A Changed World

“And it happened: the exotic moment—without rush, without engines—when we were, in fact, all together in a sudden strangeness. How lovely. How amazing that the world could be brought to a halt just as we raced to the precipice of disaster. We were given the opportunity to cease the frenzy of getting and spending, consuming and wasting, polluting and destroying.”

Jackie Flanagan – Alberta Views – December 2020

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Is recycling futile?

“We Albertans find it hard to resist the allure of produce perfectly packaged in plastic clamshells. The containers are convenient—the strawberries, cherry tomatoes and blackberries are gloriously free of grubby-finger jabs and travel-induced bruising. But when the berries are gone and the clamshells sit yawning and empty, they cause real headaches for the people tasked with recycling them.”

Niki Wilson – Alberta Views – March 2020

How Ethical is Alberta’s Governing Party?

“A report in the Edmonton Journal described what happened. ‘You can’t be here,’ party president Katherine O’Neill told Kenney as he walked inside what was, in effect, a polling station. ‘Oh gosh, sorry, I didn’t know,’ Kenney replied. After a tense exchange between Kenney’s officials and PC party executives, Kenney left, but not before one of his campaign strategists called the rules ‘ridiculous.’ When party executives told Kenney’s officials his campaign could face a financial penalty, one responded with a shrug, ‘We can afford it.'”

 

Graham Thomson – Alberta Views – March 2020

Boar War

“By the time Greg Gilbertson became a provincial fish and wildlife officer for the Alberta counties of Woodlands and Lac Ste. Anne in 1998, calls for help in dealing with wild boar were part of the job. Ever since Eurasian boar farms were approved in Alberta in the early 1980s, the wily swine had been making a break for it, knocking down fences, tunnelling beneath them or simply finding openings made by outsiders hell-bent on establishing a wild pig population to hunt.”

Niki Wilson – Alberta Views – October 2019

Misplaced Anger

“It’s easy to attack equalization, as many politicians do. Alberta receives nothing from it, and hasn’t in over a half century. But this isn’t because the program is unfair. Among the ranks of ‘have’ provinces, Alberta reigns supreme. No tweak to a program meant to transfer funds to lower income provinces should ever transfer to the richest.”

Trevor Tombe – Alberta Views – September 2019

All The Rage

“The tipping point came a week from the end of the campaign, and by April 16 in the Big Four Roadhouse on the Calgary Stampede grounds, United Conservative Party supporters felt scant need for civility. Not anymore. The UCP had won the 2019 Alberta election, taking 63 seats to the NDP’s 24. Sixty-four per cent of registered Albertans voted, the highest percentage since 1982, and 54.9 per cent of those voters chose the UCP.”

Tadzio Richards – Alberta Views – August 2019

Can Climate Change Be Reversed?

“By the time he got to Calgary, he’d come to view climate change from an astonishing array of perspectives. Over the course of his seven years at U of C, Keith taught in the departments of chemical and petroleum engineering, economics, environmental design and physics and astronomy. He was the kind of person who kept people like Bill Gates up to date on the latest climate research.”

 

Arno Kopecky – Alberta Views – July 2019

Taking Back the Neighbourhood

“When he moved into a 1960s-era northside bungalow in Lethbridge six years ago, Clint Russnaik liked his new neighbourhood. It was a ‘great place,’ he says, somewhere where “nothing bad happened.” Indeed, the wartime houses and large elms on his street recall a time when people talked about the upcoming summer fair, not drug dealers.”

 

Jeff Doherty – Alberta Views – May 2019

Who Was Uncle Nick?

“I ask my cousins on my mother’s side: Who was this Nick Kosovan, our Baba’s brother, uncle to our mothers? They haven’t the faintest idea—although one vaguely remembers a story about a ‘fratricide’ in the family—nor has my (younger) sister. No one remembers a photograph. Yet there he was, in a field near Lethbridge, looking every inch the immigrant homesteader at an admittedly uncertain date, excised from the family story as we heard it from our grandmother and our mothers.”

Myrna Kostash – Alberta Views – November 2018

Reducing the Harm

“It’s a little after 10 o’clock in the morning and Taylor feels like she’s climbing the walls. When her name is called and the door to Lethbridge’s supervised drug consumption site buzzes open, Taylor moves quickly on her crutches. She settles into a chair at the second booth from the end and rests her pink sequined backpack on the stainless steel counter. The petite 21-year-old works swiftly, loading a speedball—a combination of meth and fentanyl—into a syringe.”

Christina Frangou – Alberta Views – October 2018