Emma Deady (pronounced Deedee) is a Calgarian who found herself facing significant boredom when the first “lockdown” occurred in Alberta. To help fill the time she started spending more time with the app TokTok. It wasn’t long until Emma began to produce satirical videos heavily focused on Alberta Politics and particularly targeting the UCP government. But her short viral videos have done much more than simply make people laugh, they’ve given people hope with Emma receiving messages from healthc...
Dec 04, 2020•45 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Kathleen Smith has been a part of Alberta’s online community since pretty much the start of online in Alberta. She’s provided thoughtful and insightful online commentary in Alberta for more than 25 years and in conjunction with the “Political RND” platform is now co-hosting a podcast with the intent of reaching and engaging women in Alberta on political issues and happenings. On this episode, we get Kathleen’s take on the COVID response, the UCP’s communications disasters, what parties might be ...
Dec 01, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Kevin Smith is a physical fitness trainer and independent gym operator. With mental health at the forefront of many Albertans as the battle against COVID is coming up to almost a year. Kevin is in the progress of organizing a fundraiser he’s calling “Train the Trainer” to raise fund to support people who are struggling with mental health. We caught up with Kevin to get the specifics of what his fundraiser is all about! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce...
Nov 28, 2020•11 min
We’re back with another round up episode and a very special interview! There’s been a lot going on, so in this episode we catch up on a few important stories... UCP MLA’s run amuck! Hail damage! Health Care cuts! A milestone for the show! Masks and more! And our guest this episode is none other than Rachel Notley! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreo...
Nov 23, 2020•41 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Emergency podcast for (sorta) emergency powers! With confusion running rampant in Alberta politics as to what powers the Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw possesses and how she can use them, we decided to get a legal opinion from a legal expert. Dr. Ubaka Ogbogu is an Associate Professor in the Faculties of Law and Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the Katz Research Fellow in Health Law and Science Policy, at the University of Alberta who teaches, among other things, Pu...
Nov 18, 2020•58 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Scott Harold Payne is a writer and politcal organizer who recently wrong a series of articles called “The Bully Pulpit”. One of the most bizarre elements to come out of the Jason Kenney administration has been the advent of taxpayer funded “issues managers” whose duties apparently include, among other things, aggressively demeaning and harassing private citizens. Scott Harold Payne (@scotthpayne) wrote a series of articles on the subject of these issues managers behaviour, and also spoke to some...
Nov 13, 2020•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 25
This episode is all about rural Alberta! We sat down with Kevin Van Lagen who is a principal, educator and who also lives and works in rural Alberta. So in this episode, we talk rural education, the importance of public education in rural Alberta, what the recent changes to municipal revenue structures have done to erode UCP support in rural Alberta and how Kevin sees the future of rural Alberta and potential pathways to seeing small town thrive again! As always, if you appreciate the kind of co...
Nov 09, 2020•38 min•Season 2Ep. 24
For Episode 23 we sat down with Shifrah Gadamsetti from Ask Her YYC to learn a little bit more about what Ask Her YYC is and what they’re up to, including the launch of their Parity Cup initiative with Parity YEG! From there, we got into a variety of topics that are going to effect the upcoming municipal elections, including the introduction of PAC’s, the referendums that many are concerned will only distract from critical municipal issues and a whole lot more! As always, if you appreciate the k...
Nov 06, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Season 2Ep. 23
The Alberta curriculum update has been a roller coaster ride for the last few months, and not in a fun way. First, Albertans heard that Chris Champion, a historian with no background in early childhood development or curriculum design and who had a history of profoundly racist writings had been tasked with “re-designing” the previously completed curriculum update. Then, his updated design was leaked. And things seemed to go from bad to worse. To get caught up, we caught up with Dr. Carla Peck, P...
Oct 30, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 22
The landscape of media and journalism is changing. To try and better understand some of these changes as well as to try and get a sense of what the future of media and journalism might look like, we sat down with someone who has extensive history in both. Joe McFarland has been both a journalist as well as a talk radio host in Alberta and we caught up with him to get his thoughts on what has been driving the changes that we’ve seen in the media landscape and what they might mean for the future o...
