Alberta is aiming for $100 billion worth of artificial intelligence data centre infrastructure built over the next five years through leveraging natural gas. It could represent a big economic opportunity, but it raises questions about the level of emissions such projects would produce.

The vote on Wednesday pits former city councillor Rob Miyashiro for the NDP against current councillor and former police chief John Middleton-Hope for the UCP.

Large portions of Alberta are under a series of weather warnings as winter descends over the province. 

After a client picks the items they want up to a certain amount using a tablet, it gets packaged and brought out to them. The food bank says it's a practical way to approach giving food to those who need it, especially those with dietary restrictions.

A gaming executive says the recent layoffs at Inflexion Games and the full closure of Humanoid Origin have been influenced by investment in gaming companies being scaled back and the ongoing absence of a tax credit program in Alberta.

"It's well known that during the course of the pandemic, interest in gaming skyrocketed, both as a business opportunity and fuelled by people consuming games at home during lockdown," Scott Nye, the chief operating officer of Inflexion, told Taproot. "That led to a significant amount of investment. Those times of expansion, probably, were too aggressive. Now (the industry is) settling back into a more sustainable version of itself."

In October, Inflexion laid off at least 66 employees. The studio was founded by Aaryn Flynn, a former general manager for BioWare, and was originally owned by Improbable and later sold to Tencent.

Weeks later, Humanoid Origin announced it would close and let go at least 53 people. Like Flynn, Humanoid Origin founder Casey Hudson made his name at BioWare with work on blockbuster titles like Mass Effect.

Both studios offered statements on LinkedIn.Inflexion said "the industry is undergoing a period of significant transition." Meanwhile, Humanoid Origin said there are " broader challenges in the industry" that caused the studio to close.

Taproot contacted Humanoid Origin but the company declined to comment for this story.

Nye's assessment of industry woes is echoed by reports that suggest that the global gaming industry has laid off more than 23,000 people over the last two years.

Dorian Rowe, the interim executive director of the Edmonton Screen Industries Office, also sees the trend. The organization is a city-funded entity that supports gaming, film, TV, and broader interactive digital media (often called IDM).

Rowe said the cash contraction in games is in step with the strains on other screen-based industries, but isn't catastrophic.

"I wouldn't characterize it as a burst bubble. It's maybe a bubble that's shrinking a little bit, or maybe coming back to a 2018 or a 2019 level, versus the peak of, let's say, 2021," Rowe told Taproot. "In media in general, but I would say in (the) video game industry for sure, if (you) think that you have a crystal ball on the immediate future of the video game industry or any media industry — good luck … Predicting hits, predicting things that aren't hits, that's always super, super challenging."

Inflexion's debut game, Nightingale, was hyped up to be a hit. In February, it went into early access mode, a stage where studios seek feedback from early adopters to take a viable product to its greatest potential. Several updates later (with the latest on Dec. 17), sales have not been quite what the studio hoped for.

"The game didn't meet some of the financial numbers that we needed it to meet. You can't hide behind that, there's a reason why we had to go through that restructuring," Nye said. "At the same time, the update that we were able to produce and push live to players in September, that was a fundamental change in how players experienced the first 10, 20-plus hours of Nightingale (that) completely changed the game."

Nye added that review scores are trending upward on Steam, the giant online gaming marketplace where Nightingale is sold. Steam's user satisfaction assessment on Dec. 16 rates 416 recent reviews as "very positive" and the grand total of 13,253 as "mixed."

But it's more than just industry trends and sales metrics that pose challenges for game studios in Edmonton — or Alberta. Nye said Alberta lacks incentives that British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and other provinces have. That's partly because the interactive digital media tax credit, instituted in 2018 by the Alberta New Democratic Party government, was swiftly suspended when Jason Kenney became premier for the United Conservative Party in 2019.

Nate Glubish, the minister for technology and innovation, was instructed to propose a new version of the credit by now-Premier Danielle Smith in 2022. No new credit has been implemented yet.

