly game for silly people? Cass Kislenko, Tyler Shipley and Doug Nesbitt join Team Advantage to discuss Canada's game.

Doug mentions the short film Valery's Ankle by Brett Kashmere.

Tyler refers to the 2016 film Hello Destroyer.

Follow Cass Kislenko @redkislenko
Follow Tyler Shipley @le_shipster
Definitely don't follow Doug Nesbitt because he's not @standingthegaff

The morning of October 26th, workers at health-care sites across the province of Alberta walked off the job. What happened, and how has the broader labour movement responded? Join Team Advantage as we discuss the wildcat strike and the Alberta Federation of Labour's response. If you're interested in the AFL's campaign, check it out at standuptokenney.ca.

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As the Black Lives Matter movement continues to make its presence known in Canada and the United States, racist and colonial statues are increasingly being subject to the intense gravitational pull of the Earth. What kinds of statues and monuments are objectionable in Canada? What's being done about it? And what do statues have to do with how we remember history? Team Advantage is joined by Sean Carleton, Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and Native Studies at the University of Manitoba, to discuss Nazi monuments, colonizing nation-builders who do genocide, and why it's good and cool that statues of these figures come crashing down.

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Faced with escalating death tolls, some reactionary figures are pushing hard to pin the blame for COVID-19 on China instead of their own ineptitude. Davide Mastracci joins Team Advantage to examine how the "blame China" narrative serves to inoculate neoliberal politicians and spokespeople from critique, while contributing to a long history of anti-communism— with important consequences for those of us seeking social and political transformation.

Read Davide's piece here:
https://readpassage.com/dont-blame-china-for-your-governments-failure-to-contain-covid-19/

Follow Davide on Twitter at @DavideMastracci, and read Passage at readpassage.com.

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What would it mean to imagine a future worth living in? Recorded roughly 10 days before the COVID-19 pandemic hit Canada, Team Advantage takes a look at the range of obstacles that prevent us from imagining a desirable future, and propose some useful resources for moving forward. Featuring Fredric Jameson's "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism," Mark Fisher's idea of the "slow cancellation of the future," the rise of conspiracy theories, Walter Benjamin, nostalgia for the future, and much much more.

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Kenney's UCP government has used the pandemic to their advantage, passing a number of outrageous laws that accelerate handouts to Alberta's most profitable corporations, while cracking down hard on the rights of citizens to protest. Team Advantage convenes to discuss Alberta's Job Creation Tax Cut, Bill 1: Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, and Bill 32: Restoring Balance in Alberta's Workplaces Act.

What's inflation and why does it happen? If labour costs go up 1% but consumer prices go up 4.8%, who's pocketing that difference? Why do the CEOs of big corporate banks seem to care so much about inflation? Team Advantage explores the hottest economic phenomenon of 2022.

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We live in a sexist, patriarchal, and capitalist society— but is the solution to these problems simply to diversify the administration of sexist, patriarchal capitalism? Will more women in corporate leadership help abolish gendered oppression? Team Advantage convenes to discuss the growth of corporate feminism, explore its weaknesses, and consider how socialist feminism might present a more tenable solution. Visit albertaadvantagepod.com for suggested readings!

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What is the employer-friendly CEWS, the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, and how is it funneling public funds to big businesses? Doug Nesbitt joins Team Advantage to discuss the generosity of the Canadian state with regards to employers, and how this differs substantially from the approach taken towards workers. Why did the NDP and major labour leaders support a program that is essentially trickle-down economics on steroids? Who benefits from this program? And how will the costs it creates be used against working people in the future?

Follow Doug Nesbitt on Twitter @StandingTheGaff, and read his work at rankandfile.ca.

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Alberta is leaving workers without immigration status behind, excluding them from health care coverage in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Marco Luciano of Migrante Alberta joins Team Advantage to discuss the demands migrant and undocumented workers are making, as well as the role workers play in providing essential services during the pandemic.

Add your name to the open letter here:
https://www.migrantealberta.ca/health-care-for-all

Support the work of the Migrant Rights Network here:
https://migrantrights.ca/covid19/

Follow Migrante Alberta at @MigranteAlberta on twitter, Migrante Alberta on Facebook, and migrantealberta.ca on the web.

In late September 2023, Canadian Parliament clapped for "Ukrainian hero" Yaroslav Hunka, who fought with the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), a unit in the Nazi German military. 

Why did Canada let so many Ukrainian Nazis into the country after WW2, and how did this wave of right-wing Ukrainian nationalist shape Canada's Ukrainian diaspora? Team Advantage digs into the working-class origins of Ukrainians in Canada, Canada's efforts at post-war anticommunism, and the Canadian government's careful management of "multiculturalism."

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The COVID-19 pandemic has resurfaced a long-forgotten feature of economic planning: industrial policy. What should our economy look like? What infrastructures should we build? What technologies should we develop? And who should benefit from it all? Journalist and author Leigh Phillips joins Team Advantage to discuss why industrial policy is the sexiest topic on the left today, examining important aspects of technological advancement, Canadian regionalism and economic development.

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Chrystia Freeland did indeed have a Nazi-collaborator grandfather, Michael Chomiak. Why is this relevant, and why is it worth talking about?

Davide Mastracci joins Team Advantage to discuss his recent article in Passage, Chrystia Freeland Must Account For Her Nazi Collaborator Grandfather. Who was Freeland's grandfather, Michael Chomiak, and what did he do while editor-in-chief of a Ukrainian-language newspaper launched in January 1940 shortly after Nazi occupation? Did he ever express regret for his actions? Does Chrystia Freeland think his actions are regrettable? What might be motivating Freeland's evasion of this issue?

