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 conditions, and union presence at AHS sites. It also provides a justification for increased privatization of the workforce, AHS facilities, and surgeries. Alison McIntosh, research manager at the Parkland Institute, joins Team Advantage to discuss the implications of the review.

Follow Alison on twitter @McIn_Ali, and follow the Parkland Institute @ParklandInst.

Read Alison’s analysis of the Ernst & Young AHS Review here:
https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/review_of_ahs_a_pro_privatization_attack_on_workers

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. Barbara Silva, communications director of Support Our Students, joins Team Advantage to talk about the state of the curriculum rewrite, and public education more broadly, in Alberta.

Check out Support Our Students at supportourstudents.ca

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 Stealing Canada’s Public Wealth. Discover how the Trudeau Liberals’ Infrastructure Bank is a giant handout to BlackRock! Unearth the history of Canadian National, Canada’s public railway, and its role in shaping radio broadcasts and the CBC! Gasp in shock as you learn that a wildly popular public Postal Office Savings Bank existed in Canada until 1968, when Canada’s big private banks lobbied to undermine it!

Follow Linda McQuaig on Twitter @LindaMcQuaig and check out her book at lindamcquaig.com.

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 threatens the integrity of Alberta’s universities and colleges, and risks phasing out innovative new research. University of Regina professor Dr. Marc Spooner joins Team Advantage to discuss the implications of this new funding model.

Follow Marc on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drmarcspooner/

Read Dr. Spooner’s piece in the CAUT Education Review, Performance-Based Funding in Higher Education: https://www.caut.ca/sites/default/files/caut-education-review-performance-based_funding_in_higher_education.pdf

Read Dr. Spooner’s opinion piece in the Calgary Herald: https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-why-performance-based-funding-for-universities-is-not-the-answer

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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, Archive Shows.” Find out what Imperial Oil knew and when— and discover their interest in surveilling prominent members of the Canadian left.

Follow Murtaza Hussain’s work: twitter.com/MazMHussain and theintercept.com.

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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.

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 is.

Check out Robyn’s work at robynallan.com, her novel “When They Came For The Beach” at novel.robynallan.com, and follow her on Twitter @robynallan.

Twenty years ago, workers at the Calgary Herald went on what would become an eight-month strike, citing editorial overreach, a torqued political slant, and unfair treatment in the newsroom. Herald striker Terry Inigo-Jones joins Team Advantage to discuss his experience taking on the Herald and its then-owner, Conrad Black. This story has it all, folks— Canadian media concentration, scabs who you’ll now recognize as right-wing hacks, a literal press baron, police intimidation and brutality, private security goons, and much much more.

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Jason Kenney’s ultra-secretive War Room, officially known as the Canadian Energy Centre, is tasked with taking on critics of Alberta’s energy industry in real time. With a budget of $30 million in public funds and no transparency, we can only assume that they spent all of their money on their first video ad, which they have now pulled from their YouTube channel.

Join Team Advantage as they respond in real time to this first attempt at energy-industry propaganda, paid for with public funds.

The video, now listed as private, used to be available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2_AsaHmwKA

As of this episode’s release, no videos are listed on the CEC’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC71zRyNhgCDKNg9NROwFaXg

Andray Domise recently wrote an opinion piece for Maclean’s: “The left must stand against capitalism. Now.” Andray joins Team Advantage to discuss his argument. Why must “progressives” or left-leaning folks necessarily oppose capitalism? How is capitalism’s profit motive related to a range of social, economic and ecological problems our society faces? Why is it important to read classic texts from authors like Marx and Engels?

Read Andray’s piece here:
https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-left-must-stand-against-capitalism-now/

Read Andray’s work here:
https://www.macleans.ca/author/andray-domise/

Follow Andray on twitter @andraydomise.