The 20-year president of the Alberta Federation of Labour is up for re-election this Sunday. Jim and Jeremy take a look at the present situation, check out some Gil McGowan campaign literature, and speak to the AFL leadership candidate who didn't ignore our interview request.

The end of the Gillenium?

2025's federal election is set to up-end politics in Western Canada and yet at the same time the campaign period has been both short and uneventful. So we tapped a couple of smart guys to un-boring it: first Dave Cournoyer, one of Alberta's most knowledgeable political commentators. Then we talk to Blake Desjarlais, one of the rare electeds worthy of our rascal respect. More of Dave's work is available at www.daveberta.ca.

Fed election 2025 feat. Dave Cournoyer and Blake Desjarlais

Through projects including the national business coalition Each+Every and his publication Drug Data Decoded (www.drugdatadecoded.ca), Euan Thomson has put his heart and soul into combatting the ongoing drug poisoning crisis, and he joins us on this episode of the Progress Report to bring everyone up to date with the crisis's current status.

But Euan of late has also been an ally to the Palestinian solidarity movement and it's in that capacity that he took a beating from police during last year's violent crackdown on demonstrators at the University of Calgary. In this episode Euan and Jeremy also discuss the crackdown, and why one Calgary Liberal candidate in particular is implicated in the story in a bad way.

Full show notes and our other content is available at www.theprogressreport.ca.

Jeremy's article for The Maple on the U of C situation, mentioned in the episode:

https://www.readthemaple.com/liberal-star-candidate-helped-shut-down-pro-palestine-encampment/

Drug poisoning polycrisis & U of C crackdown, feat. Euan Thomson

Journalist Susan Thompson joins us on the pod with the latest from Valleyview, where the local library is under political siege from a batch of odd characters including a UCP VP of comms and a white nationalist who worked for the local MLA.

Full show notes at https://www.theprogressreport.ca/pod_the_battle_for_the_valleyview_library

Support the Progress Report by donation at https://www.theprogressreport.ca/patrons

Read Susan Thompson on Medium: https://medium.com/@susanvhthompson/valleyview-library-board-rocked-by-controversy-cuts-weekly-staff-budget-c2baab48fde2

The battle for the Valleyview Municipal Library

Dr. Wing Li from Support our Students and Chris Gallaway from Friends of Medicare join us to analyze Alberta's weird, complicated, anti-worker 2025 budget.

Full show notes at https://www.theprogressreport.ca/pod-analyzing-the-2025-budget

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Analyzing Alberta's 2025 budget with Dr. Wing Li and Chris Gallaway

Labour journalist Kim Siever (The Alberta Worker) joins Jim and Jeremy on the pod today to chat about the AHS procurement scandal, the province's ongoing education strike, and his experience working the labour beat here in Alberta.

Links and full show notes for this episode available at https://www.theprogressreport.ca/kim-siever-alberta-worker

The Alberta Worker

After nine years as Progress Alberta's executive director and the editor of the Progress Report, Duncan Kinney is moving on to stabler, more raise-a-family-able things. Join us as we reminisce about some of our greatest hits during Duncan's tenure and talk frankly about the issue of 'activist journalism.'

#DEXIT

Jeremy and Duncan review the state of the ANDP leadership race, offer their predictions, and tell you how they'd fill out their ballots today.

The Gang Gets Electoral

Joel Laforest, policy advisor to Calgary councillor Courtney Walcott, joins us on the pod to go over the politicking around the city's efforts to fix its zoning laws, the housing crisis, and how it all relates to the UCP's Bill 18 and Bill 20.

Housing crisis + UCP power-grab intersect in weeks-long Calgary zoning hearings

In the first of our interviews with Alberta NDP leadership candidates, Duncan chats with Sarah Hoffman. Then, some analysis with Jim.

Show notes and more content, including our ANDP leadership tracker, can be found at our website, The Progress Report [https://www.theprogressreport.ca/]

Sarah Hoffman makes her pitch

Weekly podcast detailing the good and the bad (mostly bad) of Alberta politics. A project of Progress Alberta.