"Those tax credits being in place, that is the fundamental reason why those jurisdictions are succeeding and have the more well-developed ecosystems in place that provide a softer landing pad when you see the times that our industry is going through today," Nye said. "Industry was strongly opposed to (Alberta's IDM tax credit) being taken away. And while there certainly have been indications and promises and commitments made in the last two years, certainly two years ago, they never came to fruition."

Inflexion makes use of tax credits in B.C. and Quebec because the studio employs people there. It's easier to land after a layoff in places like those, Nye said, because workers can "go across the street to work somewhere else," which is a "very limited" option in Edmonton.

Rowe with the ESIO said the organization is working on "new programs" for 2025, but could not announce details yet.

While the Green Line LRT project feels like a train that may never leave the station, Calgarians who have been forced to make sacrifices for this project are feeling ripped off.

Recent research looking at five major Calgary shopping centres advises heading to malls early in the week, and in the middle of the day, to avoid big crowds.

An association that represents public school boards in Alberta says federal funding delays are putting the education of Indigenous children at risk and have already led to the layoffs of dozens of educational assistants in central Alberta.

CBC’s local podcast This is Edmonton looks at how people are fighting food insecurity in their communities.

Taylor Roan, 27, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of manslaughter in the 2022 deaths of Trevor Dendy and Nathan Ward.

The City of Calgary says the province's revised Green Line LRT alignment would cost $7.5 billion, rather than the $6.2 billion figure both the city's previously approved plan and the new provincial plan suggest.

Despite increased supply, low-income residents in Edmonton had a hard time finding affordable rentals, according to the latest annual report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. 

On Jan. 1, Parkland County will implement a new fire cost recovery plan, aimed at holding individuals accountable for fires that get out of hand. The county's fire chief says similar policies are in place in the Edmonton area.

As a spate of appeals at both the municipal and provincial level for gravel projects in Rocky View continue to play out, the county's council is set to bring about a new aggregate resource plan that will establish rules for how gravel pits can operate.

A mixed martial arts organizer being questioned by police about an Alberta fighter's death is linked to a company earlier cited for safety concerns after a novice boxer died in the United Kingdom.

John McDougall announced last week that he is retiring to Europe, but plans to finish the remainder of his commission term, which runs until the end of 2026, from overseas.

The average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in the city is 8.9 per cent higher in October of this year compared to one year earlier, according to the latest report by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

A provincial portal aimed at identifying processes that slow home construction could zero in on a proposed City of Edmonton policy aimed at pushing suburbs to be complete before starting a new development.

The Housing Delays Portal, which the province launched in November, will allow developers to report red tape and other policies they think lead to undue delay in home construction. The province said it wants to know about federal or provincial policies, laws, standards, or processes, and municipal bylaws or processes that cause new housing to be delayed. The province said it will use the information to track trends and identify delays and may further engage with municipalities if it notices issues.

"Alberta's government will continue to work with municipalities and find solutions to speed up the home-building process," Ric McIver, minister of municipal affairs, said in a statement. "The Stop Housing Delays portal will give us another tool to inform those discussions and identify areas where we can improve the pace of home building."

Kalen Anderson, CEO of the real estate advocacy group BILD Edmonton Metro, told Taproot the substantial completion standard is an Edmonton process and requirement that could potentially be reported.

That policy would prohibit developers from planning new developments in the most recently annexed parts of Edmonton until the adjacent neighbourhoods are complete with schools, stores, parks, and libraries. It comes from the City Plan and is meant to move Edmonton away from its traditionally sprawling development pattern, a city report said.

Anderson said this would mainly be felt in south Edmonton, where residential construction is booming.

Developers will not be able to begin statutory plans for the area until the land is released by council. Administration estimated that under the policy, housing could be available south of 41 Avenue SW by 2039 at the latest.

"The failure to plan the land south of 41st Avenue (SW) is holding back about 87,000 units in a housing crisis," Anderson said.

The provincial government said it introduced the portal because more housing is needed as Alberta's population grows at a record pace. More than 200,000 people moved to Alberta between April 2023 and April 2024.

