A new Indigenous immersive language program inspired by the Māori communities of New Zealand is looking to help preserve Plains Cree, a dialect of the Cree language. The program, called a "language nest," is a non-classroom space for fluent Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers from the local community to help children learn the Cree language in their formative years.

Dane Skinner, 60, was convicted of fraud over $5,000 and money laundering for a fraudulent investment scheme he ran over five years in central Alberta.

Many Canadians, young and old, have taken a modern twist on the winter village display by building it out of Lego bricks.

Canada’s chief actuary says Alberta would be entitled to interest from the Canada Pension Plan proportional to the money Albertans invested, should the province withdraw from CPP.

A Calgary man who killed his drug-dealing boss pleaded guilty to manslaughter Friday.

After a cold spell earlier this week, Calgary is warming up over the weekend, with a hotter Christmas than the city has seen in more than a decade, forecasted for next week.

The Alberta government says it is developing rules that will shape the future of coal mining in the province, but certain notable projects remain exempt from the new plan.

Numbers give news context, heft, and depth — and 2024 had lots of them. For example, the number of people without stable housing in Edmonton increased by more than 2,000, to 4,697. Meanwhile, a private-sector report called for governments to invest $427 million in the city's downtown, transit ridership rose 12% above pre-pandemic levels, and we learned the city's debt financing for the Yellowhead Trail freeway conversion will grow by $105 million.

As Taproot prepares for a holiday break, we're sharing which numbers might matter most in the years ahead.

0

That's the number Coun. Andrew Knack talked about in a motion that followed council's Dec. 4 approval of a 6.1% property tax increase for 2025. The motion, which Knack worked on with Coun. Tim Cartmell and Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, pitched zero-based budgeting for council's work on budgets for the 2027 to 2030 cycle. Knack said his colleagues are frustrated with the status quo and that this might be the salve.

"I think it's time for a true foundational budget," Knack said during the meeting. "It's not going to be easy, but it's going to allow the next council to fully understand where all of our dollars are going."

Zero-based budgeting starts a budget at zero rather than using a past budget as a starting point. Knack's successful motion means all City of Edmonton departments, agencies, boards, and commissions will present to council before the numbers are crunched for the 2027 to 2030 budget process.

Though Knack talked of going "line by line" through the budget, some question if it's possible. Allan Bolstad, a councillor from 1992 to 2004, wrote that the line-by-line approaches were already tried — and failed. Bolstad said the process is too intensive to be effective.

17

That's how many kilometres of new active transportation routes the city told Taproot it would build in 2024. That came more than a year after Edmonton's city council voted to invest $100 million in active transportation infrastructure. The 2024 promise comprises 10 routes covering 17 kilometres, budgeted in the $100 million pledged in 2022.

The cost of the bike lane investment has roused emotions since 2022, among both those wishing the build-out would accelerate and those wishing it would hit the brakes. In December, during budget adjustment discussions, Coun. Karen Principe introduced a motion to cut $67 million from the $100 million council endorsed in 2022, but it failed.

17

Seventeen is also the number of companies from the Edmonton region that made The Globe and Mail's 2024 list of the 416 fastest-growing in Canada.

Five companies from the region placed in the top 100: Cover All Program, MM Energy, Nanoprecise, Dragon Industrial Services, and Trust Science.

Other recognition came from the Information and Communications Technology Council. The group published a report that calls Edmonton the "backbone" of Alberta's interactive digital media industry. The report says gaming stalwart BioWare has created a "critical mass" of talent that continues to see Edmonton thrive over its 34 years. One challenge to that story, however, was the December story on job losses at Inflexion Games and the closure of Humanoid Origin.

20

That's the number for a bill that the United Conservative Party government introduced in April, and passed in October. While Bill 20 quickly drew heat for its changes to local governance and elections in Alberta, it also gave municipalities the power to offer tax breaks or deferments for up to 15 years on all residential properties.

Another part of the bill was a ban on voting tabulation machines for municipal elections. Many municipalities openly opposed the change, which is set to cost Edmonton $4.8 million extra in 2025.

1,550

Taproot started 2024 by examining the number of shelter spaces available across the city as temperatures plummeted and the City of Edmonton's efforts to remove people from encampments faced legal challenges.

On Jan. 9, the province said that the number of shelter spaces in Edmonton was 1,550. A Jan. 12 Postmedia report, however, suggested it was 1,429. Before Jan. 9, Homeward Trust had a page that allowed people to view the number of available shelter spaces. Then, it vanished. At a press conference on Jan. 12, Jason Nixon, the minister responsible for housing and homelessness, said the province asked Homeward Trust to take its page down because its numbers were wrong.

