Finally, right? Given that it’s Pride month, we decided to sit down again with Calgary Drag King Shane Onyou to learn how the Drag community has been weathering COVID, discuss what it means to be an ally and talk about some of the finer points of fashion! 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 v...
Jun 15, 2021•37 min•Season 3Ep. 22
What’s at risk when we start to see the erosion of political norms? We sat down with Dr. Melanee Thomas to try and get a clearer picture as to what the risks are when political norms start to break down. Not only that, but we got well into the Drewdatah, Political Leadership, Colonialism, the Calgary Stampede and even The Green Line! 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 patreo...
May 21, 2021•1 hr 55 min•Season 3Ep. 21
In the run up to the provincial election, there were a lot of straw man arguments that were deployed by a lot of political parties to keep people from talking about the actual issues that the province of Alberta was facing. One of the most contentious though, has to be the debate that occurred around GSA’s. Today, we want to revisit that debate a little. For those of you that are unfamiliar with what a GSA is, GSA stands for Gay Straight Alliance and they’re effectively school clubs that exist t...
May 06, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 20
Consultation (or not)! Ideology! (Dr. Carla Peck and the Curriculum - Part 3) Since the provincial government release their new “curriculum”, there’s been no shortage of outcry, frustration and condemnation, particularly in regards to the social studies “curriculum”. One of the UCP’s campaign promises was to “throw the NDP curriculum in the shredder” and come up with their own, but what they have produced, particularly the Social Studies curriculum has created a lot of anger and concern. To try ...
Apr 24, 2021•26 min•Season 3Ep. 19
Plagiarism! Editing on the fly! All this and so much more! Since the provincial government release their new “curriculum”, there’s been no shortage of outcry, frustration and condemnation, particularly in regards to the social studies “curriculum”. One of the UCP’s campaign promises was to “throw the NDP curriculum in the shredder” and come up with their own, but what they have produced, particularly the Social Studies curriculum has created a lot of anger and concern. To try and figure out how ...
Apr 17, 2021•30 min•Season 3Ep. 18
School is in! (Part 1) Since the provincial government released their new “curriculum”, there’s been no shortage of outcry, frustration and condemnation, particularly in regards to the social studies “curriculum”. One of the UCP’s campaign promises was to “throw the NDP curriculum in the shredder” and come up with their own, but what they have produced, particularly the Social Studies “curriculum” has created a lot of anger and concern. To try and figure out how things got as bad as they are, we...
Apr 14, 2021•29 min•Season 3Ep. 17
Jennifer Sanford is back with a whole new season of “Conservative Like Me” dropping on April 9th! So we decided to sit down with her to discuss the new season, the many flavours of conservatism, the state of conservatism federally and provincially and so much more that we needed to split the episode up into 2! We hope you enjoy Part 2, where we really begin to drill down into the state of Conservatism in Alberta and Jenn extends a special invitation to the premier of Alberta! As always, if you a...
Apr 08, 2021•59 min•Season 3Ep. 16
Jennifer Sanford is back with a whole new season of “Conservative Like Me” dropping on April 9th! So we decided to sit down with her to discuss the new season, the many flavours of conservatism, the state of conservatism federally and provincially and so much more that we needed to split the episode up into 2! We hope you enjoy Part 1! 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 patr...
Apr 06, 2021•40 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Alia is back! In a return to our original format we break down the latest happenings in Alberta Politics! Physicians pay! Jobs! Recall Legislation! Internet blackmail! Bigfoot! Plus a revealing interview with NotJason Kenney! 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 ...
Mar 28, 2021•31 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Deirdre Mitchell-Maclean is the host of one of a very particular podcast on Alberta politics, but the current format is the result of an evolution over several years. As well, with Deirdre’s experience covering politics as both a journalist and a pundit, as well as someone who not only identified as a centrist but also actively volunteered for the only political party in Alberta that openly described itself as centrist, she is uniquely prepared to offer us a glimpse on what the often vaguely def...