Meanwhile, this year has been Edmonton's busiest on record for developing housing, according to Kim Petrin, deputy city manager of urban planning and economy. From January to October, Edmonton saw nearly 10,900 housing starts and issued 12,655 building permits. The city attributes this to streamlined permitting processes, updated regulations, and innovative solutions to infill development challenges.

Still, Anderson identified further municipal processes that, if cut or modified, could help streamline housing construction further. She identified non-statutory studies as another city process that she views as adding delays to housing construction.

"In Edmonton there are often a lot of studies required, whether it's fiscal impact studies or wind studies or shadow studies," Anderson said.

The city could ask for rezoning applications to include up to 17 additional reports, depending on the proposed zone, the location of the property, the proposed size of the building, and other factors.

"I'm not trying to castigate any of those in particular, but in aggregate, they can potentially add a lot of delay that is not actually going to change the outcome," Anderson said.

Anderson said there can be many small and potentially duplicated steps in an application that could be rolled into one. For example, she questioned why projects need development permits if they've already been rezoned at a public hearing.

"Can building and development permits be put together? There's a lot of micro-steps that ... I think we can start to think about streamlining, and I think one of the pieces that could help with that is leaning into AI and automation," Anderson said.

The city is already using artificial intelligence to speed up housing construction. In September, Edmonton introduced an automatic development application system that can issue same-day building permits for single-detached and semi-detached homes in greenfield areas.

"Canadian housing is in an abysmal condition across the country — like, really, really bad in terms of the shortage of supply. Alberta has not fallen victim to that," Anderson said. "I think it's because we've done stuff like this, where we take it seriously and we actually name the goal, which is to improve, to beat the market, to reduce costs."

Other jurisdictions are changing policies to cut red tape and speed up the development process, including British Columbia, whose provincial government modified public hearing regulations earlier this year. Municipal governments typically hold public hearings for new and amended bylaws as well as rezoning applications, so that residents can show their support or opposition to the change. But B.C.'s new rules ban municipal governments from holding a public hearing if a proposed rezoning is consistent with the official community plan, the municipality's long-term planning document.

A motion that pushed for a rethink on how Edmonton's council can work on city spending using zero-based budgeting passed following its recent budget vote, and could offer both opportunities and challenges, Taproot's council watchers said on Episode 289 of Speaking Municipally.

Is zero a hero?

Once the current budget adjustment passed on Dec. 5, and with it the 2025 property tax increase of 6.1%, Coun. Andrew Knack put forward a subsequent motion directing administration to work toward zero-based budgeting for its deliberations on the next four-year budget cycle, from 2027 to 2030. That motion passed 8 to 4 (councillors Ashley Salvador, Keren Tang, Erin Rutherford, and Jo-Anne Wright opposed). The motion was presented by Knack, who will not seek re-election in 2025, and stems from his collaboration with Coun. Tim Cartmell, who is running for mayor and who has been critical of how council can work on budgets.

Knack's motion, which calls for a "line-by-line" approach to review budgets during the next cycle, for administrative departments to make presentations to council at budget time, and for Edmonton to benchmark other cities to understand how its budget stacks up, could signal how council feels about its current limitations to change budgets, managing editor Tim Querengesser said.

"There is frustration you can sense among all the councillors in the (existing) process," Querengesser said. "We start out with an established budget and we adjust it. We wiggle here and we wiggle there, but really, we can't make any structural changes. I think they're all frustrated with that."

Guest co-host and Taproot curator/reporter Stephanie Swensrude expressed doubts that zero-based budgeting would be plausible in practice. However, she added, council may need a "drastic" option. "Maybe that's what needs to be done — to have a big reset."

Co-host Mack Male noted that true zero-based budgeting in Edmonton is currently impossible because the city is locked into a funding formula with the Edmonton Police Service through 2026. He expressed skepticism the zero-based model will actually make it into practice. "It seems to me that this process will cost more than it's worth," Male said.