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After cutting healthcare expenditures by 17% over four years, Jason Kenney's UCP government spent $2 million for a review of Alberta Health Services. The review found very little in terms of major cost savings. The review's recommendations, however, propose an attack on the unionized workers that perform vital duties within Alberta's health care system, eroding pay, working conditions, and union presence at AHS sites. It also provides a justification for increased privatization of the workforce, AHS facilities, and surgeries. Alison McIntosh, research manager at the Parkland Institute, joins Team Advantage to discuss the implications of the review.

Follow Alison on Twitter @McIn_Ali, and follow the Parkland Institute @ParklandInst.

Read Alison's analysis of the Ernst & Young AHS Review here:
https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/review_of_ahs_a_pro_privatization_attack_on_workers

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What is the history of Canada's second-oldest political party, and how does it inform their politics today? In this in-depth examination of the Communist Party of Canada, Team Advantage serves up a broad historical overview of the Party's history, and considers what role the CPC could play in the struggle for socialism today.

Follow our guest Doug Nesbitt at @StandingTheGaff and at rankandfile.ca.

What went into starting the CCF— the precursor to today's NDP? What was the working-class and socialist response to the deep depression and government inaction of the 1930s? How did prior struggles and experiences contribute to the formation of this new party, and how did they envision changing the world? Nashwa Khan of Habibti Please joins Team Advantage to discuss this fascinating historical moment. Follow Nashwa and HP @habibtiblease.

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While Canada's medicare system was launched in the 1960s, some notable exclusions remain. Vision, pharmaceuticals, mental health, and dental care are all aspects of health that remain largely uncovered by our public health system. Brandon Doucet, dentist and member of the Coalition for Dentalcare, and Thomas Lange, health economist and research coordinator at the University of Calgary, join Team Advantage to discuss the potential ways health coverage could be expanded to include dentalcare.

Follow the Coalition for Dentalcare on Twitter @for_dentalcare, and follow Tom Lange @TomLangeYYC.

Read Brandon's piece in Passage on the topic here:
https://readpassage.com/as-a-dentist-i-know-canada-needs-universal-public-dental-care/

Read Tom's research papers here:
https://www.policyschool.ca/authors/thomas-christopher-lange/

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Automated, shared, electric: these buzzwords and the tech giants who promote them claim to shape the future of transportation. But what would a truly democratic, green, and equitable transportation system look like? James Wilt joins Team Advantage to discuss his latest book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars? Public Transit in the Age Google, Uber, and Elon Musk.

Purchase the book here:
https://btlbooks.com/book/do-androids-dream-of-electric-cars

Follow James on Twitter @james_m_wilt.

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What explains the drastic differences between labour unions in Canada and the United States? Why is U.S. union density roughly one-third that of Canada's, despite the similarities both share? How have different political and legal regimes in the respective countries shaped labour's efforts? Team Advantage explores all this and more in this hour-long discussion. When you're done, watch the NFB's Final Offer.

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Long-Term Care facilities have been the sites of deadly COVID-19 outbreaks, in Alberta and across the country. But what is long-term care? How is it funded, and who operates it? What are conditions like for persons in care, as well as for workers? Lastly, as our aging population requires increasing care, how might we build a system that treats our elders and those who cannot work with dignity and respect— while providing low-carbon, green care-work jobs?

Further Reading:
Re-imagining Long-term Residential Care in the COVID-19 Crisis (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, April 2020)
Losing Ground: Alberta's Residential Elder Care Crisis (Parkland Institute, 2016)
Deaths in Residential Care in Canada by facility (tracker updated daily by Nora Loreto)
Sizing Up the Challenge: Meeting the Demand for Long-Term Care in Canada (Conference Board of Canada, 2017)
Before It's Too Late: A National Plan for Safe Seniors' Care (Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, 2015)

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Meatpacking plants were the sites of COVID-19 outbreaks across the continent, and the outbreaks in Alberta killed several workers. What is it about this industry that made workers so vulnerable to this pandemic, and why do the corporate meat-packing giants command such influence and power? Team Advantage examines the role of corporate agribusiness in rural Alberta and the labour struggles that have shaped the industry.

Further information:
Alberta Labour History Institute: Alberta's Summer of '86 [video]
24 Days in Brooks [National Film Board documentary]
Michael Broadway: Small Town, Big Changes Meat-packing, refugees and the transformation of Brooks. [Alberta Views, 2006]
George Melnyk: Faces of the Lakeside Packers Strike [Alberta Views, 2006]
Michael Broadway: Cut to the Bone: How changes in meatpacking have created the most vulnerable worker in Alberta [May 2012]

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Nowadays, a "public enterprise" means the government bought a leaky pipeline— but public enterprises have a long and successful history in Canada, providing services and public goods that private actors in the market economy could never muster. Journalist and author Linda McQuaig joins Team Advantage to discuss her latest book, The Sport & Prey of Capitalists: How the Rich Are Stealing Canada's Public Wealth. Discover how the Trudeau Liberals' Infrastructure Bank is a giant handout to BlackRock! Unearth the history of Canadian National, Canada's public railway, and its role in shaping radio broadcasts and the CBC! Gasp in shock as you learn that a wildly popular public Postal Office Savings Bank existed in Canada until 1968, when Canada's big private banks lobbied to undermine it!

Follow Linda McQuaig on Twitter @LindaMcQuaig and check out her book at lindamcquaig.com.

Support our podcast! Team Advantage sits down with Bryan D. Palmer on his stop through Calgary to discuss his new book, and discuss how labour and anti-colonial movements have historically challenged the Canadian state. We ask what it might take to forge a united front and what the present moment of Canadian Nationalism might mean for left politics.

Buy Palmer's book from Lorimer Books or your local independent bookseller.

