What might a federal relief package for industries and workers look like if Ottawa is preparing for devastating U.S. tariffs? Federal Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc visited Calgary to meet with business leaders and Premier Danielle Smith. In this new supplemental segment called West of Centre Short, host Rob Brown asks LeBlanc how a federal plan might take shape, whether the Liberals are rethinking regulatory hurdles for oil and gas infrastructure, and sneaks in a question about Donald Trump’s musings about annexation.

A church west of Edmonton that made headlines for defying COVID-19 pandemic health rules hopes to add to its existing space but dozens of people who live nearby are fighting the expansion.  

Court of King's Bench Justice Peter Michalyshyn found two young men guilty of manslaughter, determining they were 'active participants' in a swarming attack where a 16-year-old boy was fatally stabbed.

A task force created by the UCP government to review the province’s pandemic response has issued its final report and, while it is currently being reviewed by the province, Alberta doctors are pushing back, saying it contains misinformation and poses a threat to public health.

Former Calgary city councillor Joe Magliocca has been found guilty of fraud for lying on his expense claims. Magliocca was acquitted on the charge of breach of trust. 

Some of the world's best ice climbers are coming to Edmonton next month. A towering ice wall has been set up in the city's river valley for the Ice Climbing World Cup.

I wrote about Canada’s long history of harbouring and venerating Nazi war criminals for Counterpunch. Right now the article is exclusive for CP+ members, but will be released publicly in a couple weeks.

At the Progress Report, I wrote about the five private nursing agencies that have received nearly three-quarters of the funds Alberta Health Services spent on contract nursing from 2105 to 2023, and why the public health agency won’t disclose more recent contracts.

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Rural municipalities say it's getting harder to find volunteers to help run events and support essential services. Researchers who spoke to 27 municipal officials across Alberta learned there has been a persistent decline in recent years in the number of people able to volunteer.

The provincial investigation of two of city council's appointments to the Edmonton Police Commission has raised concerns about accountability, the co-hosts of Episode 292 of Speaking Municipally said.

On Jan. 15, The Edmonton Police Service asked Mike Ellis, the minister of public safety and emergency services, to investigate the appointment of former police officer and criminologist Dan Jones and Renée Vaugeois, the executive director of the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights to the commission.

"Why in the world would the (police) service have a say on who is holding them accountable and governing them?" co-host Troy Pavlek said. "How could that ever make sense?"

In a news release, EPS said it could not disclose its specific concerns, and only said they relate to "public-facing activities undertaken by the two appointees in either private or professional capacities." Postmedia obtained documents that suggest Edmonton Police Service leadership opposes the two people council appointed because of their comments about police matters, which include open police use-of-force investigations. The documents suggest EPS leadership has a problem with Jones and Vaugeois's respective participation in Safer For All, a documentary about police violence and accountability released last year. Jones has since resigned from the commission.

The commission will soon be tasked with recruiting a new chief of Edmonton's police service, as Chief Dale McFee is set to retire in February. "The makeup of the commission is critically important right now because the commission will be deciding who will be the chief of police in Edmonton for the next few years," Pavlek said.

Meanwhile, the province chose to reappoint Anne-Marie Lambert to the commission despite city council choosing not to renew her term in December. The commission itself elected former city councillor Ben Henderson as its chair in December, taking over for John McDougall, who resigned following backlash over his decision to chair the commission remotely from Portugal until 2026. Henderson said one of the reasons he decided to step into the chair position was to rebuild relationships between the commission, the police service, and council.

Co-host Mack Male said Henderson will have his work cut out for him. "Given the recent changes here — the request for an investigation, and the appointment, non-appointment of Lambert — it's a tough road ahead to try to rebuild those relationships, and a lot of it will centre around the new police chief," Male said.

The Jan. 24 episode of Taproot's civic affairs podcast includes a dissection of Paths for People's "bold" vision for 76 Avenue and the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board's decision to wrap operations. Plus, Taproot's managing editor, Tim Querengesser, provides an update from the Taproot newsroom. Speaking Municipally comes out on Fridays. Listening and subscription options are all right here.

This week, city council's utility committee meets on Jan. 27 to review EPCOR Water Service's 2025 operational plan.

EPCOR said it has made progress on its project to replace most water meter reading technology in the city. The project will improve monthly bills and give customers more information about water use, according to a report that is scheduled to be presented to council's utility committee.

