Alberta Advantage Podcast

What can we learn about the ongoing pandemic and how it's been handled? How's the whole global public health infrastructure, campaign for clean air, and renewed push for workplace going? Does this bode well for future pandemics and crises, and how can we learn from what's happened so far to shape our future demands?

Israel is on a genocidal rampage through Gaza. Team Advantage, joined by intrepid independent journalist Jeremy Appel, examine the historical roots and basic assumptions that underlie Zionism, and discuss a few light topics, like discourse-policing, denouncing Hamas, antisemitism, and settler-colonialism.

In late September 2023, Canadian Parliament clapped for "Ukrainian hero" Yaroslav Hunka, who fought with the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), a unit in the Nazi German military. Why did Canada let so many Ukrainian Nazis into the country after WW2, and how did this wave of right-wing Ukrainian nationalist shape Canada's Ukrainian diaspora? Team Advantage di

The area burned by wildfires in Canada this year exceeded 18 million hectares and burned 1,740 megatonnes of CO2, roughly three times Canada's human-made emissions from 2022. As fire season winds down, Team Advantage examines this new, fun, half-year-long weather phenomenon, and considers the role of fossil fuels and the end of "cheap nature." Further reading: John Vaillant - Fir

Support this podcast! Rachel Notley led the Alberta NDP to their second major electoral defeat in Alberta's latest general election. What does this election say about Albertans and our political culture? How might we make basic social democratic values popular? How should we organize as we anticipate Premier Danielle Smith? And what's next for the Alberta NDP?

Support this podcast! What link is there between pushing Indigenous people off land, into reserves, into residential schools, and into forced treatment? How are conversations about "public safety" and policing being mobilized to harm vulnerable people? How has the politicization of the opioid epidemic obscured what's needed to address increasing drug poisoning deaths? Harm reducti

Culture wars, long-term injury, workplace violence, sexual assaults, nationalistic militarism, and the appropriation of working-class aesthetics... is it possible to like hockey from the left? Can sport unite the working class? Is hockey a serious game for serious men, or a silly game for silly people? Cass Kislenko, Tyler Shipley and Doug Nesbitt join Team Advantage to discuss Ca

A group known as Take Back Alberta appears to have seized control over sizable parts of the United Conservative Party and secured the leadership of Danielle Smith. What is this group? What motivates them, and who are their key figures? PressProgress writer Stephen Magusiak joins Team Advantage to discuss his recent piece, Who Is ‘Take Back Alberta’ and What Do They Really Wan

Support this podcast! Watch our livestream! Sign up for our newsletter! The Bank of Canada is explicitly trying to increase unemployment by raising the cost of borrowing money. Is excessive employment the cause of inflation, and if not, what are the consequences of this policy likely to be? Economist Jim Stanford joins Team Advantage to talk about profiteering, the housing market,

Building a Community Movement for Better Transit feat. James Wilt: Saturday, March 18th | University of Alberta. RSVP: michaeljanz.ca/transitcamp2023 A few short years into Alberta PC Premier Ralph Klein’s deficit-slashing austerity regime, Calgary’s hospital laundry workers were given devastating news: they were going to be fired. Having been pushed to the brink, they t