Further reading recommendations from Bryan Palmer:

• Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition by Glen Coulthard
• Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States by Audra Simpson
• Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes
• Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State by Shiri Pasternak

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Filmmaker, climate activist, educator, and federal NDP candidate Avi Lewis joins Team Advantage to discuss his leap into electoral politics. Was the reaction to his work at the 2016 federal convention what made him decide to toss his hat in the ring? How does he expect to maintain his integrity and his outspoken voice within this new setting? Why does Canada seem to be missing the left-populist moment? And what does he think of his family's legacy within the NDP?

Follow Avi on twitter @avilewis and learn more about his campaign at avilewis.ca.

The first faculty strike in Alberta's history has begun, with members of the Concordia University of Edmonton Faculty Association braving frigid temperatures and taking to the picket line on January 4th. Why is the Concordia University of Edmonton purchasing mansions when their faculty are amongst the lowest paid in the sector? Glynis Price of the Concordia university of Edmonton Faculty Association joins Team Advantage to discuss the strike and the future of post-secondary education in Alberta.

Follow @CUEfacultyassoc @CUEFAVoice and @SSCUEFA for information and updates, visit the faculty association website at cuefa.ca, and tell Concordia's President to put students and faculty before profits.

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At the opening ceremony for Calgary's southwest ring road, seth cardinal dodginghorse interrupted the proceedings —in the presence of Jason Kenney, Ric McIver, Tsuu'tina Chief Roy Whitney, and Mayor Naheed Nenshi— and told his story. We're pleased to have seth join us to discuss the context behind his action, the history of Tsuu'tina and Calgary, the legacy of colonization, and Calgary's fixation on automobile culture.

Follow seth on Instagram @sadbirthdays, on Twitter @lawrenceteeth, and at lawrenceteeth on Bandcamp.

seth's installation at the Calgary Central Library (as part of the Tina Guyani Collective), titled "210 Chaguzagha-tsi tina (For 210 Weaselhead Road)," is on display for the month of October, and a virtual sit-down with the artists is occuring on Thursday, Oct. 29th, from 7 - 8 p.m.

UNTUNNELLING VISION | JIN-ME YOON, featuring acoustic experiments by seth cardinal dodinghorse, can be viewed at Truck Contemporary Art until December 12, 2020.

Yoko Ono's WATER EVENT 1971/2020, featuring seth cardinal dodginghorse, is on display at Contemporary Calgary until January 31, 2021.

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What can be gleaned from a lifetime on the Canadian left? Economist, policy advisor an author Andrew Jackson joins guest-host Aaron Giovannone to discuss Andrew's new book, The Fire and the Ashes: Rekindling Democratic Socialism. What fires might be taken from the altars of the past? How has the NDP changed since the 1960s? What was it like to face the neoliberal turn in British Columbia? What role did policy research historically play within the NDP? What should the role of the labour movement be today?

Check out Andrew Jackson's book directly from the publisher, Between the Lines.

Check out Aaron Giovannone's podcast, Sweater Weather, at sweaterweatherpod.com.

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The Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) vaporized $4 billion last week, and has been bailing out failing oil and gas companies— as these same companies offload environmental liabilities to the public, and throw funding behind conservative political organizations. What's going on?
Duncan Kinney of Progress Alberta joins Team Advantage to discuss their recent report, Alberta's Failed Oil and Gas Bailout.

Read the report here:
https://pressprogress.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/AIMCO-report.pdf

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What if we started taxing the accumulated wealth of billionaires? Alex Hemingway, Economist and Public Finance Policy Analyst at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, joins Team Advantage to discuss his recent piece, A wealth tax on the super rich is within reach. How might we tax wealth, and what do the proposals to do so look like? What are the effects of massive wealth inequality in our society? How would we enforce a wealth tax? What other measures can be taken to address the growing inequality we face?

Follow Alex on Twitter @1alexhemingway, and follow his work at policynote.ca and policyalternatives.ca.

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Are the NDP merely liberals in a bit of a rush? Team Advantage examines Gary Teeple's 1972 essay, 'Liberals in a hurry': socialism and the CCF-NDP. What role does the Fabian Society have in shaping the thought of the CCF, and later, the NDP? Can real socialist change be made through technocratic changes or parliamentary methods? Is moralizing about capitalism's ill effects a useful way of bringing about political change?

Sweater Weather is a video & audio podcast about Canadian culture, politics & economics from a socialist perspective, hosted & produced by Aaron Giovannone. Follow Aaron on Twitter @SincerityCity, and follow the Sweater Weather series @canadiansweater and sweaterweatherpod.com.

Further reading:
Teeple, Gary. "'Liberals in a hurry': socialism and the CCF-NDP." Capitalism and the National Question in Canada. University of Toronto Press, 1972. 229-250.

It’s election season in Bubble City, the ultra-protected enclave that keeps the rich safe from the mutants of the so-called Uninhabited Zone. When veteran officer Swamp Cop embarks on a dangerous undercover mission, politics just might wind up coming between him and his beloved partner, Officer Schitt. Team Advantage chats with Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, authors of Justice Warriors Vol. 2: Vote Harder, and discusses the quaint features of placid Canadian life.

Follow Matt Bors on Twitter @mattbors and BlueSky @mattbors.bsky.social

Follow Ben Clarkson on Twitter @benclarkson and Bluesky @benclarkson.bsky.social

Purchase Justice Warriors: Vote Harder direct from Matt's webstore or wherever fine books are sold.

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The global rat population features a strange Alberta-shaped rat-free zone. What's behind Alberta's rat-free jurisdiction? What economic and political forces shaped this policy, and how does Alberta's rat-free status contribute to its self-image as uniquely different from other regions of Canada? What are the consequences of this kind of ecosystem management, and who stands to benefit from it?