Votes against the operating budget

The operating budget adjustment passed 8 to 4, with councillors Sarah Hamilton, Jennifer Rice, Karen Principe, and Cartmell voting against. Male noted that Cartmell did not put forth any motions to reduce the budget. Rice, meanwhile, presented several motions that have been heavily critiqued. Despite this, Male also called attention to Knack's acknowledgment that all of council (aside from the absent Coun. Aaron Paquette) voted in favour of cuts.

"Even though (Cartmell) didn't introduce his own motions, Knack's point is everybody contributed to reductions in some capacity here," Male said. "I thought that was an interesting way to try to build a little bit of collaboration around the approach to (the) budget."

Housing and the 2025 election

Male, Querengesser, and Swensrude presented questions that voters may want to ask of candidates about housing during the 2025 municipal election. The conversation built off of Taproot's Housing Complex series and Swensrude's piece on what the City of Edmonton can and can't do with housing, in particular.

The Dec. 13 episode of Taproot's civic affairs podcast covers much more on the operating budget and the Housing Complex series. Find all the ways to listen to and subscribe to Speaking Municipally, which comes out most Fridays, right here.

Siksika Nation is pursuing legal action against a provincial government decision to relocate the Ghost Dam downstream after it says the province failed to consult with the southern Alberta First Nation.

Calgary Transit riders are frustrated as overcrowded buses pass them by, but the organization says it's always working to adjust the system to meet the changing demand.

Roughly one third of in-street pedestrian signs installed near Calgary elementary schools have been run over or intentionally damaged, costing the city nearly a quarter of a million dollars as of September.

A proposed solution, offered about one month after resident physicians stopped providing on-call support at an Edmonton hospital, was turned down because it wasn't 'cost neutral,' documents say.

Cold Lake RCMP say man died Saturday evening after officers "used their intervention options, including a firearm," during an attempted arrest.

"I never imagined there could be a Santa that speaks Tagalog and is from the Philippines or a Santa that is from Africa," Edmonton actor says.

YWCA Canada has issued an apology to Indigenous communities for its involvement in programs offered at residential schools and Indian hospitals supporting colonial ideologies and promoting policies of assimilation.

Two Calgary men who were handed life sentences Saturday after jurors ruled they carried out what the Crown described as "calculated, cowardly" executions have appealed their convictions.

"These accident-chasers swoop in uninvited, they apply pressure tactics, and ultimately leave motorists facing huge fees," Jeff Kasbrick, vice-president of advocacy and operations at the Alberta Motor Association, said at a news conference Monday. 

Two brothers “disabled and isolated” their victim, carrying out a planned attack on a teen they left to die on an outdoor basketball court, prosecutor Vicki Faulkner told the judge presiding over the younger sibling’s trial. 

The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team announced Monday that Const. Matthew Villeneuve has been charged with breach of trust and publication of an intimate image without consent.

A team of Canadian researchers studying homelessness among post-secondary students says more could be done to support struggling students.

Drink pouches are ubiquitous but hard to recycle, a problem that a new three-year research project by the Alberta Beverage Container Recycling Corporation at NAIT's Applied Research department is working to solve.

"The drink pouches are problematic due to the multiple layers, but they are recyclable," Guy West, president and CEO of the recycling corporation, told Taproot. "Ideally, we would like (a) higher quality of recycling if we can. But right now, nobody has that solution, so that's why we've partnered with NAIT."

The recycling corporation is responsible for collecting and recycling all beverage containers that bottle depots receive in Alberta. That includes drink pouches (think Capri Sun, Kool-Aid Jammers, or Fruit-tella pouches), which, unlike most other beverage containers, lack a consistent form or construction. This makes them difficult to recycle to their greatest potential because they are often made of layers of materials, including aluminum, plastic, and paper.

Currently, Alberta's drink pouches end up in British Columbia, where they're incinerated for byproducts used to supplement natural gas in industrial processes. The aluminum, plastic, and paper in the pouches can meet the higher-quality-of-recycling criteria West mentioned, but only if they are separated.