"They don't have access to the entire shelter system, only the provincial government does, and certainly I think they've done their best," Nixon said. "We're trying to get those numbers up to date. But with the large amount of new shelters that came on, the numbers were off by hundreds of beds."

As of Dec. 19, the province's data reporting page for shelter spaces now lists Edmonton's number at 2,046, with a utilization rate of 89%.

On this day in 1946, a funeral was held in the Freemason Lodge downtown.

The group's history in the area stretched back nearly a century and a half. In 1882, the first Mason lodge in what is now Alberta was founded by 13 members living near Fort Edmonton. It would last about six years before dissolving due to low membership. Other lodges began to form in the 1890s as the region's population continued to grow.

In 1903, construction began on the original Edmonton Mason Hall, on 102 Street NW, south of Jasper Avenue. The upper floors of the building served as the location of the group's meetings and rites, while the first floor was rented out — Alberta College taught its first classes there, and it was later replaced by a cigar factory. A replica of the first Mason Hall still remains in Fort Edmonton Park.

Membership continued to grow through the first decade of the 20th century, and the group soon outgrew the original hall. In 1911, the group sought to fund the construction of an elaborate new hall by selling shares in the new building, but the response was underwhelming. It would take another 19 years before the new hall would begin construction.

When the cornerstone was placed in 1930, it was for a building that matched the Masons's craftsman roots. The new hall was designed by celebrated architect William Blakely, known for buildings that include the Christ Church Anglican Parish and Garneau Theatre (Blakely was a Freemason himself). The four-storey building was finished with brick and artificial stone. The Gothic design gives it a medieval feeling that sets it apart from the other buildings on 100 Avenue NW. Facing the street are two entrances — one for the public, the other for members. On the second storey, facing the street, there are six small alcoves above the windows, which were intended to display statues. The sculptures were ordered, but never actually arrived. To this day, no one — including the Freemasons themselves — knows what they were supposed to depict.

The main floor is dominated by a large auditorium with a sprung dance floor covered in oak. That space was not only for Masonic events, but also to bring rental income to the lodge by booking it for public events. Aside from the offices and meeting areas, the hall boasted the city's first lending library, as well as the first passenger elevator in the province.

Nearly a century after its construction, the Freemasons's Hall is still one of the most striking and intriguing buildings in Edmonton's core. It remains an active meeting place for the city's Masons, we well as a well-used performance and gathering space. Earlier this year, the hall's grand auditorium served as the spot for the first YEG Ballroom event, thought to be the first of its kind in the city.

This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist @revRecluse of @VintageEdmonton.

As of Dec. 31, 2022, there were 13,483 people working for the City of Calgary. That number grew to 15,751 people as of Sept. 30, 2024, according to data provided to CBC News from the city.

Remote-triggered cameras show dog owners are letting their canines loose in green spaces home to coyotes, raccoons and other critters. 

The UCP has created a more generous gift policy and limited freedom of information access. On the horizon: relaxed rules for political aides.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to mix up his front bench today as he continues to face pressure to step down.

Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides says charter schools will become a more established element of the province’s education system.

Some say major changes to the province's current medical assistance in dying model, could put up barriers for vulnerable Albertans who want this treatment.

The Calgary Land Municipal Corporation offered to return, where possible, the engraved bricks that line the surface of Olympic Plaza after public outcry followed the initial announcement the artifacts would be destroyed during the downtown landmark's transformation project.

Right-hander Michael Soroka agreed to a $9 million US contract for the 2025 season with the Washington Nationals, who are in need of pitching as their rebuild continues and hope the 2019 NL all-star can show the form he displayed before two significant leg injuries.

The Alberta government says it has heard back from Canada's chief actuary on its bid to leave the Canada Pension Plan, but there's no estimate on how much the province should get.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) has issued a warning to Calgarians that a person with lab-confirmed measles was in public settings in the city while contagious.

A report on the Alberta government's proposed alignment for Calgary's Green Line light-rail transit project says noise, ease of construction and impact to existing properties need to be studied further if the city moves forward.

Parks Canada says it has secured the first interim housing options for people in Jasper who lost their homes in July’s wildfire that destroyed one-third of structures in the Alberta mountain town.

Alberta's police watchdog says there's no evidence an offence was committed when Mounties used force to arrest Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam outside a Fort McMurray, Alta., casino in 2020.

A third-party review calls the overall response "comprehensive." But some say they're not satisfied with the university's review process.