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This last year of the pandemic has been awful— and our governments made things worse. Team Advantage convenes to list the ways in which workers have been taken for a ride. Featuring hits you know and love, like "essential workers," "hero pay," "government communications," COVID-ZERO, public trust, corporate subsidies, "sick days," and thinking about strategies we can take to change our world for the better.

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During the Second World War, Canada shifted to full employment, remaking its economy, retooling factories, and transforming the workforce to mobilize against an existential threat. What would it look like to mobilize against today's existential threat: climate catastrophe?

Seth Klein joins Team Advantage to discuss his new book, A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, calling out today's Neville Chamberlains of the climate emergency, and outlining how a rapid transition could create jobs, reduce inequality, and tackle our climate obligations.

Check the book out at sethklein.ca, and register for the Alberta book launch on October 5th here. A full transcript is available at albertaadvantagepod.com, courtesy of Opal Transcription Services.

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Tyler Shipley, author of Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination, joins Team Advantage to discuss his latest book. How does the violence of colonization become Canada's "first foreign policy?" How amenable was the Canadian state to Hitler's fascism in the lead-up to the Second World War? What was the extent of Canada's involvement in the Korean War? How does Canada's foreign policy continue to orchestrate invasion, proxy wars, and coups?

Purchase Canada in the World at your local independent bookstore, or from Fernwood Publishing. Follow Canada in the World on Twitter @canadainthewrld, and follow Tyler Shipley @le_shipster.

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Are small businesses really the backbone of our economy? Team Advantage examines the realities of small businesses in our society. How do big corporations benefit from small businesses being the front-facing, friendly face of modern capitalism? What do Marx and Engels have to say about "small capitalists?" How do working conditions fare in a small business environment? Will socially progressive small businesses usher in an era of social change?

Want to replace every mention of "small business" in your browser with "small capitalist?" Install the Tampermonkey extension, and add the small capitalists script.

January 22, 2020: Former MLA and Alberta Liberal Party leader Dr. David Swann calls for a citizen tax strike as Alberta's oil & gas producers owe $173 million to rural municipalities. Regan Boychuk of the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project proposes taking on industry to clean up industry's unfunded environmental liabilities.
Follow Dr. Swann @davidswann, and follow Regan Boychuk @RKBtoo.

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The Alberta Advantage is entirely listener-supported. Become a monthly donor on Patreon or send a one-time donation through Paypal.

The 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have been on a nationwide strike since November 15th after negotiations at the bargaining table stalled with their employer Canada Post. Workers are fighting to protect pensions, improve working conditions, and a wage increase that keeps pace with inflation.

As CUPW enters its second week on strike, Team Advantage goes to the picket line to hear what striking workers have to say. Recorded on Wednesday, November 20th, 2024 in Calgary.

Support your local CUPW picket line!

Support the Duncan Kinney Legal Defense Fund

The last 'modern' pandemic occurred in 1918 as the First World War wound down— and revolution was in the air. What can be learned from what happened in 1918, and can the responses to that pandemic tell us anything about our own moment? Team Advantage assembles to discuss the relevance of 1918 in our own times.

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In 1972, the B.C. New Democrats led by the charismatic Dave Barrett won an upset victory in British Columbia, defeating the 20-year reign of Social Credit's W.A.C. Bennett. In a stunning "legislation by thunderbolt," Barrett's government passed 367 bills in three years, introducing a wide range of progressive reforms. Join Team Advantage as we survey what the Barrett government accomplished, and consider more generally the possibilities and limitations of social democratic strategy within the Canadian context.

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Alberta is the only province in the country that allows charter schools, and Jason Kenney's United Conservative Party has now removed the cap that had limited their expansion. Joel French, Executive Director of Public Interest Alberta, joins Team Advantage to discuss the first new charter school in Alberta in 13 years, opening about 50km from Edmonton. Why a new charter school— in the same location a public school recently closed? How does this relate to the broader changes that are happening within Alberta's public education system?

Follow Joel French on Twitter @JoelFrench, and follow Public Interest Alberta's work at pialberta.org and @PIAlberta.

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The Alberta Federation of Labour held its 52nd Constitutional Convention over May 13-15 2021. In a somewhat rare development, two candidates vied for the Presidency of the AFL: challenger Susan Cake, and incumbent Gil McGowan. Cole Rockarts, union organizer and writer for rankandfile.ca, joins Team Advantage to discuss what happened at convention, and how Alberta's labour movement is organizing in response to Jason Kenney's UCP government. Follow Cole on Twitter @colerockarts.

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New Brunswick, home to one of Canada's wealthiest families, is far from a nexus of left-wing political culture— yet in 1971, a small group of Waffle-aligned activists managed to briefly take over the New Brunswick NDP, before the federal party intervened. Who was involved in this radical takeover of the provincial party, and how did it happen? New Brunswick correspondent Abram Lutes joins Team Advantage to discuss this strange tale involving Trotskyites, entryism, and dueling conventions. Follow Abram on Twitter @abramxlutes.

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Kenney's UCP government recently announced a new funding model for post-secondary education: 40% of institutional funding will now depend on performance measures, such as graduate employment rates, median graduate income, provisioning skills to labour markets, and sponsored research revenues. While this is a dream for auditors and management consultants, this new bureaucracy threatens the integrity of Alberta's universities and colleges, and risks phasing out innovative new research. University of Regina professor Dr. Marc Spooner joins Team Advantage to discuss the implications of this new funding model.

Follow Marc on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drmarcspooner/

Read Dr. Spooner's piece in the CAUT Education Review, Performance-Based Funding in Higher Education: https://www.caut.ca/sites/default/files/caut-education-review-performance-based_funding_in_higher_education.pdf

Read Dr. Spooner's opinion piece in the Calgary Herald: https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-why-performance-based-funding-for-universities-is-not-the-answer

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The Winnipeg Police Service is 100 years old - a century they've used to repress dissent, censor media, bungle investigations and devour city budgets. Author James Wilt joins Team Advantage to discuss his new book, Dogged and Destructive: Essays on the Winnipeg Police which explores this history of policing, resistance, and what a vision for a Winnipeg beyond police might look like.

