Alberta Advantage Podcast

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."

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

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?

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.

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

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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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.

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.

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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