Alberta Advantage Podcast

Support this podcast 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 Briti...

Support this podcast 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,...

Support this podcast 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 mov...

Support this podcast 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 c...

Support this podcast 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 nuk...

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 mom...

Support this podcast 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...

Support this podcast 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...

Support this podcast 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...

Support this podcast 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 mob...

Kate was recently on Victor's Children, a podcast hosted by David Camfield, to discuss class struggle in the past, present and future. Kate was joined on the panel by John Clarke, a writer and retired organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). Subscribe to Victor's Children here: https://pod.link/1556511995

Support this podcast Can workers fight a university administration dead-set on busting the union? The Athabasca University Faculty Association did exactly that— and won. AUFA President Dave Powell and AUFA Chair of Membership Engagement Committee Rhiannon Rutherford join Team Advantage to explain how organizing and engaging union membership helped stave off an effort by university administration t...

Support this podcast 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 an...

Support this podcast 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...

Support this podcast 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 ul...

Support this podcast 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 so...

Support this podcast 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...

Support this podcast 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?...

Support this podcast 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...

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 sup...

Support this podcast 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 Abra...

Support this podcast 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...

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 aw...

Support this podcast 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. Hi...

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.