The Breakdown With Nate Pike

Is private, for profit healthcare now starting to infiltrate the Alberta healthcare system? We chat with concerned community member Sarah Zagoda to find out more! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca! 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 our Patreon site...

It's another live episode with an open mic! What do guitars, soccer, expertise and twitter bots all have in common? Alberta politics of course! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup! 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 our Patr...

Danielle Smith made news on June 25th when she announced that she was going to "opt out" Albertans from the federal dental plan. Which leads to a lot of questions, like what are the current programs that are available, what are the criteria for them and how does the federal program match up? Which is to say nothing of the question if she even can opt Albertans out. On this episode, we try and unpa...

We're pushing our dental episode back a few days to bring you this special conversation with none other than Jeromy Farkas! With the city of Calgary finally getting into the homestretch of the water crisis, Naheed Nenshi winning a landslide victory in the NDP leadership race, an impending ecological disaster and the Calgary Stampede all being things, we sat down with Jeromy to try and make sense o...

To call the last Alberta legislative session a whirlwind is certainly an understatement! Where the Kenney government introduced single bills that were full of changes, making it hard for Albertans to follow, the Smith administration has instead just turned on a firehose of bills... Making it hard for Albertans to follow. So to try and make sense of all of the legal changes the UCP made in the last...

It's another Alberta Politics roundup and open mic! We take a look at David Staples spreading right wing astroturf propaganda, the Western Standard making bank off of the feds decisions, the healthcare voucher system, the UCP's noncologist event and the condem,national of it from the medical community, Shannon Phillips retiring from politics, Smith seemingly wanting to cash out the Heritage Saving...

With NDP members receiving their ballots across the province, we've put all of our conversations with the remaining leadership candidates together in one marathon episode! It starts with Kathleen Ganley, followed by Sarah Hoffman at 31:19, Naheed Nenshi at 1:20:42 and ending with Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse at 2:25:00! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spri...

With the Western Standard episode out of the way, we’re back with a conversation with Jeremy Appel to talk about his book "Kenneyism"! In this chat we get into why Jeremy wrote the book, we unpack the mind of Kenney a bit and we talk about the future of Alberta politics with a contrast between Smith and Kenney! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring l...

In 2019, Derek Fildebrandt revived Ezra Levant's former publication th Western Standard and set about building a media empire out of Western Canada that was predicated on (among other things) not accepting any government funding. But can they really say that they don't accept any government funding and that they don't get taxpayer money? Over that last 6 months we've completed a series of FOIP's t...

It's time for a conversation with new Alberta Party leader, Lindsay Amantea! With more than a few pundits and political scientists making it clear that they believe Alberta is now inexorably a two party state, you have to wonder why the Alberta Party and it's leader believe that they have a place in the political conversation, and we pose exactly that question (and a whole lot more) in this upbeat...

Welcome to Episode 6.31, an in depth deep dive on Bills 18 & 20 with Political Scientist Dr. Lisa Young! In this conversation that is quite the ride, we hear from Dr. Young on what Bills 18 & 20 do and also what the implications are for the province of Alberta in both the short term and the long term, including an important call to action! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available a...

It's our final interview of the NDP Leadership race, and we're sitting down with non other than Gil McGowan! In this conversation, we get Gil's thoughts on the economy, healthcare, the future of the NDP and a whole lot more, including his reaction to Bill 20 and the UCP's chronic overreach! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup! As always, if...

Here's the Speakers Corner from our April 28th show! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a spring lineup! 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 our Patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab. If you’re listening to the audio version of our...

Dr Wesley is a political scientists and professor at the Univeristy of Alberta who specializes in taking a look at not only how Albertans see themselves, but also how they believe other Albertans see the world around them as well! Dr. Wesley does these investigations through his organization, Common Ground and recently he and his team completed some important research taking a deeper look at not o...

Welcome to episode 6.27, a conversation with Harm Reduction and recovery advocate Guy Felicella! Guy made headlines recently when he was barred from a recovery conference in Calgary, and he generously sat down with us to explain what happened, but we get into a whole lot more than that, including the nature of recovery, the crossover of BC and Alberta politics and a whole lot more! Don't forget, w...

Time for another panel! With the political temperature in Alberta reaching a rolling boil over Calgary and Edmonton initiating blanket rezoning (even though Edmonton has completed the rezoning already), particularly to access federal housing funding, we decided it was time for another deep dive! To make sense of this we’re joined by Robert Tremblay of the Calgary Climate Hub, Kathryn Davies of “Mo...

It's another Alberta Politics roundup and what a week! EMS profitization! Policing subsidization! Why is misrepresented BC drug policy playing such a big role in Alberta politics right now? We debunk a boatload of myths and we do a deep dive on Danielle Smith's Bill 18 and its attack on municipalities, post secondary education and well... pretty much everything? Don't forget, we now have merch tha...

There’s a lot of conversation around the physician shortage in Alberta, but how did we go from being on of the most appealing provinces for physicians to practice in to one that is struggling to even fill residencies? To get some answers, we sat down with President of the Alberta Medical Association, Dr Paul Parks! But we don’t stop at the physician crisis, we also get into the literal disintegrat...

With incredible advocate Guy Felicella being banned from attending a recovery conference in Calgary this week, we figured it was time for a throwback to our episode originally aired on August 28, 2023! We are SO excited to present our conversation, with survivor, advocate and all around amazing person Guy Felicella! This is one of the most intense episodes we've done yet, and it's an absolute must...

We sit down again with Disability Advocate Don Slater to get his thoughts on how the provincial budget affects disabled Albertans, unintended consequences for the fight against the carbon tax, the erosion of social contact and a whole lot more! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that w...

It's Part 2 of our March 31 episode and this is our speakers corner! You don't want to miss this one because not only do we hear from a few of our regular speakers but we also hear from advocate and politico Anna Murphy! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce h...

It's time for another Alberta Politics Roundup and Speakers Corner and sure enough, this episode goes so long we're breaking it into two parts! In Part 1, we take a look at the recent Take Back Alberta troubles, the effect of the houselessness processing facility in Edmonton, the status of the grassy mountain coal mine, the latest on the NDP Leadership race, Premier Smith's attempt of a performati...

We've been working on having conversations with all of the candidates for the NDP Leadership, but as you'll see this conversation is more than a little different, and it's because what Jodi brings to the table is very different than any of the other candidates. Not only do we get into all of the same topics that we have addressed with the other candidates, including the future of the NDP, Alberta'...

We're continuing in our efforts to interview all the ecandidates for the NDP Leadership Race and we're very excited to present this conversation with Naheed Nenshi! We cover housing, energy, affordable housing, Grassy Mountain, renewables, and a whole lot more in this episode! Don't forget, we now have merch that's available at www.abpoli.ca, including a cold weather lineup! As always, if you appr...

In this episode, we're talking education with members of the Edmonton Public School Advocacy Network, Nancy Hunt, Jodi McDonald, Nancy Kirkpatrick! The UCP government introduced their new budget recently, and that's budget sees funding for private schools and early childhood centres increasing at four times the rate of public K-12 spending, the EPSAN is raising the alarm about how this budget does...