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Public sector pensions are one of the hard-won victories of the 20th century labour movement, but they did not come through the neoliberal era unchanged. They are now managed like any other investment fund and are implicated in all the faults of global capital. Union researcher Tom Fraser joins Team Advantage to discuss the political economy of pension funds and the forgotten horizons of revolutionary possibility they once represented. Check out Tom’s new book – Invested in Crisis: Public Sector Pensions Against the Future

Other works mentioned by Tom:

• Maple Revolutionaries – The Economist
• The North will rise again: pensions, politics and power in the 1980s – Jeremy Rifkin
• Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism – Quinn Slobodian
• Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of imperialism – Kwame Nkrumah

Related Advantage Episodes:

• Kenney’s Great Albertan Pension Robbery

Team Advantage sits down with Bryan D. Palmer on his stop through Calgary to discuss his new book, and discuss how labour and anti-colonial movements have historically challenged the Canadian state. We ask what it might take to forge a united front and what the present moment of Canadian Nationalism might mean for left politics.

Buy Palmer’s book from Lorimer Books or your local independent bookseller.

Further reading recommendations from Bryan Palmer:

• Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition by Glen Coulthard
• Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States by Audra Simpson
• Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes
• Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State by Shiri Pasternak

WARNING: This episode begins with slam poetry.

Team Advantage subjects themselves to some favourite books of UCP ministers and Western Standard columnists in search of the intellectual basis for justifying an independent Albertan nation. We find bad poetry, absurd race science, and convenient economic motivations. We contend that there is a long-standing nationalist rhetorical tradition in this province, place this tradition within a broader history of nationalism, seek out it’s through-lines and examine how such rhetoric spreads out from the writings of right-wing cranks and enters more mainstream discourse.

Primary Sources

• Canada and Her Colonies by Alwyn Bramley-Moore
• The Unfinished Revolt by John Bar and Owen Anderson
• Mavericks by Aretha Van Herk

Secondary Sources

• Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson
• Nations and Nationalism since 1780 by Eric Hobsbawm
• Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losurdo
• Of Passionate Intensity by Trevor Harrison
• Dreamscapes of Modernity by Sheila Jasanoff and Sang-Hyun Kim
• Land as Pedagogy by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

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The Winnipeg Police Service is 100 years old – a century they’ve used to repress dissent, censor media, bungle investigations and devour city budgets. Author James Wilt joins Team Advantage to discuss his new book, Dogged and Destructive: Essays on the Winnipeg Police which explores this history of policing, resistance, and what a vision for a Winnipeg beyond police might look like.

Further Reading:

• A Local History of Queer Abolitionist Organizing and a Call for Police Abolition by Leon Laidlaw
• Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom by Sara A. Seo
• Disaggregating the Policing Function by Barry Friedman
• An Equity-Based Review of Police Involvement in Schools: The School Resource Officer Program in the Louis Riel School Division by Fadi Ennab
• Bar None Winnipeg

It’s election season in Bubble City, the ultra-protected enclave that keeps the rich safe from the mutants of the so-called Uninhabited Zone. When veteran officer Swamp Cop embarks on a dangerous undercover mission, politics just might wind up coming between him and his beloved partner, Officer Schitt. Team Advantage chats with Matt Bors and Ben Clarkson, authors of Justice Warriors Vol. 2: Vote Harder, and discusses the quaint features of placid Canadian life.

Follow Matt Bors on Twitter @mattbors and BlueSky @mattbors.bsky.social

Follow Ben Clarkson on Twitter @benclarkson and Bluesky @benclarkson.bsky.social

Purchase Justice Warriors: Vote Harder direct from Matt’s webstore or wherever fine books are sold.

This past year saw a sequence of labour unrest: Teamsters locked out of both CPKC and CN railways, Westjet mechanics striking over Canada Day long weekend, Air Canada pilots reaching a last-minute deal, grain terminal workers in Vancouver striking, and dockworkers getting locked out in Montreal. How is the post-war labour “peace” holding up, and should we be thinking and planning beyond the Rand formula?

Thanks to Adam D.K. King for joining this episode. Read more of his work here, and follow him @AdamDKKing1.

The 55,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have been on a nationwide strike since November 15th after negotiations at the bargaining table stalled with their employer Canada Post. Workers are fighting to protect pensions, improve working conditions, and a wage increase that keeps pace with inflation.

As CUPW enters its second week on strike, Team Advantage goes to the picket line to hear what striking workers have to say. Recorded on Wednesday, November 20th, 2024.

Support your local CUPW picket line!

Support the Duncan Kinney Legal Defense Fund

In this live recording, Jeremy tells us how Kenney has shaped Alberta politics, and expounds on his ideological commitments, his flair for conspiracy and his effective use of political stunts. We also learn of Kenney’s taste in music and get Jeremy’s response to the toughest question he’s been asked since the book came out. 

Gaza solidarity encampments on university campuses in the U.S. and Canada are experiencing violent police crackdowns. How do the student movements of the past inform what’s going on now? Team Advantage digs into the history of student radicalism and speaks to encampment supporters about their experiences with police.

What can we learn about the ongoing pandemic and how it’s been handled? How’s the whole global public health infrastructure, campaign for clean air, and renewed push for workplace going? Does this bode well for future pandemics and crises, and how can we learn from what’s happened so far to shape our future demands?