Nomination Day update for Edmonton school board elections: 29 people have registered as Edmonton public school board candidates, including four incumbents. (Source: www.edmonton.ca/city_governm...) All nine EPSB wards are contested. Ward H in the SW has the most candidates, at 5. #AbEd #YegVote

"Alberta’s chief justice is investigating the conduct of two judges after @theijf.org uncovered evidence suggesting they gave money to the United Conservative Party after being appointed to the provincial court bench. Partisan behaviour like this would run against the ethical standards for judges."

The Calgary Board of Education has sent this letter out. They detail the name/pronoun change requirements, the opt in requirements for reproductive health education and the banning of any materials not approved by the education minister. Berta. 2025. #abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

Tanguay and #ableg keep stressing policing and future recovery beds, but people are dying now from a toxic supply. Denying inhalation services while saying “carry naloxone” shifts blame to individuals. Harm reduction saves lives today .. enforcement alone will never fix the crisis and end deaths.

On Thursday, Sobeys began a lockout in Balzac that is affecting over 250 workers. The union is calling on Albertans to support locked-out Sobeys workers by avoiding Sobeys, Safeway, FreshCo, Voilà, M&M Meat Shops, and Petro-Canada convenience stores.

My story on Edmonton’s new police chief, Warren Driechel, the first chief appointed from within EPS’s ranks in more than 20 years. Commission chair said they were impressed w/ how he addressed a low-light of his career: his involvement in EPS’s steroid scandal edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/e...

A bold claim from Edmonton municipal politics commentator Troy Pavlek here:

You may remember Driechel's name from an Edmonton Police Service scandal reported in 2016—Driechel, along with other members of the Edmonton Drug and Gang Enforcement Unit (EDGE), was buying illegal steroids from a drug trafficker within EPS.

News: family of a man who died in a Grande Prairie RCMP cell say he should never have been arrested. They're slamming the Crown for not pursuing charges against the officers involved, despite ASIRT believing the officers may have been negligent. edmontonjournal.com/news/crime/g...

ATA bargaining chair resigns hours after meeting with government

The first time an Alberta government invoked the notwithstanding clause, public outrage forced a reversal in less than 24 hours. I wish to God Albertans would show the same moral fury now, when school children are outed & bullied by the government that is supposed to protect them. #ableg #abpoli

Kaycee Madu didn't so much "ban" carding as just legislate that none of the things police would like to do would be defined as carding, but apparently even that was a step too far. The province has let the carding ban expire, reports Jack Farrell for the Canadian Press

Huge scoop from the CP: Canadian Press is reporting that Premier Danielle Smith has directed the justice ministry to use the notwithstanding clause to push through three anti-trans laws that would otherwise be blocked by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Alberta Bill of Rights

Nenshi’s NDP still needs a straight forward and convincing answer to how can they make life more affordable for working-class Alberta families. Once they figure that out they need to repeat it and then repeat it again and again. That means getting out and hustling.

The main driver of this harassment campaign ironically appears to be a former U of A and Gateway alum—the National Post's Jamie Sarkonak.

A bit of red meat for the xenophobic base.

Despite what both Danielle Smith and, strangely, the Forever Canadian campaign's own website claim, Thomas Lukaszuk's petition is not for a referendum.

The 911 calls that Alberta rerouted to a non-urgent health line only freed up 19,000 ambulances — far less than the province’s claim of 50,000. And it caused response delays. buff.ly/a1Pv02s #abpoli #EMS

NEW: The chief of staff to Alberta’s minister of energy and minerals is also the head of the political third-party advertiser Alberta Resource Advocacy Foundation. The group’s chief financial officer is named in lobbying records actively lobbying the energy ministry on more than two dozen accounts.

Since Dale Mountain’s resignation as chief financial officer, at least nine other Athabasca executives have either quit the university or resigned from management to rejoin the AU faculty as professors. @charlesrusnell.bsky.social reports. #abed #abpoli

Abandoning the planned oil emissions cap would be a significant break from Trudeau-era Liberal policy—and if it's really on the table, that goes a long way to explaining why Danielle Smith has been saying some uncharacteristically nice things about Carney and the feds this week

In this week's Progress Report newsletter: Demetrios Nicolaides struggles with the targeting of his book ban; one of Alberta's largest unions is about to hit the picket line, but another is relenting; and our usual roundup of recent political news.

Recovery Alberta sounds the alarm on spike in carfentanil-related overdoses in Edmonton The most recent weekly data shows a 39% increase from the previous 7 days, with 321 incidents over that week Carfentanil-related deaths are up across Alberta, with Edmonton taking the brunt

#BREAKING Alberta teachers set the strike clock, with Oct. 6 deadline #yeg #yyc #abed #ableg #abpoli edmontonjournal.com/news/local-n...