The meters sparked controversy as some customers expressed concerns about their ties to an Israeli company that has been criticized for extracting and exploiting water in the West Bank and Gaza. About 300 customers opted out of the new meter for "various reasons," and EPCOR dropped part of the fee charged to those customers, an EPCOR spokesperson told CBC. The installation of the rest of the meters is expected to be finished by the end of 2025.

EPCOR reviewed its existing measures to manage demand in response to the water supply interruption and ban on non-essential water use in late January 2024.

In 2025, EPCOR said it will launch an updated stormwater rebate program and work with the city to support the review of the substantial completion standard. EPCOR has proposed a cogeneration system at the Gold Bar Wastewater Treatment Plant to convert biogas to electricity.

EPCOR plans to make several structural changes in 2025 to become more efficient. Employees working in water distribution and transmission, wastewater collection, construction, and customer operations will be brought together, which will help with the development of EPCOR's integrated operations centre, the report said. The centre will help EPCOR manage and optimize its systems, and proactively identify issues.

Council and committee meetings stream live on YouTube on the Chamber channel and River Valley Room channel.

For the past several years, Calgary has been the only major Canadian city where police allowed news outlets to keep an ear on officer activity on the street by letting them listen in on some of their radio chatter. But that won’t be the case much longer.

Local agencies are working to educate the public about online safety, amid a steady rise of cases of online child sexual exploitation. Education, they say, is the best to tool for prevention.

American speed skating star Jordan Stolz has won the men's 500 metres at a World Cup in Calgary in 33.85 seconds. The 20-year-old has yet to lose a race this season in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 metres. He went 3-for-3 at the Olympic Oval over the weekend.

After a tough start to the season in the wake of losing Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, the Edmonton Oilers now sit first in their division standings, second in the Western Conference and boast the third best record in the NHL.

In 2001, the Alberta government pledged to connect rural communities to a high-speed internet "highway" called the Alberta SuperNet. But after almost 25 years and an estimated $1 billion invested in the project, recent statistics show that Alberta has the worst rural high-speed internet availability of all the provinces.

The expansion of healthcare education facilities at Fort McMurray’s only post-secondary institution could come to the detriment of the region’s performing arts scene, some groups fear.

More citizen-led organizations across Canada are fighting for neutral public spaces, where crosswalks are white and there are limitations on the types of flags municipalities can fly.

United Nurses of Alberta members held a day of action — and they want respect from the provincial government. The rallies are happening against the backdrop of tense contact negotiations that have been ongoing since last year. The CBC’s Sam Brooks has more from Edmonton.

Canadian speed skater Denny Morrison has given his Olympic silver medal to Gilmore Junio. Junio vacated his spot in the men's 1,000 metres in the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, so Morrison could race it.

A $6.6 million water treatment upgrade is moving ahead in a northern Alberta town to improve water quality and bring down treatment costs. 

Many temporary visas granted to Ukrainians who fled to Canada may expire within a few months, as the war continues overseas.

The festival runs in Banff and Lake Louise for more than three weeks, Jan. 17 to Feb. 2, and includes events such as skijoring.

According to a report by the federal government released in 2023, rural Canadians are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But that also puts rural communities in a unique position to tackle some of these pressing issues.

Catherine Tsalikis was checking Amazon to see how the launch was going for her new biography of Chrystia Freeland. She noticed something odd: a book right below hers that was a shadow of the real thing. The cover had a similar title, an image of a Freeland lookalike, and the author shared Tsalikis' first name.

More than 200 people marched through Jasper, Alta., Friday afternoon, calling for the Alberta government to build interim housing as promised.

City councilors say an Edmonton-first tax on derelict properties is showing promising results and may be expanded beyond mature neighbourhoods. The CBC's Travis McEwan takes a look at the next steps.

A contest in Stettler County this weekend will see teams compete to kill the most coyotes, but wildlife groups worry the event's narrow target misses the impact it could have on the area's ecosystem.

The Calgary-based team was at its pre-season training base outside of San Diego when they were alerted to the threat.

Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary continues to feel the pressure of a tough respiratory virus season, but doctors say they are seeing some relief from an intense December surge.

The City of Calgary says damage has been noticed near the Calgary Canoe and Rowing clubs, near the Glenmore Sailing School, along a pathway near the community of Bayview and along the bottom of the slope below the Rockyview General Hospital.

How much damage can you do in a day? Quite a bit if you’re Donald Trump.

