As students across Alberta returned to class this fall, families were met with a slate of changes targeting queer and trans kids, ushered in by the United Conservative Party government. These changes were largely driven by the movement for parental rights. Heather Ganshorn is research director for Support Our Students Alberta and author of the report, Challenging Parental Rights. She talks with us about links between the parental rights movement and the push to privatize education in Alberta.

On December 2, the OneBC party released its documentary Making a Killing: Reconciliation, genocide and plunder in Canada. Since then, the writer and producer of the film Tim Thielmann, has been fired along with two other senior staff.  MLA Dallas Brodie has herself been removed as interim party leader.  But the documentary lives on, with Dallas Brodie voicing Thielmann’s script and interviewing all the guests. We talk about the film with Sean Carleton, professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba.

The Gitxaała & Ehattesaht First Nations have launched a court challenge to BC's free-entry mining regime. In a precedent-setting decision released last week, the BC Court of Appeal has affirmed that BC’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act creates legally enforceable obligations on the province to reform the mining permit process. We talk with Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch.

Solar farm projects in Alberta have stalled because of new provincial regulations. Yet some Canadian researchers are saying photovoltaic systems now produce the lowest-cost electricity in history and using them in agriculture increases crop yields. We speak with Joshua Pearce, co-author of a new study on agrivoltaics.

As hundreds of First Nations leaders gathered last week in Ottawa for their annual December meeting, the federal-provincial memorandum of understanding for a new pipeline to Asian markets was high on the agenda. The Assembly of First Nations chiefs voted unanimously on Tuesday to demand the withdrawal of the deal and expressed full support for First Nations on the British Columbia coast strongly opposing the initiative. Anna Johnston is a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law and author of a brief on the legal and historical risk of a Northwest coast pipeline. management. We speak with her about the MOU and the risks of pursuing a new pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast.

Next week Vancouver City Council will consider Mayor Ken Sim’s controversial proposal to fast-track a new Filipino Cultural Centre without community consultation. Also on the agenda, Vancouver’s Social Housing Initiative, plans to radically change the current plan for the Downtown Eastside and much more. We speak with Redeye’s Ian Mass.

Forty progressive economists and policy experts gathered in Ottawa in September for an economic summit called Elbows Up: A Practical Program for Canadian Sovereignty. Marc Lee is a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and he was both a presenter and participant in the Summit. We speak with Marc about his takeaways from the summit and the need for Canada to make a generational investment in non-market and public housing.

In the wake of a serious grizzly bear attack on schoolchildren near Bella Coola, there are calls from some quarters for the province to revisit its ban on the grizzly bear hunt. The BC Wildlife Federation has called for a new trophy hunt on grizzlies.  Tandeep Sidhu is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Manitoba. We speak with him about the human dimensions of wildlife conflict and management.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has introduced Bill 9 - a piece of legislation that aims to infringe on the rights of trans people. Smith has used the notwithstanding clause four times in the last three weeks. This time to shield three anti-transgender bills from legal challenges and to bypass Charter protected rights.  In response, queer activists are scaling up the campaign to defend these rights and protect queer and trans people. We speak with Fae Johnstone, executive director of Queer Momentum.

The practice of people self-identifying as Indigenous has come into sharp focus after a number of high-profile cases of “pretendians” claiming to be Indigenous without evidence. However, far less attention has been given to Indigenous people being wrongly labelled as pretendians.  In a recent article for Policy Options, Debbie Martin argues that the rush for Indigenous identity policies at universities has led to people with legitimate claims to Indigeneity being swept up in policies that will cause lasting harm.  Debbie Martin is Inuk and a member of Nunatukavut. She is a professor in the school of health and human performance at Dalhousie University and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples’ health and well-being.