• A Local History of Queer Abolitionist Organizing and a Call for Police Abolition by Leon Laidlaw
• Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom by Sara A. Seo
• Disaggregating the Policing Function by Barry Friedman
• An Equity-Based Review of Police Involvement in Schools: The School Resource Officer Program in the Louis Riel School Division by Fadi Ennab
• Bar None Winnipeg

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Team Advantage convenes to discuss Universal Basic Income. Why is it, and why has it gained such popularity over the last few years? What's so appealing about the proposal, and how does this appeal relate to left-wing politics and strategy more generally? What might be the benefits and drawbacks of such a program? What kind of social and political forces would be needed to mobilize for a program of this kind?

Further reading:
Dan Darrah in Canadian Dimension
Paris Marx in Tribune
Daniel Zamora in Jacobin
The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries by Kathi Weeks
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams

Support this podcast! Rachel Notley led the Alberta NDP to their second major electoral defeat in Alberta's latest general election. What does this election say about Albertans and our political culture? How might we make basic social democratic values popular? How should we organize as we anticipate Premier Danielle Smith? And what's next for the Alberta NDP? 

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Across Alberta's political spectrum, no one dares to utter three terrifying words: Green New Deal. Jason Kenney famously had a meltdown about it, but even Alberta's NDP MLA Shannon Phillips, former Minister of the Environment, isn't sure if it's a good idea. What gives?
Emma Jackson, organizer with Climate Justice Edmonton, joins Team Advantage to discuss the lack of imagination and political cowardice that seems to be plaguing our province.

Excerpts from this episode are taken from an interview Shannon Phillips conducted with the Forgotten Corner podcast. Check out the full interview here: https://www.forgottencornerpod.com/episodes/episode-2

Special thanks to Scott Schmidt, Jeremy Appel and Mo Cranker allowing us to use clips from their podcast.

Follow Emma Jackson on Twitter @emmajackson57, and follow Climate Justice Edmonton on Twitter @CJEdmonton and on Facebook at facebook.com/ClimateJusticeEdmonton.

For further information on using polarization as an organizing tactic, see this blog series based on Mark & Paul Engler’s 2016 book, This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping The Twenty-First Century:
https://masscommons.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/this-is-an-uprising-dividing-to-conquer/

A group known as Take Back Alberta appears to have seized control over sizable parts of the United Conservative Party and secured the leadership of Danielle Smith. What is this group? What motivates them, and who are their key figures? PressProgress writer Stephen Magusiak joins Team Advantage to discuss his recent piece, Who Is ‘Take Back Alberta’ and What Do They Really Want?

Follow Stephen at @magusiak, PressProgress at @PressProgress, and sign up for the ShiftWork newsletter.

Further reading:

Take Back Alberta movement is gaining ground in the UCP, and some in the party are worried - Carrie Tait, Globe & Mai

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Monuments in Canada memorializing Ukrainian Nazi SS divisions have raised questions about the nature of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and their history in Canada. Writer and researcher Moss Robeson joins Team Advantage to explore a range of questions: who was Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera, and what is the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists? What role have Ukrainian ultra-nationalists played in Canada, and how do their activities contribute to Canada's current foreign policy commitments in the Ukraine?

Follow Moss Robeson on Twitter @mossrobeson__, and subscribe to his substack at banderalobby.substack.com. Read his work in Passage, Canadian Support For Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators Goes Beyond Statues, and The Grayzone, How a network of Ukrainian ultra-nationalists penetrated Canada’s Conservative Party to lobby for military conflict.

What can we learn about the ongoing pandemic and how it's been handled? How's the whole global public health infrastructure, campaign for clean air, and renewed push for workplace going? Does this bode well for future pandemics and crises, and how can we learn from what's happened so far to shape our future demands?

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How can we reduce agricultural greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by half by mid-century? And how can steps to do so help strengthen and safeguard family farms? Darrin Qualman, director of Climate Crisis Policy and Action for the National Farmers Union and author of Tackling the Farm Crisis and the Climate Crisis: A Transformative Strategy for Canadian Farms and Food Systems joins Team Advantage to discuss farms, food, and the climate crisis.

In this live recording, Jeremy tells us how Kenney has shaped Alberta politics, and expounds on his ideological commitments, his flair for conspiracy and his effective use of political stunts. We also learn of Kenney's taste in music and get Jeremy's response to the toughest question he's been asked since the book came out. 

Order Kenneyism by Jeremy Appel from Dundurn Press. 

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Are front-line workers equipped with what they need to prevent the spread of COVID-19— and if not, how are they organizing to ensure the health and safety of their workplaces? Roland Schmidt, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers Local 730, joins Team Advantage to discuss the conditions at mail facilities, the difference between management's communications and actions, and the importance of workfloor organizing in getting demands met.

Sign the petition for safe Canada Post working conditions:
https://www.change.org/p/justin-trudeau-safe-working-conditions-for-canadian-postal-workers-during-covid19-crisis

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Peter Lougheed is often fondly remembered as Alberta's "good" Premier across the political spectrum. But what was so great about Alberta's first Progressive Conservative Premier, who kicked off 44 years of uninterrupted rule? Team Advantage digs into Peter Lougheed's fabled economic development and planning, his treatment of Alberta's workers, and the role of the 1970s oil-price spikes in mythologizing his reign.

Want to learn more? Listen to Part One and Part Two of our episodes on Social Credit, our episode on the National Energy Program, and our episode comparing Grant Notley and Rachel Notley, Notley vs Notley.