On the first day of his renewed presidency, Trump issued a record 26 executive orders, well surpassing the previous high of 15 Joe Biden signed on his first day in 2021, which surpassed the previous record of 14 Trump signed in 2017.

Trump followed the executive orders he signed on Jan. 20 with four more throughout the rest of his first week back in office.

An executive order provides the president’s directive to the entire government on how to approach a certain set of issues, not to be confused with proclamations and memorandums, executive actions which are geared towards more specific orders of government.

George Washington University political historian Matthew Dallek told the Washington Post that Trump is engaged in “an executive-order shock-and-awe campaign … to send a message to his critics and most importantly to his voters” that he’s going to pursue his policy agenda “aggressively.”

According to analysis from online news site the Lever, 16 of the 26 first-day executive orders “seem torn straight from the pages” of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—a 900-page blueprint the influential conservative think tank drafted for reshaping the federal government along authoritarian lines.

During his campaign, Trump called some of its proposals “absolutely ridiculous and abysmal,” insisting he had “nothing to do with it,” despite at least 140 of his former staffers having helped write the document.

The guidebook calls “for aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch to return power—including power currently held by the executive branch—to the American people.”

Below are the five most dangerous, cruel and authoritarian of Trump’s first-day executive orders.

1. Restoring the Death Penalty and Protecting Public Safety

This order calls the death penalty “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” and seeks to expand its applicability.

It directs the attorney general to seek federal jurisdiction and pursue the death penalty, “regardless of other factors,” for cases where a person is found guilty of killing a cop and for capital crimes committed by those who are in the country illegally.

Capital crimes are crimes eligible for the death penalty in jurisdictions in which it hasn’t been outlawed, including murder, kidnapping, drug trafficking, treason and espionage, among others.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Centre, told the Marshall Project that seeking the death penalty for every capital crime committed by an undocumented immigrant would be “unprecedented and contrary to established law.”

The order also directs the attorney general “to ensure that each state that allows capital punishment has a sufficient supply of drugs needed to carry out lethal injection,” and to attempt to overturn Supreme Court rulings that “limit the authority” of state and federal governments to conduct executions.

In 2024, there were 26 death sentences imposed across 10 states, with three-quarters of them concentrated in four states—Florida (7), Texas (6), Alabama (4) and California (3).

2. Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship

With the stroke of a pen, Trump sought to end birthright citizenship, including for babies whose mother is in the U.S. legally with a travel, work or student visa.

This executive order must be viewed within the context of Trump’s broader assault on immigration rights.

The U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment states unequivocally: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The Trump administration argues that the people impacted by the order aren’t actually “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. government.

This one is already being challenged in court, with a federal judge in Washington granting the state’s request for a two-week halt to its implementation in a scathing ruling.

Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Regan appointee, said it “boggled” his mind that any lawyer would have signed off on the “blatantly unconstitutional” order.

The order is also being challenged in federal court in Maryland and New Hampshire.

3. Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions within the Federal Workforce

Trump issued several executive orders targeting the federal bureaucracy, with most of the media attention focused on the president’s efforts to curtail diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

This one, however, is in my mind the most concerning, because it allows Trump to bend the civil service to his will by stripping job protections from bureaucrats who are perceived as “resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership.”

The order does so by reintroducing a new category of bureaucrats, dubbed “Schedule F,” which allows the administration to categorize certain career civil servants as political appointees and purge them from the bureaucracy, replacing them with Trump loyalists.

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Late in his first term, Trump issued an executive order introducing Schedule F, only for Biden to reverse it early in his term.

The goal, University of Texas at Austin political scientist Donald Kettl told the Guardian, isn’t necessarily to fire every Schedule F employee, but “to make the point that this could happen to you if you’re not careful.”

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 150,000 workers across 37 federal agencies, has filed a lawsuit against this order in the D.C. District Court, arguing Trump’s directive amounts to “a political loyalty test.”

4. Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government

Of course, the president who spent $19 million USD on election ads saying, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” was going to waste no time at all in seeking to erase trans people from public life.

This order says “the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes, male and female, [which] are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”

It prohibits government funding for not just for gender affirming care but anything that the government deems to be “gender ideology,” and prohibits government documents from listing a person’s sex as anything other than what they were born into.

While the text claims that the order is protecting women’s “dignity, safety, and well-being,” and raises the spectre of men identifying as trans women to infiltrate “women’s domestic abuse shelters [and] women’s workplace showers,” its definitions of the two sexes appeal anti-choice advocates.