Oct 23, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Marie Renaud is the MLA for city of St. Albert, and also the NDP Caucus critic for the ministry of Community and Social Services, and is the first sitting MLA to appear on The Breakdown! We caught up with Marie via Zoom to get her take on the current status of not only what the UCP Is doing with AISH and her current campaign to bring awareness to how difficult it is to make ends meet on AISH, but also the current state of the government, UCP issues managers harassing private citizens and a whole...
Oct 16, 2020•55 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Jennifer Sanford (@thejennsanford on Twitter) is a professional communicator, an advocate, a politico, and the host of the podcast “Conservative like me”, which explores what the future of Conservatism could look like at a provincial level as well as at the federal level. We caught up with Jennifer to get her take on the current status of Conservative politics, where she sees successes with the current UCP government and where she sees that they’re falling down. In this extended episode (bring a...
Oct 12, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Season 2Ep. 19
With municipal elections coming up across the province, we’re trying to connect with candidates to give Calgarians a bit of an in-depth look into who is vying for positions on City Council. We are thrilled that our first candidate interview for the 2021 municipal election in Calgary is declared Ward 8 Candidate, Anna Murphy! In this sit down, we get into property taxes, EMS dispatch and what Albertans should be paying attention to heading into the next election! As always, if you appreciate the ...
Oct 09, 2020•39 min•Season 2Ep. 18
We’ve got some real treats for this episode! To start with, we untangle the bizarre decision by the UCP to cut AISH, not cut AISH and then yeah, cut AISH. We also go through the recent closure of the Supervised Consumption Site in Lethbridge, the continued signs from global markets that a major shift in energy production and usage is coming, we unpack Jason Kenney’s bizarre response to the federal throne speech, we have a very special interview with Calgary Ward 3 City Councillor Jyoti Gondek an...
Oct 02, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 17
On this episode we sit down with activist, social worker and therapist Lana Bentley to continue our ongoing discussion on racism and systemic racism in Canada. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think! As always, if you appreciate the kind of content that we’re trying to produce here at The Breakdown, please consider signing up as a monthly supporter at our patreon site at www.patreon.com/thebreakdownab, and if you’re listening to the audio version of our podcast, please consider leavin...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Welcome to episode 2.15! In this episode, we take a look at the recent accreditation of 2 rebel media personalities as journalists, we examine the recent news that more investors are stepping back from Oil and Gas, we talk about the recent embarrassing behavior from UCP “Issues Managers”, we talk chalk protests and we have a very special interview with The Right Honorable Not Premier of Alberta, Not Jason Kenney for his thoughts on the fiscal update and a safe return to school! Plus, the return ...
Sep 07, 2020•30 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Is the UCP above the law, or are they just really good at manipulating it? Back in July, we did a segment on how we stumbled across the fact that the taxpayer founded war room also known as the Canadian Energy Centre is using taxpayer money to advertise PACs that are known to try and influence the outcome of elections through at the very least, the Canadian Energy Centre Facebook page. We sent that information to Alberta’s Private Commissioner, The Auditor General, and the Ethics Commissioner. W...
Aug 25, 2020•8 min•Season 2Ep. 14
In this jumbo sized pop-up podcast, we catch up with Dr. Carla Peck (on Twitter as @cpeck3), award winning Professor with the Faculty of Education who specializes in Social Studies Education for kids. This episode is an absolute barn burner as we work our way through the history of the curriculum review panel, the deeply concerning elements of the current curriculum revision that the UCP has initiated as well as her thoughts and concerns on the various plans to get students back to school. In sh...
Aug 21, 2020•1 hr 18 min
On June 13th, the NE end of the city of Calgary was hit by a hail storm that was the 4th largest natural disaster in Canadian history. Damages are estimated at around 1.2 Billion dollars, and that figure only represents the current costs. North East Calgary is an incredibly diverse area of the city, with many new Canadians making their homes there. Many of these new Canadians face not only language barriers but also systemic barriers when it comes to not only purchasing home insurance, but also ...