In a year-end interview with Taproot, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said council's declaration of a housing and houselessness emergency in January led to real change, despite provincial criticism at the time that it was performative.

Council voted 9-4 to declare the emergency, after Sohi introduced the declaration as a motion. Sohi told Taproot that during budget deliberations this fall, as he and council worked behind the scenes to create amendments to the budget adjustment and lower the proposed tax increase, the possibility to cut funding for affordable housing came up.

"We already met our housing targets that we set as part of the capital budget. But there was no one moving (funding reductions) because people recognize that we have declared a housing emergency," Sohi said.

In January, when council made the decision, Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver called the move a "performative declaration." But Sohi compared the housing emergency to when council declared a climate emergency, in 2019, and said it took time for that declaration to be enshrined into the city's processes and policies. "The result wasn't immediate, but now, three or four years later, we are seeing changes happening in our organization and in our decision-making … in a way that without that declaration may not have happened," he said.

The city's updated affordable housing strategy set a goal to create or renovate 2,700 subsidized units by 2026. Sohi said the city is on track to surpass that by the end of 2024.

Meanwhile, the number of Edmontonians who are homeless has increased by nearly 2,000, to 4,697 in the last year, according to Homeward Trust's point-in-time count conducted in September.

Downtown investment

Sohi offered thoughts on the Downtown Investment Plan, co-authored by organizations including BILD Edmonton Metro, the Downtown Revitalization Coalition, and the Edmonton Downtown Business Association. The plan calls for governments to invest $427 million in Edmonton's downtown to improve the public realm, and for the city to offer financial incentives for office-to-residential conversions. But Sohi said it would take too long for these incentives to be paid back through property taxes for them to be viable.

"I don't think it is fair to ask working families and hardworking small businesses to deeply subsidize office conversions, which are very, very expensive to do, where the return on investment will take almost 85 years to recover," he said.

Sohi added that the city has invested close to $2 billion in downtown since 2015.

Support for EMRB

The mayor said he and council are committed to the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board in the wake of the United Conservative Party government's decision to cut the board's funding and make membership voluntary.

"We're going to do whatever we can in our capacity to save the good work and carry on the good work," Sohi said.

The EMRB is a provincially mandated board that is responsible for managing responsible growth in the region. The board sets density targets for all municipalities and approves planning documents like Edmonton's district policy.

"The growth plan dictates how the region grows. Otherwise, it's going to be a free-for-all," Sohi said. "You'll see country residential developments popping up in counties without proper services, or you'll see agricultural land not being protected. So the ramifications are pretty bad if the EMRB is unable to carry on their work."

The EMRB also created a 25-year regional transportation master plan and a regional agriculture plan, which Sohi said is ambitious.

National urban park

Sohi said he is disappointed by progress on the national urban park initiative. "There has been a lot of politics around it."

The Alberta government passed Bill 204 and Bill 18, amendments that grant the province more power over decisions relating to national urban parks.

The bills have complicated an already murky engagement process, the city's website suggests. "Partners have identified a need for greater clarity and understanding of how they should work together during the (national urban park) planning phase and how the Government of Alberta's Bill 204 and Bill 18 will impact the project," the city's website reads.

Parks Canada is engaging with stakeholders, including Indigenous groups, to determine how the park will be governed.

"Developing strong partnerships is critical to the long-term success of the project. This has been our focus over the past several months, resulting in a necessary delay in planning phase activities and engagement," the same city website reads.

Here are opportunities to inform municipal decision-making about recreation, engaging communities, arts and heritage, and more. Please only answer surveys from the municipality where you live.

• Engage and Play: Shaping Public Recreation — The City of Edmonton is working on a sports and recreation plan, which will affect decisions about programs, facilities, and budgeting. Edmontonians are invited to share stories about what they love about sport or recreation in Edmonton, or complete a survey until Dec. 20.
• Business Improvement Areas (BIA) Business Survey — The City of Edmonton is surveying business owners and managers about their perceptions of the 13 BIAs in the city. Business owners can complete the survey until Dec. 31
• Building Relationships to Shape Our City — The City of Edmonton is looking to improve its public engagement process for under-heard or culturally diverse communities. Results will inform future engagement processes and communications. The survey closes Jan. 15.
• Edmonton Cultural Infrastructure Plan — Arts Habitat Edmonton, the Edmonton Arts Council, and the Edmonton Heritage Council are creating Edmonton's first Cultural Infrastructure Plan. It's defined in the city's 10-year arts plan Connections & Exchanges as "a planning, support, and decision framework for arts and heritage spaces that considers community need, the pace of development, displacement, and population growth." Edmontonians can complete a survey to help inform recommendations to council.

