The Breakdown With Nate Pike

Is EMS in crisis and failing across Alberta? With reports all across Alberta of EMS in crisis and being pushed past the breaking point every day, we sat down with President of HSAA (the union that represents paramedics) Mike Parker to try and tell the story of the EMS crisis in Alberta, how we got here, what can be done and also addressed some of the blatantly false information that has been prese...

On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the events of the week, and this week we talk about our recent Harm Reduction Episdode, Matt Wolfs departure from his government role, the many lawsuits of Jason Kenney, The Schweitzer flip-flop, our upcoming episodee on the EMS crisis in Alberta and more! As always, if you appr...

The Street Cats are a grassroots harm reduction group that has formed as a reaction to what aren’t cracks in the system, but gaping chasms in it that all too many vulnerable Calgarians are at risk of falling through. With a commitment to radical compassion and the principles of harm reduction, the street cats are reaching out to vulnerable Calgarians in incredibly effective ways. We not only sat d...

On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the events of the week, and this week we talk curriculum, Matt Wolfs departure from his government role, the ongoing conversation around the UCP Leadership review and more! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, pleas...

We’ve done a few episodes on the proposed UCP curriculum now, but all of those have been on the level of academic critiques by subject matter experts. But this proposed curriculum has also mobilized everyday Albertans in tremendous ways. To get a better understanding of what their concerns are, we reached out to the Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft Facebook page and had conversations with 3 of th...

On our weekly Breakdown of the week in Alberta Politics, PR specialist and politico Sarah Biggs helps us navigate all of the vents of the week, including the UCP AGM, their conscience rights policy (with a surprise appearance by a ex-UCP press secretary Payman Parseyan), the leadership review and the discussion on the people who want Jason Kenney’s job heating up, the shortfalls of the new childca...

We’ve done a few episodes on the proposed UCP curriculum now, but all of those have been on the level of academic critiques by subject matter experts. But this proposed curriculum has also mobilized everyday Albertans in tremendous ways. To get a better understanding of what their concerns are, we reached out to the Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft Facebook page and had conversations with 3 of th...

The UCP AGM is starting, so we wanted to break down what all the controversy is about (including the stuff that involves us) and we also got to catch up with none other than Dave Khan to talk about some of the peaceful protests going on this weekend!

We’ve done a few episodes on the proposed UCP curriculum now, but all of those have been on the level of academic critiques by subject matter experts. But this proposed curriculum has also mobilized everyday Albertans in tremendous ways. To get a better understanding of what their concerns are, we reached out to the Albertans Reject Curriculum Draft Facebook page and had conversations with 3 of th...

It’s our second livestream where we breakdown the events of the week, including our Aheer interview, the changes around the UCP AGM, the good things about nazis doc, leadership review requirement change, John Carpay getting sued and what started the whole week of abpoli off, the pub presser! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please...

November is Family Violence Prevention Month. In order to better understand what Family and Domestic Violence is, what causes it and what can be done, we sat down with Lana Bentley, an social worker and advocate with extensive experience in dealing with family and domestic violence. If you or someone you know is experiencing family or domestic violence, please reach out for help. Calgary 24-Hour F...

In what is a significant first for us here at the Breakdown, we are proud to present our very first conversation with a UCP MLA. First elected in 2015 under the Wildrose banner and then again in the 2019 election under the UCP Banner, MLA for Chestermere-Strathmore Leela Aheer is the Deputy Leader for the UCP and was appointed as Minister of Culture, Multiculturalism, and Status of Women. After ph...

Our first live episode! We’re joined by politico and PR professional Sarah Biggs ( to breakdown some of the biggest stories of the week in Alberta Politics! We’ll be doing these every Sunday at 7 and then making the audio available shortly after! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at...

There’s a lot of people who are highlighting the lukewarm equalization referendum results as a reaction to Jason Kenney and the UCP government, but there’s also an argument that a better measure is the sweeping election of school board trustee candidates who campaigned against the new UCP curriculum. With these new developments, we sat down with Dr. Carla Peck to recap how we got to where we are w...

It’s been way too long since we’ve done a roundup episode, so we went up to Edmonton to do exactly that! Not only that, but we have an exclusive interview with one of the candidates from the recent municipal elections! Plus some exciting announcements! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly suppor...

If there is a silver lining to be found in the current UCP government in Alberta, it’s the way that creatives have risen to push back! On this episode, we sit down with two of the creators of The Jason Kenney Poetry Project Jackie Seidel and Darlene St. Georges.

The Jason Kenney Poetry Project is a book and a research project based around “found poetry” left in the wake of Jason Kenney and the UC...

There’s been a lot of speculation as to the future of not only Jason Kenney but the UCP itself over the last weeks, and we wanted to try and make some sense of things. To help us do that, we sit down with Duane Bratt, political science Professor in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University, and we cover a lot of ground! We break down Jason Kennedy’s respons...

With the new measures that have been introduced by the Alberta Government, we figured it would be a good time to sit down with a legal expert on health law and dispel some of the misinformation out there, so we reached out to Lorian Hardcastle (@lorian_H) to break down… CMOH powers! The Best Summer ever! Vaccine passports! (What are they and how do they work) Legality of making vaccines a conditio...

Back in January, we released a boatload of information that we obtained through a FOIA request that we submitted to try and find out how a company owned by a donor to Adriana Lagrange got awarded a major contact for mask for schools. That FOIA triggered an investigation by the Ethics Commissioner, the results of which were released on August 18th. While many media outlets reported that Lagrange ha...

With protests and a government that seems to demand more activism, one of the questions facing concerned Albertans is how can they better coordinated their efforts to maximize their impact? Enter Albert Nobbs and the Alberta Activist Collective! Albert sat down with us to discuss the formation of the Alberta Activist Collective, explain what brought him and his team to make it a reality and chat a...

On this episode of The Breakdown we catch up with Robert Tremblay and Dr. Joe Vipond from the Calgary Climate Hub. A few months back we chatted with Rob and Joe about the Cliomate Hub’s efforts to get Enmax to commit to a net zero carbon footprint, and they’re back to share an important update!
 As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, pl...

Each and every is a grassroots association of business who fly in the face of the assertions that all businesses hate Supervised Consumption Sites. With a growing number of businesses, particular in Calgary stepping forward to be a part of this important network, it’s clear that the conversation around Supervised Consumption Sites isn’t as cut and dry as some want people to believe. To learn more,...

There has been an alarming increase in hate crimes towards Muslims, particularly Muslim women. Saima Jamal is an activist, community leader and advocate for marginalized people and especially refugees. She is also Muslim. Saima generously agreed to sit down to talk about what she sees as the roots of the problem as well as what’s needed to combat it going forward. 
 As always, if you appreciate th...

Finally, right? Given that it’s Pride month, we decided to sit down again with Calgary Drag King Shane Onyou to learn how the Drag community has been weathering COVID, discuss what it means to be an ally and talk about some of the finer points of fashion! 
 As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly s...

What’s at risk when we start to see the erosion of political norms? We sat down with Dr. Melanee Thomas to try and get a clearer picture as to what the risks are when political norms start to break down. Not only that, but we got well into the Drewdatah, Political Leadership, Colonialism, the Calgary Stampede and even The Green Line!
 As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re try...