Mar 19, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Deirdre Mitchell-Maclean is the host of one of a very particular podcast on Alberta politics, but the current format is the result of an evolution over several years. As well, with Deirdre’s experience covering politics as both a journalist and a pundit, as well as someone who not only identified as a centrist but also actively volunteered for the only political party in Alberta that openly described itself as centrist, she is uniquely prepared to offer us a glimpse on what the often vaguely def...
Mar 16, 2021•22 min•Season 3Ep. 12
There was quite a media storm a few weeks back when footage surfaced of the Edmonton Police Service kicking a group of homeless Albertans into blistering cold temperatures. That storm prompted yet another conversation about homelessness in Alberta, but no major changes have been announced. To get a better grasp on the homeless situation in Alberta as well as get some ideas as to what may need to be done in order start to take meaningful steps towards addressing houselessness (the preferred term)...
Feb 27, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 11
As a follow up to our last episode, which was our controversial interview with President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom John Carpay, Constitutional Lawyer David Khan was generous enough to to agree to sit down with us to provide his perspective and interpretation of our interview. In addition to his work as a lawyer, David has worked passionately as an advocate for a number of issues, up until recently he was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and he recently began work as...
Feb 21, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 10
John Carpay is probably one of the more polarizing figures in Alberta politics. As president of the JCCF, he leads an origination that proclaims to be champions of the Constitution and Charter, but that often finds themselves in the media spotlight for the types of issues they champion. And of course there’s the matter of the comment on the symbolism of the rainbow flag. We sat down with John to try and understand where he’s coming from with his campaigns, but the conversation definitely got pre...
Feb 17, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Troy Wason has been a fixture in Alberta politics for decades, and was a previous director for the Progressive Conservatives. Recently, he took on the role as Executive Director of the Alberta Party. We sat down with Troy to learn more about how he views the current state of Conservatism in Alberta, to get caught up on what’s going on with the Alberta Party, particularly with the news that having gone for almost 2 years without a permanent leader they have finally pulled the trigger on a leaders...
Feb 14, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Alberta winters can be cold, but who would have ever thought that penguins would be at the forefront of Alberta political conversation? You may have heard about the penguin protest that occurred earlier this week at the legislature where 800 protesting snow penguins were destroyed... We managed to catch up with one of the organizers of the protest, Rowan Ley to get the scoop on what the protest was supposed to be about as well as what the proactive penguin plans are in the immediate future! As a...
Feb 07, 2021•42 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Episode 3.06 Alberta politics has often been referred to as divisive, but recently a conversation has started in Alberta that has united Albertans in way that we haven’t seen in a long time. With land designation changes and the fate of large areas of the Rockies as well as water quality being threatened, we sat down with Katie Morrison, Conservation Director for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) to get a better grasp of the history of what got us here, what the potential damage ...
Feb 02, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 6
With the UCP stumbling from one scandal to the next, the only thing that they seem to be able to do reliably is make matters worse with they way that they manage their communications and the way that they communicate to Albertans. In order to try and gain some more insight what might be driving the communications decisions being made by the UCP, we sat down with a professional communicator @brrittannyh to break down the provincial governments management of COVID-19, Alohagate and a whole lot mor...
Jan 24, 2021•58 min•Season 3Ep. 5
In the last days of 2020 we recorded an interview with Dr. Joe Vipond and Robert Tremblay from the Calgary Climate Hub to discuss their campaign to work with Enmax to get them to commit to becoming a Net zero company. Little did we know at the time that we were only a few days away from Alohagate and the Adriana Lagrange mask scandal... So while it’s a little bit later to be presented than we intended, and parts of it are alarmingly prescient, we’re glad to be able to bring you this important co...
Jan 18, 2021•39 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Back when we went back to school in September, there was a lot of controversy over the awarding of a contract to a company whose owner had donated to UCP Minister of Education Adrianna Lagrange’s election campaign. Lagrange and the UCP dismissed those concerns, saying that Alberta Education played no role whatsoever in awarding that contract. It seemed a little off to us, so months ago we filed a FOIA request. Turns out, it’s no so much that Alberta Education didn’t play a role in getting their ...