More input opportunities

• Until Dec. 20: Passenger Rail Master Plan Survey (Government of Alberta)
• Until Dec. 20: Medical assistance in dying engagement (Government of Alberta)
• Until Dec. 20: Towards 40 Survey — 106 Street NW (City of Edmonton)
• Until Dec. 31: Central Nisku Local Area Redevelopment Plan (Leduc County)
• Until Jan. 5: West Jasper Place Rezoning — 95 Avenue NW (City of Edmonton)
• Until Jan. 5: Strathcona Blok99 Rezoning (City of Edmonton)
• Until Jan. 6: Diamond Estates Park Survey (Leduc County)
• Until Jan. 12: Budget 2025 Consultation (Government of Alberta)
• Until Jan. 15: Land Use Bylaw Redesign (Parkland County)
• Until Jan. 16: Wîhkwêntôwin ᐄᐧᐦᑫᐧᐣᑑᐃᐧᐣ Neighbourhood Renewal (City of Edmonton)

Alberta Children's Hospital has added extra beds amid a surge of children sick with respiratory viruses, which doctors say has once again pushed the Calgary hospital over capacity.

Blitz Day is a tradition for CBC Calgary, during which listeners, viewers and online visitors are invited down to the station for a full day of special radio programming and live music.

Education and migrant rights advocates say they are deeply concerned by reports that children of undocumented workers are being denied the ability to attend school. Concerns were brought forward at an Edmonton Public School Board meeting on Dec. 10 by two youths and members of the public.

Many people in Jasper’s Filipino community are still without a place to live or steady work. Despite her own loss during the wildfire this summer, Clara Adriano is helping others find hope through disaster. It’s that spirit of togetherness that taught her resilience growing up through years of natural disasters in the Philippines.

The U of A will introduce a hiring freeze in the new year, to address budget and funding constraints. Some say students will suffer the most.

Christmas and holiday feature for Pincher Creek and Crowsnest Pass in the Dec. 18 issue of Shootin’ the Breeze.

The post Christmas and Holiday Feature: Pincher Creek & Crowsnest Pass | Dec. 18, 2024 appeared first on Shootin' the Breeze.

Local stories, news, obituaries, jobs, notices and events in Pincher Creek and Crowsnest Pass in the Dec. 18 issue of Shootin’ the Breeze.

The post News and events: Pincher Creek & Crowsnest Pass | Dec. 18, 2024 appeared first on Shootin' the Breeze.

The cost of caring for a pet and a lack of pet-friendly housing is leading to crowded shelters and more pets released into the wild, which council is working to respond to.

Jelisa Maschki was found in medical distress by a passerby on Dec. 9 on the Nose Creek Pathway near the 1100 block of 32nd Avenue N.E.

After reviving the proposed Green Line LRT project and pitching its own design, Alberta's transportation minister is adamant the transit line is still the responsibility of the city, which would be on the hook for any possible construction cost overruns and lawsuits.

Jeffrey Ber, 43, was convicted in September on two counts of fraud over $5,000 and one count of accepting a secret commission from Blackbird Energy.

The sentencing of Ghassan Al-Naami, handed down Wednesday by Court of King's Bench Justice Kent Davidson, comes more than 5½ years after he was arrested and charged over child sexual abuse material found on his laptop.  

Startup company Deep Sky intends to use to the funding on the world's first direct air capture carbon removal test hub and commercialization centre, which it's working on in Innisfail.

The humane society is calling for adopters, foster homes and community donations to ease the strain it's feeling on its resources and capacity

Alberta is aiming for $100 billion worth of artificial intelligence data centre infrastructure built over the next five years through leveraging natural gas. It could represent a big economic opportunity, but it raises questions about the level of emissions such projects would produce.

The vote on Wednesday pits former city councillor Rob Miyashiro for the NDP against current councillor and former police chief John Middleton-Hope for the UCP.

Large portions of Alberta are under a series of weather warnings as winter descends over the province. 

After a client picks the items they want up to a certain amount using a tablet, it gets packaged and brought out to them. The food bank says it's a practical way to approach giving food to those who need it, especially those with dietary restrictions.

A gaming executive says the recent layoffs at Inflexion Games and the full closure of Humanoid Origin have been influenced by investment in gaming companies being scaled back and the ongoing absence of a tax credit program in Alberta.

