Alberta Advantage Podcast

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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.

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 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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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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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.

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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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/

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.

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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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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.