Aug 19, 2020•29 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Even during the restrictions that COVID-19 has presented for public gatherings, there have been protests around the world centered around the movement and organization Black Lives Matter. In order to better understand Black Lives Matter we sat down with both the president and the Vice President of the Calgary Chapter of Black Lives Matter. It’s makes for a longer episode than normal, and we definitely feel like it’s one of our intense episodes to date. We would love to know what you think! As al...
Aug 11, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 12
In this pop up podcast, we catch up with Adam Quraishi, an educator and teacher with the Calgary and Rockyview School Boards to discuss (among other things), the return to school plan (?) from the provincial government, his concerns with the risks that exist in a classroom that as of yet have going unaddressed, the Sword of Damocles that Education Minister Adriana Lagrange has hung over the Calgary School Board AND we talk about possible solutions! As always, if you appreciate the kind of conten...
Aug 01, 2020•38 min
Jason Kenney and the UCP have announced that they will be holding a referendum on equalization next year. In this episode we sit down with renowned economist Dr Trevor Tombe to not only take a look at what sort of power this referendum will have to affect change to the current equalization formula and debunk some common myths in regards to equalization. We also discuss a few of the other reasons that Jason Kenney and the UCP might have for pushing this referendum through. We also launch out new ...
Jul 27, 2020•31 min•Season 2Ep. 11
The Alberta UCP campaigned in part on ending publicly funded partisan advertising by governments but also on the promise of creating a “War Room” to advocate for Alberta’s Energy sector. Instead, it appears that the UCP instead created an organization funded by taxpayers that is not only using taxpayers money for partisan advertising, but it appears that they’re using taxpayers money to fund third party advertisers and PAC’s data mining efforts. For the full document that contains our findings a...
Jul 13, 2020•9 min•Season 2Ep. 10
We drove all the way up to the Alberta Legislature to film/record our mid year special! In this episode we break down the recent changes to election finance and we break down Bill 1, supervised consumption sites, more Shantics, alarming changes to the Victim Support Fund we have an interview with economist Kelly Rudyk and we kick the whole thing off with a surprise press conference!
Jul 07, 2020•48 min•Season 2Ep. 9
There’s no doubt that education has been a hot topic since the UCP came to power in Alberta. But while a lot of the more publicized changes have been in the K-12 realm, Advanced Education has also experienced a pretty significant amount of upheaval as well. We caught up with Alberta Party Advanced Education Critic Myles Chykerda to get his thoughts on some of these changes!
Jun 26, 2020•46 min
On this special episode of The Breakdown Nate sits down with Calgary activist, educator and Drag King Shane Onyou to get his perspective on the reduction of protections that the Alberta UCP government has made to GSA’s (Gay Straight Alliances), the recent bylaw by the City of Calgary banning Conversion Therapy and a whole lot more!
Jun 22, 2020•39 min•Season 2Ep. 8
There’s been a lot of developments surrounding education and the education minister in Alberta. Particularly, there’s been a lot of confusion surrounding the recent education survey and secondary to that, why literally thousands of results were thrown out. To help understand these developments around education as well as and some of the history behind those developments, we reached out to Sean Dunn with Support our Students. This is my conversation with Sean
Jun 08, 2020•44 min
On this episode we take a look at the recent Conversion therapy ban by the City of Calgary (remember to check out our supplemental podcast with Dr. Kristopher Wells), we look at the recent abandonment of investments into the oil sands by the largest wealth fund on the planet, we break down the major changes that the Jason Kenney and the Alberta Government have recently made to not only environmental monitoring but also to the expansion of strip mining in environmentally sensitive areas, we look ...
Jun 04, 2020•19 min•Season 2Ep. 7
On May 25th, the City of Calgary joined the ranks of a growing number of municipalities taking a stand against conversion therapy and actually crafting a bylaw banning the practice of conversion therapy. This didn’t come without some controversy though. To help understand the controversy and some of the history behind it, we reached out to Dr Kristopher Wells. Dr Wells has an extremely well established history of advocating for better protections for the LGBTQ community, and was one of the subje...
May 29, 2020•29 min
On May 28th and 29th, the same group that organized the mega protests across ALberta in February is organizing another one, this time with more of an emphasis on art, communication and of course all with keeping social distancing in mind. We caught up with James from the grassroots or Alberta Forward to find out all the details!
May 25, 2020•11 min
