Alberta Advantage Podcast

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Alberta Advantage Podcast episodes

February 06, 2020 Public Ownership in Canada: Linda McQuaig
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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.
54 min
February 01, 2020 MINI-EP: Managing Universities to Death: Cuts and "Performance Measures"
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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
31 min
January 27, 2020 MINI-EP: Imperial Oil Ignored Its Own Climate Research
Support this podcast 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.
20 min
January 22, 2020 NEWSFLASH: Tax Strike! Calls for Resistance as Kenney Lets Oil & Gas off the Hook
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. Support this podcast The Alberta Advantage is entirely listener-supported. Become a monthly donor on Patreon or send a one-time donation through Paypal.
9 min
January 21, 2020 MINI-EP: Trans Mountain's Ballooning Costs
Remember when the Trudeau government purchased that leaky 66-year-old Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan? Turns out that Trans Mountain is locking in some extraordinary costs to the public at the same time that it's providing a massive discount to major oilsands producers. Economist Robyn Allan joins Team Advantage to explain how bad of a deal the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion really is. Check out Robyn's work at robynallan.com, her novel "When They Came For The Beach" at novel.robynallan.com, and follow her on Twitter @robynallan.
28 min
January 13, 2020 The 1999-2000 Herald Strike, 20 Years Later
Twenty years ago, workers at the Calgary Herald went on what would become an eight-month strike, citing editorial overreach, a torqued political slant, and unfair treatment in the newsroom. Herald striker Terry Inigo-Jones joins Team Advantage to discuss his experience taking on the Herald and its then-owner, Conrad Black. This story has it all, folks— Canadian media concentration, scabs who you'll now recognize as right-wing hacks, a literal press baron, police intimidation and brutality, private security goons, and much much more.
1 hr 7 min
January 07, 2020 The $30M Ad They Don't Want You to See: War Room Holiday Special
Jason Kenney's ultra-secretive War Room, officially known as the Canadian Energy Centre, is tasked with taking on critics of Alberta's energy industry in real time. With a budget of $30 million in public funds and no transparency, we can only assume that they spent all of their money on their first video ad, which they have now pulled from their YouTube channel. Join Team Advantage as they respond in real time to this first attempt at energy-industry propaganda, paid for with public funds. The video, now listed as private, used to be available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2_AsaHmwKA As of this episode's release, no videos are listed on the CEC's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC71zRyNhgCDKNg9NROwFaXg
49 min
January 02, 2020 MINI-EP: Andray Domise on Opposing Capitalism
Andray Domise recently wrote an opinion piece for Maclean's: "The left must stand against capitalism. Now." Andray joins Team Advantage to discuss his argument. Why must "progressives" or left-leaning folks necessarily oppose capitalism? How is capitalism's profit motive related to a range of social, economic and ecological problems our society faces? Why is it important to read classic texts from authors like Marx and Engels? Read Andray's piece here: https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-left-must-stand-against-capitalism-now/ Read Andray's work here: https://www.macleans.ca/author/andray-domise/ Follow Andray on twitter @andraydomise.
43 min
December 22, 2019 Chicago Principles: Free Speech or Coddling Campus Conservatives?
Alberta's post-secondary campuses recently adopted the Chicago Principles —a specific kind of commitment to free speech— as per the orders of Kenney's UCP government. Roberta Lexier from Mount Royal University joins Team Advantage to dig into the matter. What is this sudden concern with free speech about? Don't conservatives already run most of Alberta's campuses? Are content warnings really that big of a deal?
1 hr
December 17, 2019 MINI-EP: Surgery Privatization: Public Risk, Private Profit
Alberta's UCP government recently announced a plan to reduce surgical wait times: farming out 80,000 surgeries to private, for-profit providers. Ricardo Acuna, Executive Director of the Parkland Institute, joins Team Advantage to discuss the legacy of private for-profit health service delivery in Alberta. Has it ever worked? Does it produce any beneficial results? What does it do to our public health care system? Read Ricardo's blog post here: https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/fact_checking_jason_kenney_s_wait_list_strategy Follow Ricardo at @RicAcuna, and follow the Parkland Institute's work at parklandinstitute.ca and @ParklandInst.
20 min