"It's well known that during the course of the pandemic, interest in gaming skyrocketed, both as a business opportunity and fuelled by people consuming games at home during lockdown," Scott Nye, the chief operating officer of Inflexion, told Taproot. "That led to a significant amount of investment. Those times of expansion, probably, were too aggressive. Now (the industry is) settling back into a more sustainable version of itself."

In October, Inflexion laid off at least 66 employees. The studio was founded by Aaryn Flynn, a former general manager for BioWare, and was originally owned by Improbable and later sold to Tencent.

Weeks later, Humanoid Origin announced it would close and let go at least 53 people. Like Flynn, Humanoid Origin founder Casey Hudson made his name at BioWare with work on blockbuster titles like Mass Effect.

Both studios offered statements on LinkedIn.Inflexion said "the industry is undergoing a period of significant transition." Meanwhile, Humanoid Origin said there are " broader challenges in the industry" that caused the studio to close.

Taproot contacted Humanoid Origin but the company declined to comment for this story.

Nye's assessment of industry woes is echoed by reports that suggest that the global gaming industry has laid off more than 23,000 people over the last two years.

Dorian Rowe, the interim executive director of the Edmonton Screen Industries Office, also sees the trend. The organization is a city-funded entity that supports gaming, film, TV, and broader interactive digital media (often called IDM).

Rowe said the cash contraction in games is in step with the strains on other screen-based industries, but isn't catastrophic.

"I wouldn't characterize it as a burst bubble. It's maybe a bubble that's shrinking a little bit, or maybe coming back to a 2018 or a 2019 level, versus the peak of, let's say, 2021," Rowe told Taproot. "In media in general, but I would say in (the) video game industry for sure, if (you) think that you have a crystal ball on the immediate future of the video game industry or any media industry — good luck … Predicting hits, predicting things that aren't hits, that's always super, super challenging."

Inflexion's debut game, Nightingale, was hyped up to be a hit. In February, it went into early access mode, a stage where studios seek feedback from early adopters to take a viable product to its greatest potential. Several updates later (with the latest on Dec. 17), sales have not been quite what the studio hoped for.

"The game didn't meet some of the financial numbers that we needed it to meet. You can't hide behind that, there's a reason why we had to go through that restructuring," Nye said. "At the same time, the update that we were able to produce and push live to players in September, that was a fundamental change in how players experienced the first 10, 20-plus hours of Nightingale (that) completely changed the game."

Nye added that review scores are trending upward on Steam, the giant online gaming marketplace where Nightingale is sold. Steam's user satisfaction assessment on Dec. 16 rates 416 recent reviews as "very positive" and the grand total of 13,253 as "mixed."

But it's more than just industry trends and sales metrics that pose challenges for game studios in Edmonton — or Alberta. Nye said Alberta lacks incentives that British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and other provinces have. That's partly because the interactive digital media tax credit, instituted in 2018 by the Alberta New Democratic Party government, was swiftly suspended when Jason Kenney became premier for the United Conservative Party in 2019.

Nate Glubish, the minister for technology and innovation, was instructed to propose a new version of the credit by now-Premier Danielle Smith in 2022. No new credit has been implemented yet.

"Those tax credits being in place, that is the fundamental reason why those jurisdictions are succeeding and have the more well-developed ecosystems in place that provide a softer landing pad when you see the times that our industry is going through today," Nye said. "Industry was strongly opposed to (Alberta's IDM tax credit) being taken away. And while there certainly have been indications and promises and commitments made in the last two years, certainly two years ago, they never came to fruition."

Inflexion makes use of tax credits in B.C. and Quebec because the studio employs people there. It's easier to land after a layoff in places like those, Nye said, because workers can "go across the street to work somewhere else," which is a "very limited" option in Edmonton.

Rowe with the ESIO said the organization is working on "new programs" for 2025, but could not announce details yet.

While the Green Line LRT project feels like a train that may never leave the station, Calgarians who have been forced to make sacrifices for this project are feeling ripped off.

Recent research looking at five major Calgary shopping centres advises heading to malls early in the week, and in the middle of the day, to avoid big crowds.

An association that represents public school boards in Alberta says federal funding delays are putting the education of Indigenous children at risk and have already led to the layoffs of dozens of educational assistants in central Alberta.

CBC’s local podcast This is Edmonton looks at how people are fighting food insecurity in their communities.

Taylor Roan, 27, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to two counts of manslaughter in the 2022 deaths of Trevor Dendy and Nathan Ward.

The City of Calgary says the province's revised Green Line LRT alignment would cost $7.5 billion, rather than the $6.2 billion figure both the city's previously approved plan and the new provincial plan suggest.