As NAIT begins the first stage of the $300,000 research project, one expert said chemical options might help separate the materials to allow pouches to meet high-quality criteria for recycling.

"There are a variety of different techniques that can be done," Kelsey Deutsch, an industrial surface chemist who is part of the clean technologies team at NAIT Applied Research, told Taproot. "One of them is using solvents to try and separate the different layers. We would potentially look at mixing the pouches in small pieces and stirring them in solution or solvent at an elevated temperature. Perhaps there's also other techniques, such as pyrolysis, which is heating the pouches and the plastics in an inert atmosphere to try and break down those chemical constituents into smaller building blocks."

One valuable element in beverage pouches to separate is plastic, because of its high recycling potential, West said.

"Plastics recycling in beverage containers works very well," he said. "Eighty-five % of the containers that we receive or we recover (that are plastic) … are processed through to the point where the resulting product meets food-grade standards."

That processing is handled by B.C.-based Merlin Plastics, which the recycling corporation also contracts for drink pouches. West said the company was the first to receive certification in both Canada and the United States to produce food-safe packaging from recycled materials.

NAIT Applied Research has a $10 million Plastics Research in Action initiative, including a project Deutsch led that used plastics to build a plastic sheet prototype to be used as concrete formwork in the construction industry. Deutsch said it's "not beyond the imagination" that plastic and other materials used in drink pouches could be part of NAIT's work in the circular economy.

Another advantage for recycling in Alberta, West said, is that it's the only province where drink packaging must be registered with the Beverage Container Management Board to prove it can be recycled. Packaged beverage manufacturers also pay fees to fund the recycling corporation.

However, West said one weak point is consumer awareness and behaviour. Only 8.5 million of the 14.8 million pouches sold in the province last year were recovered by the depot system.

"Part of the problem is that they are not traditional beverage containers," West said, adding that the recycling corporation runs awareness campaigns on drink pouches. "Now, awareness is one thing, but having (someone) take (a pouch) to the bottle depot is another. If they're out in a park, and they've got a partially filled or unfilled package that is not sealed, are they going to take it back home, or are they going to look for another option?"

A silver lining, he said, is that municipal recycling staff in Edmonton (and Calgary) are good at finding refundable containers and taking them to a bottle depot.

West said the makeup of pouches is not uniform. The primary focus of manufacturers, he said, is to meet food safety standards for their various product types. But part of the research at NAIT may yield a formula for a more recyclable pouch that meets those standards, and could potentially entice manufacturers to adopt the new option.

"The more we can learn, the more we can inform, the more we may be able to modify the packaging, or have them modify the package, (the better)," West said. "If we can identify if there's an alternative way in which to do this, and still achieve a viable package without a whole lot more cost, that may be something that they look forward to."

Recycling is not without its critics. Plastic recycling faces a high degree of scrutiny, globally, from critics who say recycling "is failing."

How do existing oil sector regulations compare with new regulations laid out for the renewable energy sector?

According to Deloitte Canada’s 2024 Holiday Retail Outlook, 71 per cent of consumers plan to buy gifts on Amazon, while 61 per cent said they would make their purchases at other mass merchants.

Calgary's mayor sat down recently for a year-end interview with CBC Calgary's municipal affairs reporter Scott Dippel.

Demand for social supports has increased tenfold in Jasper after this summer’s devastating wildfire. The town is hiring new recovery outreach workers to help Jasperites impacted by the wildfire find and access lines of support.

More than 250 people poured into a funeral home on Sunday to honour the life of slain security guard, 20-year-old Harshandeep Singh.

Despite a $29 million investment into a new police force focused on Alberta's section of the Canada-U.S. border, some experts question its practicality and effectiveness.

Older generations spent their lives accumulating furnishings, china and tiny sombreros they bought on vacation in Mexico. Now, a lot of that stuff is being handed down to the next gen, whether they want it or not.

New research examining the eating habits of the people who lived in North America during the Ice Age suggests they were skilled hunters with meaty, mammoth appetites.

Postal workers with CUPW local 730 are disppointed in a federal government move that could force them back to work without a new contract.