Crown notably says there is no joint submission. “There is no joint submission that is anticipated going before the court in relation to this matter.” So it's a contested sentence — not the 8 year joint submission EPS claimed.

The Edmonton Police Service misrepresenting facts about a trial to score political points? Wow, that's so out of character for them

We don't store any identifiable health data on American servers (this is basic human research ethics), surprised to see the provincial government doesn't take the same precautions for people seeking treatment for substance use disorder. #ableg drugdatadecoded.ca/my-recovery-...

If it's just visual depictions of unclothed sexual acts depicted —that's what the government order marks for banning — several of the images shared here would not be grounds to ban a book or graphic novel. Yet AB Education shares them as warnings of "explicit content." www.alberta.ca/system/files...

Alberta has amended its controversial school library standards to now only target images in school libraries, rather than all books. Premier Danielle Smith’s fave Ayn Rand is safe. LGBTQ2S+ graphic novels like Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer” are not xtramagazine.com/video/albert...

If it's words describing sex acts, UCP government will let school libraries carry the books. But graphic novels showing breast-touching or worse: banned. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Our analysis on this is forthcoming on the podcast, but the initial read is: the UCP have dramatically tightened the scope of their book ban, which formerly would have banned all manner of sex-ed and 2SLGBTQ+ content, to now just ban "explicit visual depictions of sexual acts."

The ministerial order from Demetrios Nicolaides updating the UCP book ban plan has been published:

On the agenda: Airbnb regulations, downtown infill, new suburb edmonton.taproot.news/briefs/2025/... #yeg

The Government of Alberta has updated its book ban list. Alberta Teachers Association presser on the matter at 4:30 today. We'll be speaking with former EPSB trustee Bridget Stirling about it on this week's podcast.

In coalition with other groups across the country, Friends of Medicare is holding a rally at Centennial Plaza in Edmonton tomorrow at 11:30 to demonstrate to the federal government that support for a national, universal, public prescription drug plan remains strong. You can RSVP through this link

The Alberta government's increasing obstinance around access to information requests is becoming a serious problem. By keeping the press in the dark, the government is keeping the people in the dark.

Alberta government postpones release of revised school library book ban From me today: www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/politics/alb...

Common Horizon, a country-wide activist group seeking climate justice in Canada, has launched a new campaign to oppose the Alberta government's Mature Assets Strategy and is seeking support through this online petition—

"Sport is for everyone," said Vanessa Gomez, the press secretary for the Ministry of Tourism and Sport, in her statement to the CBC about the Alberta government's new policy that functionally bans trans kids from sports.

The Law Society of Alberta has disbarred both John Carpay and Jay Cameron of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms for hiring a private investigator to surveil Manitoba Court of King's Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal. documents.lawsociety.ab.ca/wp-content/u...

CTV News is reporting that the government's negotiators have secured authorization to lock teachers out as a "reactionary response" if they deem it necessary—a clear escalation as talks about teacher pay and working conditions stall

Gruesome!

Workers at the library in Valleyview—site of an ongoing culture war over book bans—now have new strength with which to resist. They're now members of Civic Service Union 52.

I know no one wants to talk about the pandemic anymore and we're only supposed to talk about bad news, but this seems noteworthy. globalnews.ca/news/1134908...

I called on the 🇨🇦 govt to guarantee, no-cost access to COVID-19 vaccines, including for every child under 12. Under the Canada Health Act, every Canadian deserves equal access to care no matter where they live, or how badly their provincial gov’t ignores science, health guidelines & their citizens.

Alberta announced today the COVID-19 vaccine this fall will cost us $100 per dose. So for my family of four, that'll be $400. Alternatively, we could spend $400 on an overnight trip to Golden or Fernie, B.C., get immunized for free, and make a little mountain vacation out of it.

Passing by anti-LGBTQ agitator Sean Feucht's performance at the Legislature grounds this evening, we found a subdued affair. About 150 in attendance—maybe 200 if you count all the obvious out-of-towners wandering around looking lost on the upper Legislature grounds.

NEW from me in Jacobin: With a deal now in sight, Air Canada flight attendants' defiance of the government's back-to-work order shows the power of a defiant, adversarial labor movement. jacobin.com/2025/08/air-...

"The orphan inventory continues to grow, and it will likely continue to grow for the next few years... Based on the OWA Annual Report for 2024/2025, the orphan fund levy is being set at a rate that will see the orphan problem drag on into the late 2030’s."

Hours afters Air Canada’s CEO admitted it expected the government to use Section 107 and for the union to comply, Air Canada was back at the table and ready to make concessions to get planes in the skies. You can’t deny that CUPE’s decision to defy the order gave it the leverage to get a deal.