Jan 11, 2021•19 min
Kim Siever has built himself a reputation as an independent news man over a variety of formats over the last several years. His focus on deep dives into empirical evidence has garnered a strong following in Alberta that reaches outside of the province across Canada. With Kim Siever News, be built a significant loyal following, with a particularly strong presence on Twitter where he served up daily stories on Alberta Politics and more. And then one day, suddenly, he disappeared from Twitter. We c...
Jan 10, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 2
The world of Alberta politics started 2021 with a bang that was louder than any fireworks set off the night before! When news started to break that multiple UCP staffers and MLA’s had been travelling inter-provincially and internationally in open defiance of travel advisories issued by their own government, things started moving fast! So what happened? And what does it mean? In our first episode of the new year, we break down where we are as of afternoon of January 5th and we take a look at what...
Jan 06, 2021•19 min•Season 3Ep. 1
It’s our year end panel discussion blow out that’s so big, we had to break it up into parts! (PART 3!) We wanted to do a bit of a follow up on the research that the Common Ground Initiative has been producing, so we assembled an expert panel to discuss some of the research, what it means for the future of political parties in Alberta, and a whole lot more! With an panel made up of... -One of the political experts who is involved in Common Ground, political science professor at the University of ...
Dec 31, 2020•20 min•Season 2Ep. 37
It’s our year end panel discussion blow out that’s so big, we had to break it up into parts! (PART 2!) We wanted to do a bit of a follow up on the research that the Common Ground Initiative has been producing, so we assembled an expert panel to discuss some of the research, what it means for the future of political parties in Alberta, and a whole lot more! With an panel made up of... -One of the political experts who is involved in Common Ground, political science professor at the University of ...
Dec 30, 2020•34 min•Season 2Ep. 35
It’s our year end panel discussion blow out that’s so big, we had to break it up into parts! We wanted to do a bit of a follow up on the research that the Common Ground Initiative has been producing, so we assembled an expert panel to discuss some of the research, what it means for the future of political parties in Alberta, and a whole lot more! Our Panel... -Dr. Feodor Snagovsky is one of the political experts who is involved in the Common Ground Initiative, he’s a political science professor ...
Dec 29, 2020•46 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Dr. Jared Wesley is a political scientist and an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. He’s also the lead on the Common Ground Initiative, which aims to identify and define the values that drive politics in Alberta. Dr. Wesley has done extensive work to explore what Conservatism means in Alberta, and the Common Ground Initiative has done extensive work to determine how Albertans relate to politics. Dr. Wesley joined us to talk about what defines modern conservatism in Alberta, some o...
Dec 21, 2020•51 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Zoe Lambert delivered a powerful speech on addiction and harm reduction as part of our International Human Rights Day Special. By popular demand, we’ve added it as a special episode!
Dec 20, 2020•9 min
With Jason Kenney waging an ideological war on addiction and addiction treatment methodologies as well as shutting down a supervised consumption site in one of the areas of Alberta that needs it most, we wanted to have a conversation on what addiction is and how it can potentially be managed, including the role that harm reduction services like Supervised Consumption Sites should play. Fortunately, we were able to catch up with addiction and harm reduction advocate Zoe Lambert. Not only does Zoe...
Dec 18, 2020•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 32
With in person protests not really an option because of COVID 19, we teamed up with The Community YYC, albertaprotests.ca and Inclusive Canada to create a virtual protest! With speakers covering topics including EMS Red Alerts, AISH, Harm Reduction, Municipal Elections, submissions from Albertans from across the province and special remarks from CUPE President Rory Gill as well as remarks from MLA Kathleen Ganley, this episode highlights the very real impact of UCP cuts and their approach to gov...
Dec 11, 2020•54 min
What’s going on inside the UCP government? The issues managers and press secretaries for the current government of Alberta have been the source of some pretty significant frustration and offense for a lot of Albertans, particularly for those who spend time on Twitter. With issues managers like Matt Wolf and Brian Bateson engaging in what many are calling trolling and the apparently deliberate tweeting of offensive content, issues managers for the UCP appear to be playing from a very different, d...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 31