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What happened to the CCF in the post-war period? The 1940s saw the CCF soar in popularity, with the party forming official opposition in Ontario in 1943, and public opinion polls showing nationalizing industries to be widely popular among the Canadian population. How did the popularity of the CCF's positions get diffused, managed, or attacked in the years following the Second World War?

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In 1961, Saskatchewan CCF Premier Tommy Douglas moved to fulfill a campaign promise to provide universal medical care insurance— an effort that would produce fierce opposition from Saskatchewan's doctors, culminating in a 23-day doctors' strike in July of 1962. The program's success resulted Canada-wide medicare coverage in 1968. What can be learned from this example, where progressive reforms were opposed by a well-resourced and entrenched establishment? Is this labour action by doctors — to defend their profits — an example of a bad strike? Why have efforts to expand medicare to include pharmacare and dental care stalled for so long?

What happens when sensible social democrats pick up the pieces after a terrible, no-good conservative government ruins the province? Team Advantage examines the reign of Saskatchewan NDP Premier Roy Romanow from 1991-2001, who oversaw the closure of rural hospitals and fostered the skills of a young Janice McKinnon as his Finance Minister. What does the all-party austerity consensus look like when it's orange? Featuring special guest Doug Nesbitt, whose work can be found at rankandfile.ca and on twitter at @StandingTheGaff.

Support this podcast Canada is fake, but it continues to dispossesses Indigenous peoples from the land— and communities are, in turn, organizing to to get it back. Shiri Pasternak, co-author of the Yellowhead Institute's Land Back Red Paper, joins Team Advantage to discuss the project of reclaiming indigenous jurisdiction. What does "consent" look like if you can't say no? What interests is Canada's legal system designed to defend when questions of jurisdiction arise?

Read about Land Back here: redpaper.yellowheadinstitute.org and follow Shiri on Twitter @shiripasternak.

Read "Canada Is Fake" at theoutline.com/post/8686/canada-is-fake

The area burned by wildfires in Canada this year exceeded 18 million hectares and burned 1,740 megatonnes of CO2, roughly three times Canada's human-made emissions from 2022. As fire season winds down, Team Advantage examines this new, fun, half-year-long weather phenomenon, and considers the role of fossil fuels and the end of "cheap nature." 

Further reading:
John Vaillant - Fire Weather
Edward Struzik - Firestorm: How Wildfire Will Shape Our Future
Alex Callinicos - The New Age of Catastrophe
Jason Moore - Capitalism in the Web of Life 

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For ten days every summer, Calgary's corporate office workers dress up like cowboys and enjoy a western-themed festival of settler colonialism. What work is the Stampede doing when it draws on the myth of the frontier— especially today, when it is largely funded by fossil fuel companies? Kimberley Williams, author of Stampede: Misogyny, White Supremacy and Settler Colonialism, joins Team Advantage to discuss the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.

Find the book in Calgary at Shelf Life Books, and online through the publisher at fernwoodpublishing.ca.

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Documentary filmmakers Marc Serpa Francoeur and Robinder Uppal rejoin Team Advantage to discuss their theatrical-length exploration of the deeply troubled Calgary Police Service: No Visible Trauma. Recent years have seen the Calgary Police Service shoot and kill more people than officers in any other Canadian city, and more than either the New York or Chicago police departments in 2018.

No Visible Trauma can be streamed on demand through the Calgary Underground Film Festival until December 1st. Follow the film on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Please consider contributing to their legal fund (they are being sued by Constable Christopher Harris for $150,000 in damages).

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As oil and gas producers practically beg, plead, and bribe the Canadian government into building and planning pipelines and developing a national energy strategy, Team Advantage asks: whatever happened to the National Energy Program? Yes, that NEP: conceived of by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the bane of Alberta's oil industry, that endless source of western alienation, the biggest power grab in history— what was it really about?

Journalist Taylor C. Noakes joins Team Advantage to discuss the genesis and legacy of the NEP, while pondering the state of the fossil fuel industry today. Could it be that some sort of economic planning could have resolved the problems we encounter today?

Follow Taylor @TaylorNoakes and read his CBC piece, It's time to reconsider the NEP.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a range of problems with housing in Canada, and in particular the relative failure of the market to deliver safe, accessible, and affordable housing to Canadians. As Canada's housing market heads into a likely decline, Team Advantage assembles to discuss why housing should not be a commodity to be bought and sold, Kate's important opinions about landlords, and what could be done to bring housing into common or public ownership.

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Team Advantage convenes to discuss a few pressing matters— like the pandemic, forest fire smoke, climate change, mass graves of Indigenous children, refugees, and billionaires in space. Given how these crises are being handled, what can we expect from the future? Cover art of the "This Is Fine Dog" stolen with gratitude from KC Green.

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Are Calgary's police officers being held to account when they abuse their power? Calgary-born filmmakers Marc Serpa Francoeur and Robinder Uppal join Team Advantage to discuss their recent CBC documentary, Above the Law, an eye-opening investigation into police brutality and the lack of accountability in the Calgary Police Service.

Find out more about the documentary here:
https://www.cbc.ca/cbcdocspov/episodes/above-the-law

Follow updates from the film on twitter @losttimemedia and on Facebook.

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What is to be done with the state? How does one's assessment of the state relate to socialist strategy? Is the state merely a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie? Is it entirely captured by industry, or factions of capital, or does it operate independently? Team Advantage convenes to discuss theories of the state, and explains how state theory ultimately informs the approach one takes to social transformation.

Further reading:
Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society. 1969.
Ralph Miliband, The Coup in Chile. October 1973.
Miliband, Ralph. "Poulantzas and the capitalist state." New Left Review 82.1 (1973): 83-93.
Rooksby, Ed. "‘Structural Reform’ and the Problem of Socialist Strategy Today." Critique 46.1 (2018): 27-48.

