Public Interest Alberta
Suite 604, 12323 Stony Plain Road NW T5N 3Y5 Edmonton, AB, Canada

Listen to this powerful podcast episode about the state of long-term care for seniors in Alberta, featuring Carol Wodak, a member of our board of directors and a prominent member of our Seniors' Task Force.

I am completely disgusted by (the MLAs’) thoughtless behaviour. My patients & coworkers are terrified. Nursing jobs are being eliminated, & they are relaxing on a beach.

Our allies at the Alberta Workers' Health Centre are hiring!

Great piece from Progress Alberta "Two months ago, Lethbridge citizens got together to figure out how respond to the UCP’s recent closure of the local supervised consumption site (SCS). The SCS had been the busiest consumption site in Canada (possibly North America) and provided comprehensive consumption services, as well as 16 other health care and outreach services. Locals stepped up to provide what had been taken away. But now the Lethbridge police and city administration are trying to shut that down. Lethbridge was hit hard by the drug crisis. We don’t have the comprehensive services you’d find in Calgary or Edmonton. There are very few places for people who use drugs in Lethbridge to go, to use or to recover, and the crisis is playing out in our streets and public spaces."

As cases surge and billionaires like Galen Weston and Jeff Bezos make out like bandits during the pandemic, where does that leave the rest of us? Especially front-line and essential workers?

Happy new year! Our office is open again after our staff took a well-deserved two-week vacation (NOT to Hawaii).

Save the date! It's time to reimagine continuing care because seniors deserve better than to be treated as commodities to be profited from.

Check out this webinar series from The Council of Canadians! Seniors all over Canada deserve better!

Alberta doctors offered to take lower pay and meet government’s budget for 3 years. It still wasn't enough for this government. Minister Shandro, we've said yes. Now it's your turn.

The Aspen Foundation for Labour Education is hiring!

"Quebec is planning to ban sales of new internal combustion cars, from compact vehicles to pick-up trucks and SUVs, as of 2035, Environment Minister Benoit Charette revealed over the weekend, in what CBC is framing as the flagship measure in the province’s five-year, C$6.7-billion green economy and climate plan."

"With nearly four decades of growth in global oil demand coming to an end, Canada’s fossil industry is going to have to pay closer attention to a combination of climate response and surging new technologies if it wants to stay competitive in a quickly changing world, Pembina Institute Senior Analyst Benjamin Israël writes in the second of a series of three blog posts. For the first time in history, there is recognition that global oil demand may stop its unrelenting upward trend sooner rather than later, and instead begin to shrink, he writes. The steepness of the decline will depend on how fast leading economies develop and deploy zero-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels to move people and goods around, heat (or cool) their buildings, and run their industries.

"It's a tough time to be Jason Kenney. As premier of Alberta, he's dealing with a provincial economy hobbled by oil price declines and cratered foreign investment, provincial books further in the red than the province has ever seen, and a pandemic well into its second wave. He promised jobs, economy and pipelines 18 months ago. At least the Trans Mountain pipeline still looks likely to be completed. But, if you ask him, none of the bad news is his responsibility.... The oil sector's troubles? Blame OPEC, Russia, Trudeau and maybe soon Biden. The red ink? The same, plus the NDP's legacy of a bloated public service. The pandemic? Everyone but his government. The man who demands you take personal responsibility refuses even the smallest measure of it for himself or his government."

Happening today!

As cases surge in Alberta, should winter break be extended here as well?

"There’s no vaccine for climate change in a world that has seen more than 100 climate disasters since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, and where 410,000 people have lost their lives to extreme weather and other climate impacts in the last decade, the International Red Cross warned in a report last week. Of course, COVID is there, it’s in front of us, it is affecting our families, our friends, our relatives, said Jagan Chapagain, secretary-general of the International F...ederation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), in a virtual news conference. It’s a very, very serious crisis the world is facing currently. But the climate crisis isn’t taking a break during the pandemic, will have a more significant medium- and long-term impact on human life and on Earth, and will require much more sustained action and investment of about US$50 billion per year over the next decade to help 50 developing countries adapt to its impacts."

Have you registered for Parkland Institute's online conference?