Background image by Jill Pelto. http://www.jillpelto.com/landscape-of-change

David Gray-Donald, publisher of Briarpatch magazine, joins Team Advantage to discuss his experience at this past summer’s Global Petroleum Show in Calgary. Is the fossil fuel industry planning decarbonization and energy transition? What climate scenarios are they considering? What problems is the industry ignoring, how are they mobilizing their supporters into astroturf campaigns, and what role do these campaigns play?

Read David’s recent pieces:
Checking in with the oil crowd – August 29, 2018
The Oil Industry’s PR Offensive – August 30, 2018
What Canada’s major media are forgetting when they report on oil – August 13, 2018
Too fast, and now too furious – August 31, 2018

CW: Kavanaugh stuff.
The Calgary Herald will not apologize for Naomi Lakritz’s terrible opinions because they “are a platform for free speech.”
Team Advantage reads the Calgary Herald’s September 29, 2018 Editorial: The importance of free speech.
https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-the-importance-of-free-speech

The conclusion of our compelling Social Credit series! Team Advantage takes a hard look at Premier Ernest Manning, his religious views (and how these impact his politics), the discovery of oil in Leduc 1947 and Alberta’s emerging relationship with large multinational corporations, paranoia over CCF-style welfare-state programs, and some absolutely shocking antisemitism.

Our Teen Tankie Podcast Gang reassembles to discuss the brouhaha surrounding Unifor’s recent video identifying strikebreaking labourers. Unifor Local 579 has been locked out for 21 months (!) by the aerospace company D-J Composites in Gander, N.L.

What happens when public education isn’t quite public? What happens when your public schools have to compete with each other in the name of “choice in education” or “parental choice?” Team Advantage is joined by Barbara Silva, Communications Director for Support Our Students to discuss how exclusivity, artificial scarcity, specialization and market logic have contributed to an increasingly dysfunctional education system. As an alternative, we make the case for a comprehensive, accessible, robust public education system in Alberta!

Here’s our first mini-episode, as promised! What should we call it? We’re trying out Teen Tankie Podcast Gang, for reasons. We decided to crack open David Staples in AlbertaViews, who definitely doesn’t make any of us mad with his arguments for “competition” and “choice” in public education. Read along with us here.

The Manning Centre is “stepping back from its advocacy work.”  Team Advantage does a deep dive into the Manning Centre’s history, goes through the cast of veritable ghouls that have worked there, and considers how the Manning Centre’s missteps over the last few years have contributed to the lack of enthusiasm for their activism. Please donate to our Patreon so that we can rent out the first floor of the Manning Centre’s building!

Hear all about Alberta’s Premier Preacher who wanted to do a whole bunch of wacky stuff with money! Team Advantage dives deep into the philosophy of Social Credit, putting stamps on your money every week, the personality of William Aberhart (fondly remembered as Bible Bill), the end of the United Farmers of Alberta and the Social Credit landslide in 1935, Depression-era economics, getting into fights with the federal government, and much more.

Looks like everyone is mad about equalization, so it’s time for us to explain why Equalization is Good. Joining Team Advantage this week is Ricardo Acuña, Executive Director of the Parkland Institute. We talk about what equalization is, how it’s often misrepresented, and why it’s actually really important. Spoiler: guaranteeing a basic level of public goods and services to all Canadians is great.

Follow Ricardo at @RicAcuna, and read his Vue Weekly columns on equalization here
and here. And of course, be sure to check out the latest at the Parkland Institute!

To celebrate our ownership of 6/36,000,000ths of the Trans Mountain pipeline, Team Advantage discusses the role of the Canadian state in taking on risky investments that aren’t commercially viable. We point out the important role of the state in establishing modern industries (the space race, telecommunications, computing) and consider the oilsands as similarly shaped by heavy public investment. Lastly, we ask: if subsidizing fossil fuels is our “version” of Silicon Valley, is it wise to continue sinking money into it?