The order states [emphases added]:

(d) “Female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.

(e) “Male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.

So in addition to targeting trans people, especially trans women, the order subtly attacks cisgendered women who might need an abortion.

5. Declaring a National Energy Emergency

Trump signed several orders reversing Biden’s limited climate commitments and opening up more fossil fuel production, but this one is the most far-reaching.

By declaring the first-ever “national energy emergency,” Trump is tapping into expanded executive powers under the 1976 National Emergencies Act, which doesn’t clearly delineate what constitutes an emergency.

The order claims that an “inadequate energy supply and infrastructure causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed-incomes,” and that this constitutes an “active threat to the American people.”

While it’s short on specifics, Trump’s order instructs the heads of various government agencies “to facilitate the identification, leasing, siting, production, transportation, refining, and generation of domestic energy resources,” including on federal and private lands.

To facilitate more extraction, the order allows authorities to seek exemptions from parts of the Clean Water Act, Rivers and Harbors Act, Marine Protection Research and Sanctuaries Act, and Endangered Species Act.

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While the order talks about energy, its definition includes two notable omissions—solar and wind, which compose 14% of the U.S energy grid.

Trump issued a presidential memo the same day blocking offshore wind projects that his predecessor had approved.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Information Administration boasts that the U.S. is producing “more crude oil than any country, ever,” and has, since 2019, been a net exporter of energy.

It’s probably worth noting that oil and gas companies donated $75 million USD to Trump’s campaign that we know of.

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A Calgary judge ruled Friday that accused serial rapist Richard Mantha is fit to stand trial despite his inability to speak following a stroke last year.

Residents in a west Edmonton neighbourhood are outraged as they say city officials have failed to properly consult with community about the designation of a school surplus site.

Campsite reservations open January 28. Camping will look different in the park this year, as forests and the town of Jasper recover from a devastating wildfire.

On this day in 1975, thieves stole a telephone that had been custom-made for Queen Elizabeth.

A short article in the Edmonton Journal describes the royal telephone as a brown phone with a golden dial and gold accents around the mouthpiece and earpiece. It also featured "a picture of a big horned sheep in the centre of the dial."

The phone was part of the collection at Vista 33, the observation deck and telephone museum that overlooked downtown Edmonton from what's now the TELUS tower. The thief apparently tore the phone (valued at $1,000 in 1975 dollars) and also took the receiver for another phone on display (no details on if that was made for anyone, or if there was a picture of a sheep on that one.)

The device had been a gift for Queen Elizabeth (not to be confused with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II) during the her 1939 Royal Tour, which saw her and King George VI travel across Canada by rail. It was the first time that the reigning monarch had visited Canada, and couple drew massive crowds at every stop.

The royal couple first travelled through southern Alberta, hitting Calgary and Banff, before continuing on to British Columbia. Once they reached Victoria, the train turned around and headed east. The purloined phone was made to honour their stop in Jasper on June 1, 1939.

The next day, the King and Queen made their way through Edmonton, where tens of thousands packed into grandstands to greet them. The royal procession made its way through the city on a major roadway called Portage Avenue, renamed Kingsway in honour of the visit.

There's no sign that the stolen phone was ever seen again. Other artifacts left over from other royal visits have fared a better. A few months ago, students at NAIT started restoring a Lincoln Cosmopolitan car that served as the royal ride for Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Edmonton in 1951.

This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist @revRecluse of @VintageEdmonton.

"We don't need their oil and gas. We have more than anybody," said the U.S. president during his virtual address at the World Economic Forum. 

The CBC’s Acton Clarkin breaks down the changes to camping in Jasper National Park following the largest wildfire to hit the area in more than a century.

The Calgary Plan is the consolidation of two major city documents, the Municipal Development Plan and the Calgary Transportation Plan.

Brian’s Cafe opened to the public on Oct. 15 and has been a hub for all, providing coffee, pastries and a sense of community.

Environment Canada issued a snow squall warning for communities southeast of Edmonton Thursday afternoon, expecting a "band of intense snow with gusty winds" to move through the area.

Inclusion Alberta released two reports this week highlighting the problems with Family Support for Children with Disabilities (FSCD) and Person with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) programs. 

Onward Homes, Liberty Housing, Siksika Off-Reserve Affordable Housing and the Aboriginal Friendship Centre of Calgary were successful applicants to build more units.

The Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board will wrap operations as of March 31 following a unanimous vote to dissolve the organization at a meeting at the Chateau Louis Hotel & Conference Centre in Edmonton on Jan. 23.

"It was a little bittersweet around the table today," Jeff Acker, the mayor of Spruce Grove and the vice-chair of the board, told Taproot at the meeting. "Talking to our colleagues around the table, there was a huge amount of optimism of, 'What is the next iteration of regional collaboration?'"

In November, the United Conservative Party government announced it would cut its funding to regional growth management boards in Edmonton and Calgary, and also switch their membership from mandatory to voluntary. By 2024, the EMRB was receiving $1 million annually from the province. At the time, Edmonton Coun. Andrew Knack predicted the UCP decision would be the end of the EMRB.

Looking back over regional planning history that stretches back to the 1940s, the EMRB replaced the Capital Region Board in 2017. That board was established as a mandatory growth management board in 2008, and the 2017 change cut its purview from 24 municipalities to 13 — Edmonton, St. Albert, Strathcona County, Sturgeon County, Parkland County, Leduc County, the City of Leduc, Spruce Grove, Fort Saskatchewan, Beaumont, Devon, Morinville, and Stony Plain. The EMRB's role was to ensure responsible growth for the region with binding planning documents like the Regional Growth Plan.

Allan Gamble, the mayor of Parkland County and chair of the EMRB, told Taproot the decision to dissolve the board will lead to new forms of planning. "As a mature board, this provides an opportunity for us to move in a different direction that looks at being more of an advisory-type board than a regulatory board," Gamble said. "It opens a door for us to have willing partners who want to work alongside us to ultimately provide the best services that we can for our residents."

Both Gamble and Acker said the main reason to end the board is that voluntary participation and the board's framework don't mix. For example, regulatory procedures that the board uses, like regional evaluation frameworks and area structure plans, don't match with how members want to collaborate if that membership is optional.

Acker made clear he did not think the funding the province cut from the board was "top of mind" in the unanimous decision to end its operations. Aside from the province's contribution, member municipalities covered the remaining $1.9 million to run the board each year.

"It wasn't about the dollars," Acker said. "It was about, fundamentally, asking us to voluntarily bring our communities together under strict regulation."

Both Acker and Gamble said it's too soon to say what regional collaboration will look like in the future, but that more details may become available at the final EMRB board meetings on Feb. 21 and March 20. The EMRB streams its meetings online and later posts recordings.

Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi tabled a motion to explore the future of regional cooperation at a special city council meeting on Jan. 20. The motion, passed unanimously, instructs administration to collaborate with other regional municipalities "to initiate a new voluntary regional governance table" and bring back a draft memorandum of understanding with interested parties at a future meeting.

Shortly after the Jan. 23 vote, Sohi told Taproot in an email that he hopes regional thinking continues.

"I am optimistic that my colleagues in the 13 Edmonton region municipalities are committed to continuing our strong regional partnerships," Sohi said. "We will be meeting in the coming weeks to discuss opportunities for continued collaboration on economic development, growth, and how we can work together to support the needs of our residents."

Gamble and Acker, meanwhile, said elements of the EMRB's work are already embedded in planning documents for their respective municipalities.

The decision to end the EMRB was broken into three motions that were each unanimously approved: That the board wind down as of March 31; that a letter be sent to Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver to signal the decision; and that the board appoint a trustee to deal with any remaining assets as of April 1.

Karen Wichuk, the chief executive officer of the EMRB, told Taproot that the details of assets and the trustee are still to be determined.

A new tax on derelict homes in central Edmonton has proven so successful that city councillors are now considering applying it to the rest of the city.

Patrick Lindsay looked on as the place he called home for seven years was ripped apart by an excavator. He calls the demolition of his River Run townhouse unnecessary because of the uncertainty around the future of the troubled Green Line LRT project.

A Calgary judge handed down a seven-year prison sentence to an investment advisor who bought more than $6 million of a high-risk oil and gas stock and then accepted a secret commission of $104,000 from the company where his close friend was a vice-president.

Fossil evidence discovered in southern Alberta suggests a crocodile-like creature bit a flying reptile 76 million years ago, according to a new study published Thursday in the Journal of Paleontology.

Canada's financial intelligence agency suspects online betting platforms are being used to launder proceeds from fentanyl dealing and production.

City investing $283,000 into Tailgate Toolkit recovery resource pilot program promoting safer workplaces across Calgary construction sites.