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Have you ever considered using nuclear explosions for fun and profit? Team Advantage explores a strange collision of two worlds: the children's movie Bigfoot Family, which recently roused the ire of Jason Kenney's War Room, and a 1950's plot to use nuclear explosions to mine Alberta's oil sands. Project Cauldron, later renamed Project Oilsand was a real, genuine plan to nuke Alberta's oilsands that almost happened.

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Scrapping the previous NDP government's comprehensive curriculum review, Jason Kenney pledged to "get politics out of the classroom." The newly-formed Curriculum Advisory Panel, which does not include anyone who has taught in a classroom for the last 20 years, came up with some suggestions: provide "balance" when teaching lessons about climate change, and teach cursive writing. Barbara Silva, communications director of Support Our Students, joins Team Advantage to talk about the state of the curriculum rewrite, and public education more broadly, in Alberta.

Check out Support Our Students at supportourstudents.ca.

Guest host and seasoned newsletter-writer Clinton Hallahan sits down with writer, director, filmmaker, prankster, organizer and comedian Sean Devlin. In addition to joining The Yes Men in their exploits and storming the stage to frighten Stephen Harper, Sean Devlin is a seasoned stand-up comic, and his debut comedy album, Airports, Animals, is out July 9, 2021. Check out this interview to explore the burning question on everyone's mind: who is Sean Devlin's favourite racist?

Check out Airports, Animals at arts-crafts.ca. Sean's work is also available through seandevlin.website and seandevlin.bandcamp.com.

What's better than a newsletter? A weekly national roundup of labour news, that's what. Reporter Emily Leedham joins Team Advantage to discuss Shift Work, a curated newsletter summarizing strikes, lockouts, and new organizing initiatives— all while engaging the next generation of workers and organizers. Follow Emily on Twitter @Emily_Leedham_ and click here to sign up for Shift Work.

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Jason Kenney's attacks on public education continue. Politicized attacks on Alberta's curriculum review, farcical comments by government spokespeople, and poor planning for the return to classes mid-pandemic are all eroding trust in public education. Medeana Moussa and Barb Silva from Support Our Students join Team Advantage to discuss what awaits students as they return to school.

Learn more about Support Our Students at https://www.supportourstudents.ca, on Twitter @SOSAlberta, on Facebook, and download their toolkit at https://www.supportourstudents.ca/constituents-toolkit.html.

This past year saw a sequence of labour unrest: Teamsters locked out of both CPKC and CN railways, Westjet mechanics striking over Canada Day long weekend, Air Canada pilots reaching a last-minute deal, grain terminal workers in Vancouver striking, and dockworkers getting locked out in Montreal. How is the post-war labour "peace" holding up, and should we be thinking and planning beyond the Rand formula?

Thanks to Adam D.K. King for joining this episode. Read more of his work here, and follow him @AdamDKKing1.

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Did you know that the Canadian state once funded the National Action Committee on the Status of Women Canada, funding salaries and projects that allowed for shelters, child-care and daycare centres, women's drop-in centres, bookstores, and crisis lines? Writer and activist Nora Loreto joins Team Advantage to discuss her book, Take Back the Fight: Organizing Feminism for the Digital Age. What happened to the feminist movement over the course of the neoliberal turn, and what opportunities and pitfalls does the modern digital landscape offer feminist and social-movement struggles?

Follow Nora on twitter @NoLore, visit her website at noraloreto.ca, and purchase her book at fernwoodpublishing.ca. Check out the Sandy and Nora podcast at sandyandnora.com.

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Dimitri Lascaris, leadership candidate for the Green Party of Canada, joins Team Advantage to discuss socialism, the state of the Canadian media ecosystem, proposals to increase the power of workers in our economy, and how to challenge the establishment — both within political parties and in the media landscape.

Check out Dimitri's campaign at teamdimitri.ca.

To vote in the GPC leadership race, buy or renew your membership by September 3, 2020. For information on the GPC Leadership Contest, visit greenparty.ca/en/leadership-contest.

Pandemic! Team Advantage convenes (while practicing Safe Social Distancing) to discuss the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has a great deal to do with capitalism. What contributed to the origins of this virus? How did it spread? In this globalized world, why do we have robust global trade and finance rules, but no equivalent global public health institutions? How does neoliberal policy —which reduced the capacity of the public health systems over decades— fare when pandemics strike? How are governments responding, and how does the incoming batch of money-printing bailouts affect demands for a Green New Deal?

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What can be learned from the Corbyn project in the U.K. and the opposition it encountered, from both Conservatives outside the Labour party as well as Labour's own right wing? What do recent attacks on the left of the NDP mean for the state of bold policy in Canada? Niki Ashton, MP for Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, joins Team Advantage to discuss the Progressive International and her upcoming event, a conversation with Jeremy Corbyn.
Purchase event tickets here through Eventbrite, and learn more at progressive.international.

Once upon a time, Alberta's cable channels and airwaves were considered a public good, worthy of a non-commercial educational broadcaster: Access Television. Team Advantage explores the history, ambitions, and legacy of this effort to build public, commercial-free and education-oriented programming, as well as the role of privatization in its eventual demise.

Today, August 31, 2020, is International Overdose Awareness Day. Team Advantage is rebroadcasting this episode of CRACKDOWN, featuring an interview between host Garth Mullins and Tim Slaney, a harm reduction worker at the Lethbridge supervised consumption site (that shut down today). Listen to more and subscribe at crackdownpod.com. ///

Today is International Overdose Awareness Day, but so what? Who needs to be made aware? Who among us can’t see the corpses piling up from this endless war?

And just when you think things can’t get much bleaker, they do.

