Alberta Advantage Podcast

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted a range of problems with housing in Canada, and in particular the relative failure of the market to deliver safe, accessible, and affordable housing to Canadians. As Canada's housing market heads into a likely decline, Team Advantage assembles to discuss why housing should not be a commodity to be bought and sold, Kate's important opinions about landlords, and w...

Support this podcast How might we consider all the unwaged and unpaid work that goes on "behind the scenes" of waged labour? Why is it that the work that makes waged work possible in our society —like cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing— is rarely paid for by capital? How has the COVID-19 crisis made evident the importance of this labour, and how might we envision a society that accounts for this...

Support this podcast Across Alberta's political spectrum, no one dares to utter three terrifying words: Green New Deal. Jason Kenney famously had a meltdown about it, but even Alberta's NDP MLA Shannon Phillips, former Minister of the Environment, isn't sure if it's a good idea. What gives? Emma Jackson, organizer with Climate Justice Edmonton, joins Team Advantage to discuss the lack of imaginati...

Calgary-based 660 CityNews reporter Tom Ross asked Jason Kenney about the Green New Deal, spurring Kenney to have a bit of a meltdown. Tom joins Team Advantage to discuss what prompted him to ask the question, Kenney's reaction, the state of journalism in Alberta, and what's important when doing journalism today. Follow Tom Ross on Twitter @Tommy_Slick and on Instagram @tommy.slick .

Support this podcast Meatpacking plants were the sites of COVID-19 outbreaks across the continent, and the outbreaks in Alberta killed several workers. What is it about this industry that made workers so vulnerable to this pandemic, and why do the corporate meat-packing giants command such influence and power? Team Advantage examines the role of corporate agribusiness in rural Alberta and the labo...

Support this podcast Long-Term Care facilities have been the sites of deadly COVID-19 outbreaks, in Alberta and across the country. But what is long-term care? How is it funded, and who operates it? What are conditions like for persons in care, as well as for workers? Lastly, as our aging population requires increasing care, how might we build a system that treats our elders and those who cannot w...

Support this podcast Automated, shared, electric: these buzzwords and the tech giants who promote them claim to shape the future of transportation. But what would a truly democratic, green, and equitable transportation system look like? James Wilt joins Team Advantage to discuss his latest book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Cars? Public Transit in the Age Google, Uber, and Elon Musk . Purchase th...

Support this podcast Faced with escalating death tolls, some reactionary figures are pushing hard to pin the blame for COVID-19 on China instead of their own ineptitude. Davide Mastracci joins Team Advantage to examine how the "blame China" narrative serves to inoculate neoliberal politicians and spokespeople from critique, while contributing to a long history of anti-communism— with important con...

Support this podcast The Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) vaporized $4 billion last week, and has been bailing out failing oil and gas companies— as these same companies offload environmental liabilities to the public, and throw funding behind conservative political organizations. What's going on? Duncan Kinney of Progress Alberta joins Team Advantage to discuss their recent repor...

Support this podcast Essential workers are experiencing a speed-up as demand for their services increases, while millions stay home— as their own sense of time, and the separation between "life" and "work," blurs. How is it that we came to be ruled by clocks, and how did people experience time prior to industrial capitalism? Team Advantage explores the phenomenon of capitalist time-discipline, con...

Support this podcast 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 le...

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...

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.

Support this podcast 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 acti...

Support this podcast 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 capitalis...

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...

Support this podcast 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 p...

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.

Support this podcast 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 co...

Support this podcast 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...

Support this podcast 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...

Support this podcast 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 t...

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,...

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. Supp...

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 i...