On today’s show Garth interviews Tim Slaney. Tim is a harm reduction worker at the supervised consumption site in Lethbridge, Alberta – one of the busiest in the world. And the government is shutting it down.

Music from the Arches Mic Club featured in this episode:

“Dream Big” by Lonzo, Leland, and Doobyis

“Fully Beaded” by Lonzo, Doobyis, and Buck 

“Back at the Start” by Karley B 

“Speak These Words” by Lil Branden, Doobyis, Colicchie, and Lonzo 

Did you know that the Ku Klux Klan operated in Alberta— with thousands of members, a newspaper published out of downtown Edmonton, and regular picnics, parades and marches? Anti-racist activist Jason Devine joins Team Advantage to explore the strange history of the KKK in Alberta, and discuss how these historical forms of white supremacy have contributed to implicit and explicit forms of white supremacy today.

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Alberta's UCP Environment and Parks Minister Jason Nixon is planning on partially closing 20 parks, and handing over management of 164 parks to private companies— and internal disclosures suggest a further sell-off of Alberta's parks is in the works. Alberta has also rescinded the 1976 Coal Development Policy, raising the possibility of open-pit coal mines in Alberta's rockies and foothills. Join Team Advantage as we discuss the sell-off of parks, and work to imagine what parks could look like in an era of Land Back and climate change.

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Nazis are bad! The Communists who defeated them are good! Somehow, this is massively confusing to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney!

Joined by special guest Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio, Team Advantage examines Jason Kenney's confused sense of history. Why is he such a big fan of the debunked Black Book of Communism? Are Nazism and Communism the same, as Jason Kenney proposes? Who (and what social forces) benefit from this reading of history?

Thanks to Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio for joining us. Find RLR at revolutionaryleftradio.com and on Twitter @RevLeftRadio.

Further reading:

Debunking: “Communism killed more people than naziism!” by Morgan Visser
https://medium.com/@discomfiting/debunking-communism-killed-more-people-than-naziism-7a9880696f67

Why Are the Trump White House and Media Citing an Antisemitic Book’s Claims to Demonize Communism? by Ben Norton
https://www.alternet.org/2017/11/trump-media-antisemitic-black-book-communism-whitewash-nazis/

The “Double Genocide” Theory: The New and Official Form of Holocaust Denial by Dovid Katz
https://jewishcurrents.org/the-double-genocide-theory/

Bill to remember 'Ukrainian Genocide' under Stalin treads tricky ground by Lahav Harkov
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Bill-to-remember-Ukrainian-Genocide-under-Stalin-treads-tricky-ground-540847

Edmonton monument glorifies Nazi collaborator
https://www.edmontonjewishnews.com/edmonton-monument-glorifies-nazi-collaborator/

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Imperial Oil's internal documents prove that they knew the realities of climate change decades ago— yet continued to confuse the issue in public as it continued to ramp up production. Murtaza Hussain, journalist for The Intercept, joins Team Advantage to discuss his recent piece, "Imperial Oil, Canada’s Exxon Subsidiary, Ignored Its Own Climate Change Research for Decades, Archive Shows." Find out what Imperial Oil knew and when— and discover their interest in surveilling prominent members of the Canadian left.

Follow Murtaza Hussain's work: twitter.com/MazMHussain and theintercept.com.

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As the pandemic hits budgets hard, Kenney's UCP is continuing to push towards "performance-based funding" for Alberta's universities, colleges, and post-secondary institutions. How does this contribute to the already ongoing corporate influence and profit-making trends we've seen in post-secondary education, and how do these changes contribute to the UCP's broader assault on organized labour in the province? Marc Schroeder, former president of the Mount Royal Faculty Association, joins Team Advantage to discuss why low-cost, accessible, and public post-secondary education in Alberta is something we can't afford to lose.

Education workers and students should complete AUPE's Advanced Education Survey here. Another useful resource is the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

Support this podcast! What link is there between pushing Indigenous people off land, into reserves, into residential schools, and into forced treatment? How are conversations about "public safety" and policing being mobilized to harm vulnerable people? How has the politicization of the opioid epidemic obscured what's needed to address increasing drug poisoning deaths? Harm reduction advocate Euan Thomson joins Team Advantage to discuss the realities of Alberta's drug poisoning crisis.

Follow Euan @elsthomson and subscribe to his Drug Data Decoded newsletter.

Listen to our 2020 episode on this topic with Garth Mullins and Jeremy Appel.

Mentioned in this episode is Dustin Godfrey's video essay "Is Vancouver Dying? A definitely non-exhaustive review." Also mentioned is a recent B.C. Federation of Labour resolution to lobby the B.C. government for safe supply.

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In 2001, a campaign to reconstitute the NDP into a new party emerged, calling itself the New Politics Initiative. It proposed a party with stronger links with social movements and the anti-globalization campaigns that had been growing over the previous years, and had some high-profile spokespeople. What happened with this initiative? What was the response from within the NDP? Can anything be learned from this effort to reshape the NDP towards a more explicitly left-wing vision?

Alberta, under the incredible leadership of Premier Danielle Smith, has declared sovereignty — or rather, proclaimed itself "sovereign within a united Canada," whatever that means. What even is sovereignty? How might it to relate to Indigenous sovereignty? Who even wants this?

You see, the woke establishment wants to control what media Albertans see, what vaccines we take, the resources we develop — and even what we are allowed to grow and eat. Independent journalist Jeremy Appel joins Team Advantage to explore Danielle Smith Thought.

Follow Jeremy @JeremyAppel1025 and subscribe to his newsletter, The Orchard, at theorchard.substack.com.

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What does horror tell us about our fears and anxieties under capitalism? What do reanimated bodies, vampires, and zombies tell us about what is monstrous about our world? Team Advantage discusses David McNally's book, Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism.