Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is defending a nearly 23 per cent increase to her office's budget, saying it's coming at the expense of the Energy Ministry as her office assumes some formal and financial responsibility for promoting the province's oil and gas industry.

This is Edmonton podcast looks at the implications of a leader with local connections, and how a prime minister from Calgary, or Edmonton, could change our relationship with Ottawa.

The CPS budget shortfall is the result of revenue loss brought on by new provincial rules limiting the use of photo radar.

Residential property taxes are set to increase by 8.9 per cent this year, despite what the city is calling the lowest municipal property tax rate hike of all major cities in Canada.

Since 2018, the Edmonton Mountain Bike Alliance (EMBA) has been planning the dedicated bike space outfitted with trails, an asphalt track, and jumps in Queen Elizabeth Park. With a $613,000 grant from the provincial government, the project is now fully funded and hopes to open in spring or summer 2026.

The City of Edmonton is set to replace 37 high-floor LRT vehicles by 2029 that run on the Capital and Metro lines, including some that have been in use since the system opened in 1978. One transit expert said, given the state of the world and the shortlist of options, there's now a clear best choice.

In February, the city provided its shortlist of three vendors to contract to replace the trains — Siemens Mobility Limited from Germany, the Hyundai Rotem Corporation from South Korea, and Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles S.A. from Spain.

Until United States President Donald Trump threatened Canada with tariffs, Reece Martin, a Toronto-based transit enthusiast who talks all things transit on his popular YouTube channel and as a writer, told Taproot that he might have suggested Siemens as the best option.

But because Siemens builds its LRT vehicles in the U.S., Hyundai, which builds its trains in Korea, is potentially best fit for the contract, he said.

"I don't want to give a company that's building stuff in America money today," Martin said. "Edmonton has just ordered some low-floor vehicles from Hyundai for the Valley Line, for the second phase, and Vancouver has some trains from Hyundai. They've been very reliable. They're basic, but high quality."

Regardless of which trains are chosen, the Capital and Metro lines are overdue for new vehicles. Edmonton Transit Service branch manager, Carrie Hotton-MacDonald, previously told Taproot that some parts are no longer manufactured for these trains. The transit service has resorted to asking Calgary for spare parts from its own high-floor trains and making its own from scratch.

The city expects to awards a contract worth up to $240 million for 37 replacement LRT vehicles by late 2025 and potentially add up to 16 more vehicles to meet needs for planned line extensions. The vehicles should arrive in 2028 and 2029. The trains being replaced are Siemens–Duewag U2 models, and some have been running since 1978. The 57 newer Siemens SD-160 trains will not be replaced.

Edmonton is somewhat unique in that it now has both high- and low-floor LRT in operation. In the past, the city has explained the appeal of low-floor LRT technology, including that it's quieter, its stations can be built closer together with less infrastructure, and can be more easily integrated into communities.

As low-floor LRT gains popularity here (and in Calgary, with the Green Line) Martin said he's heard some suggest high-floor LRT is obsolete. That's wrong, he said. He recently wrote a post that outlined the continued relevance of high-floor LRT, and uses Edmonton and Calgary as examples of where it works.

"It just doesn't make sense for (high floor) to go away," Martin said. "It would be like saying 'Tables are going away or chairs are going away.' It's a simpler technology, and there's already hundreds of stations around the world and pieces of infrastructure that are designed to use it."

Edmonton doesn't believe high-floor LRT is obsolete, either, given this order and the work to extend both the Capital and Metro lines. Construction on the first of two phases for the Capital Line South Extension is underway and estimated to be complete in four to five years. The Metro Line Northwest extension has three phases. The first, to build and operate NAIT/Blatchford Market station, is complete; the remaining two phases are not yet at the construction stage and do not have an estimated completion date.

But why Hyundai over Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles S.A. from Spain? Martin said Hyundai's reputation is a little better than CAF's, though any of the three LRT vendors could manufacture the trains Edmonton needs. Still, choosing trains that aren't from Siemens will require adjustment, because Edmonton and Calgary have only ordered high-floor vehicles from Siemens, Martin said.

For the first time, supporters of the Valleyview Public Library have heard directly from the town’s mayor and council about a contentious move to eventually close the existing facility and relocate it in a yet-to-be-built K-12 school. 

Alberta's energy minister says the government will not draw on the public purse to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells.

Edmonton police Const. Hunter Robinz pleaded guilty last year to one count of breach of trust, admitting that he used his position of authority to pursue contact with eight women who were victims of crime or in need of police help.

Jurors presiding over a sexual assault trial heard from a Calgary woman who testified that what began as consensual sex on a first date with a police officer "turned dark." 

Alberta Health Services says a case of measles has been confirmed in a visitor to the Taber area in the southeastern part of the province, and the person has been in public settings while infectious, including the Calgary airport.

CBC News has obtained documents that lay out extensive government influence over AHS contracts with private surgery clinics and more.

Edmonton city council is looking at how to make transit stations safer. Council will vote on a motion to replace security guards with more peace officers. Anne Stevenson is the councillor for Ward O-day'min, which covers the downtown area.

As the trade war between Canada and the United States drags on, Edmonton charities and other organizations that work with vulnerable clients are worrying about trickle-down impacts on people in need.

With a federal election call likely in a matter of days, no political party has nominated candidates to all 343 ridings, with Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberals behind all the other national parties.

As concerns about measles grow, and case counts tick up, health-care workers are preparing for a surge and pleading with Albertans to ensure they're fully vaccinated.

CUPE Local 40 members who work in Calgary public schools have reached an agreement with the school board that, if ratified, would bring them back to work on Friday.

Edmonton city administration is exploring rezoning in Garneau to allow for more housing on a single lot located at 10948th 89th Avenue.

Dave's Hot Chicken, a Nashville-style chicken chain that started in California, is opening on March 21 near MacEwan University and NorQuest College — despite other quick-serve American joints picking outlying areas of the city to test the market in Edmonton.

"I think that the brand will lend itself to open multiple locations in the Edmonton area," Blair Bitove, whose Bite Brands, a private equity and management firm from Toronto that oversees Canadian locations for Dave's, told Taproot. "I think our branding, our customer, is a younger demographic (than other chains)."

Downtown offers up that younger demographic for Dave's. MacEwan's latest annual report said the school is on track to reach 30,000 students by 2030 and some call the area the education district.

The decision to open Dave's at 10832 102 Avenue NW, which used to be a 7-Eleven, was partly because of demographics and partly because the landlord was receptive to Bitove's plans for ostentatious visuals on the building's exterior.

The location will put Dave's just a few blocks from a Popeyes Louisiana Chicken, but Bitove said she isn't afraid of a little clucking competition. "Funny enough, a Chick-fil-A opened down the street from us in our Burlington, (Ontario), location and our sales have increased there," Bitove said. "I think that there's a lot of people that are really into chicken right now. We have not strayed away from being near a competitor — if anything, we think there's a reason they're in that area."

Chick-fil-A, which The Advocate reports has "a long anti-LGBTQ+ history" yet survived the chicken sandwich wars of 2019, has opted for locations at South Edmonton Common and West Edmonton Mall over downtown Edmonton.

Dave's only other Canadian locations are in Ontario, and include busy urban spots like Yonge Street in downtown Toronto.

Dave's started in 2017 as a stand in Los Angeles. The company said last year it would have 300 locations by 2025. Bitove plans to open 25 to 30 locations in Western Canada and Ontario over the next few years, before expanding further. That may seem ambitious, but Bitove is confident in the product. Dave's founding chef, Dave Kopushyan, was trained by Thomas Keller at The French Laundry, a restaurant that has three Michelin stars. Bitove said that means a higher standard of quality than your average fast-casual chain.

"They created this brand, trying to cater to their friends with the unique aspect of the chef quality, so you can really taste that in our food," she said. "We use the best quality part of the chicken."

Vancouverite Stefan Safrata of Marcus & Millichap helped secure the former 7-Eleven building for the new Dave's location, along with Avison Young and the Alldritt Group.

Safrata told Taproot that his work as a tenant representative involves helping brands grow. "I've been spending the last 10 years of my career focused on tenant-rep, and in doing so have worked with a number of brands to help them expand to 50-plus locations," Safrata told Taproot. "An example would be Noodlebox."

Safrata's work with Noodlebox helped the business grow from eight locations to more than 65 across Canada, including three in the Edmonton region.

Chicken options are numerous downtown and include local, independent businesses. One is Rob's Famous Fried Chicken, which was opened last year by the brothers behind Panini's Italian Cucina, which has further launched two ghost kitchens. Another is Seoul Fried Chicken, which has taken root at the former Blue Plate Diner space and found further footing outside the inner city. Plus, Northern Chicken is back on the first Wednesday of each month as a pop-up at Hayloft Steak + Fish after shuttering its two locations in the wake of the pandemic.

Rural Municipalities of Alberta has shared recommendations in a report from a new wildfire working group. The report outlines what's needed from higher levels of government to help face growing wildfire threats. Kara Westerlund, president of the RMA, joined CBC’s Edmonton AM to discuss what the report recommends as the 2025 wildfire season begins.

Whether you’re heading to a Flames game at the Saddledome or an event at the BMO Centre, officials are warning that construction is ramping up quickly and it’ll likely have an impact on your journey to the area.

When Audra Lynne Symbalisty used the phrase “till death do us part,” she was in a gas station parking lot in Carstairs, trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband on the couple’s 18th wedding anniversary. 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says a government led by him would repeal both the federal consumer carbon tax and standards for pricing greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial emitters.

Minetta Norrie, 34, died on Friday after an avalanche was triggered while she was backcountry skiing in Kananaskis, in an area off of Highway 742 near Mount Black Prince.

Confirmed cases of measles in the Edmonton region have public health officials issuing a warning about the potential risk of exposure. 

After five years, Big Shiny Takes has come to an end. Some are calling it the “Great Canadian Podcast.” Eric, Marino and I recorded one last episode, in which we reminisce with a little help from some friends.

Speaking of podcasts, I went on Blueprints of Disruption to discuss my two-part investigation into the University of Calgary’s decision to quickly call the police to dismantle its pro-Palestine encampment in May, and the UCP government, Calgary police and university administration’s combined efforts to ensure nobody would be held accountable.

For the Progress Report, I covered a Court of King’s Bench decision ordering an oil and gas company to stop operating an illegal Bitcoin mine on land it leased for natural gas production.

At Canada’s National Observer, I reported on Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s decision to co-headline a fundraiser for PragerU in Florida this month alongside Ben Shapiro, who has suggested Canada should become the next Puerto Rico.

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The city says it intends "to research and ascertain market capability in establishing an external, public-facing online store for Calgary Transit related merchandise."

Documents obtained by CBC News show that a private medical testing company contracted by the Alberta government became insolvent and requested an additional $70 million in funding, which was denied. DynaLife's owners soon asked the province to buy the company, which it ultimately did at a cost of almost $100 million.

The shelter has leaned on placing dogs in foster care, and a temporary "sleepover" program, as it struggles to maintain space for the animals.

More than six months after the devastating wildfire ravaged Jasper, Alberta, many residents are still struggling to return to their homes, facing a housing crisis magnified by the destruction. 

With major Canadian energy companies advocating for building a CO2 pipeline in Alberta, the CBC went to Satartia to learn first-hand about the possible risks when a CO2 pipeline runs through a community.

The union representing thousands of education support workers across Alberta has reached a tentative deal with the Edmonton Public, Fort McMurray Public and Fort McMurray Catholic school districts.

Worries around measles are growing across Alberta. There are reports of new cases in the northern Alberta's Fort Vermilion, following reports of the virus emerging in Calgary.

After a lengthy meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s top trade officials on Thursday, Canadian representatives say they have a clearer understanding of the rationale behind Trump’s insistence on tariffs — not just on Canada but on the whole world.

Alberta Health Services is warning the public about a possible exposure to measles after a case was confirmed in the Calgary area.

Despite calling for its demise for years, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she isn't phased by the new prime minister's move to kill the consumer carbon levy.

First in series of new Macewan residences will open this fall while a 200-bed Concordia residence is expected to open to students in January 2027.

Watch live coverage of the men's and women's U Sports basketball championships from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Starting this summer, the city will remove driving lanes or parking from some busy streets so it can install dedicated lanes to give buses priority over other vehicles. One of the bus routes will be on 101st Street southbound, approaching downtown. Neighbouring businesses aren’t too happy.

The emphasis on climate action and transitioning to cleaner energy has waned in recent years as more emphasis is being placed on energy security and affordability. And that was before Donald Trump returned to the White House.

RCMP say at least one person is missing after an avalanche in the area of the Lake Louise Ski Resort on Friday.

An outbreak in the community of John D'Or Prairie, which is about 575 kilometres north of Edmonton and part of the Little Red River Cree Nation, is being investigated.

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Chris Spearman — Water for Food Spokesperson

The post Water for Food urges Ottawa to stop Alberta coal mining appeared first on Shootin' the Breeze.

Mountain safety officials in Banff National Park and Kananaskis Country are among those putting out warnings about elevated avalanche danger.

Mark Carney was sworn in today as Canada’s 24th prime minister and he comes as somewhat of a blank slate.

The former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and chair of Brookfield Asset Management, is the first Canadian prime minister to have never held elected office, leaving him without a voting record in parliament that might give some hints as to where he stands on key issues.

But based on his leadership platform, public pronouncements and what he’s left unsaid, we can reasonably infer that Carney is a ‘90s-style business Liberal in the mould of Jean Chretien or Paul Martin.

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There’s a reason Conservative former prime minister Stephen Harper sought to recruit Carney as his finance minister in 2012, or so Carney says, and it’s certainly not because Carney is a progressive in any form.

He’s a “technocrat on steroids,” McGill University political scientist Daniel Beland told Al Jazeera’s Canadian correspondent, Jillian Kestler-D’Amours, “a consummate insider and a consummate elite,” in the words of .

We know from Carney’s victory speech, delivered after winning a resounding 86% of the leadership vote, that he plans to “immediately” eliminate the “divisive” consumer carbon tax and reversing a planned modest increase to the capital gains tax.

During the campaign, he pledged to increase military spending to 2% of GDP by 2030—two years earlier than former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s goal but three years later than Defence Minister Bill Blair’s.

Carney has kept Blair as defence minister, as well as Mélanie Joly at Global Affairs Canada and Patty Hajdu at Indigenous Services Canada.

Chrystia Freeland, who placed second in the Liberal leadership race with a pitiful 8% of the vote, was appointed transportation and internal trade minister. The new finance minister, a position Freeland occupied before her dramatic resignation in December, is François-Philippe Champagne.

Carney downsized Cabinet by a third—from 37 ministers under Trudeau to 24—so that it could be “focused on things that matter most to Canadians.”

Within this context, the rebranding of former labour minister Steve McKinnon as minister of jobs and families is instructive.

“The former emphasizes the worker, and the latter emphasizes what capitalists take from the worker,” wrote long-time Liberal in his newsletter.

As he was preparing to enter the race in December, Carney penned a Globe and Mail op-ed outlining his “New Year’s resolutions” for Canada.

Consisting mostly of platitudes (“Embrace change”), there was one resolution that does provide a hint as to approach towards governance:

Enforce real rules on government spending. Canadians must be confident that their tax dollars are being spent wisely. Governments can’t give into reflex spending that treats the symptoms of our problems, rather than curing the disease. But we also cannot slash our way to prosperity. We need a government that keeps its word to spend less, so we can invest more [emphasis added].

“Spend Less. Invest More” is one five sections of Carney’s platform. “In recent years, the federal government has been spending too much,” read the first words of that section.

Focusing on excessive spending and not insufficient revenue is a choice. which is furthered when Carney pledges to focus on “reining in wasteful and ineffective government spending” and delivering income tax cuts, “so that Canadians can keep more of their hard-earned money and better cope with the higher cost of living.”

Carney said his intention is to run a deficit to “invest and grow” Canada’s economy, but only for capital projects, which he said would “catalyze many multiples of private dollars.”

Operational spending, meaning the services government actually provides, will be balanced, meaning cut, over the next three years—a pledge which he appears to have walked back a bit.

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Another platform plank, dubbed “Creating One Canadian Economy,” focuses on eliminating provincial trade barriers, which has been all the rage in elite circles since President Donald Trump decided to effectively shred the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement.

In February, then-internal trade minister Anita Anand, whom Carney made minister of innovation, science and industry, announced the removal of half of existing internal trade barriers, but good luck finding out what exactly those are.

“Policy barriers to selling Canadian goods and services across the country are so few that you can list them on a paper napkin,” writes Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives senior researcher Stuart Trew in The Breach.

“What these corporate-backed groups really mean when they talk about removing internal trade barriers is dismantling regulations that protect workers, consumers, the environment, and nascent industries.”

Carney’s rigid deference to market logic is further reflected in the platform plank that deals with housing, which pledges to build four million homes “over the next several years.”

He doesn’t say how many need to be affordable, let alone provide a metric for affordability, making it difficult to see how his plan is any different from the status quo.

“Canada faces an urgent housing crisis. We simply do not have enough homes. This is our time to build,” the platform reads, adopting the view shared by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and Trudeau that a lack of affordable housing is nothing more than a basic issue of supply and demand.

Pledging to “supercharge” the building of homes, Carney vowed to block municipal or provincial “tax or regulatory measures that impede building the homes that Canadians need.”

He said his government will use federal infrastructure funding to lower development fees, which “unfairly increase housing costs and create barriers to building new homes.”

On affordable housing specifically, Carney pledges to increase access to Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation grants and low-interest loans to affordable housing providers, but doesn’t provide any numbers.

He does raise the prospect of expanding the $4.5-billion Rapid Housing Initiative, which provided funding to convert under-used buildings into low-income housing.

According to economist Marc Lee, this was one of the more successful Trudeau-era affordable housing programs.

Carney has been conspicuously silent on Indigenous issues, journalist Karyn Pugliese notes in a story for APTN News.

The only mention of First Nations, Métis or Inuit people in his leadership platform comes in his aforementioned housing section, in which he vaguely vows to partner with Indigenous communities “to address housing availability, safety, and affordability by advancing solutions that respond to local priorities across urban, rural, and northern communities, and support the extraordinary leadership and innovation already underway.”

In her APTN piece, Pugliese notes that Carney refused a request for a one-on-one interview with the Indigenous broadcaster and was the only leadership candidate not to provide a written response to a six-question survey on Indigenous issues sent to each contender.

When an APTN reporter asked Carney specifically about Mi’kmaq fishing rights in the Maritimes, he responded that he’s spoken to Mi’kmaq MP Jaimie Battiste (Sydney—Victoria), who dropped out of the leadership race to endorse Carney’s campaign, about the need for child welfare reform.

This lack of attention to Indigenous issues led Javin Ames-Sinclair of the Zagime Anishinabek First Nation in Treaty 4 to cast his leadership ballot for Karina Gould, who placed third with little more than 3% support.

Ames-Sinclair told APTN:

All I’m hearing is economic development. Economic reconciliation is incredibly important, but there’s way more to it than that. And I want someone in my country who carves that space, knows the files, knows the things that are important to our people, and I just don’t see that drive and that vision from anybody else on the slate.

I actually cried thinking about the future because I think that Trudeau really was an ally and he had a lot of drive. And I think the way that Mark and Crystia are speaking about Indigenous reconciliation, in general, it is just not what I would expect.

Indigenous people are, of course, not monolithic in their views. Some see Carney’s hyper-focus on economic issues as an asset.

“ He’s an economic, I wouldn’t go as far as say genius, but that’s the word that comes to mind at the time, at this moment. He knows more economics than anybody else,” Métis Association of British Columbia VP Earl Belcourt told Pugliese.

Climate is supposed to be Carney’s passion. Beginning in 2020, he served as the UN special envoy on climate action and finance, and has been a staunch proponent of environmental sustainability goals in finance.

Yet like former Alberta premier Jason Kenney, Carney’s first act as prime minister was to eliminate the consumer carbon tax. (This is not the only similarity between Kenney and Carney.)

There are plenty of critiques of carbon taxation as a market-based solution to a market-created problem, but that’s not what Carney, a long-time supporter of the policy, is saying.

The section of Carney’s platform dubbed “A New Climate” plan, which is the shortest by far, notes that the carbon tax has been “too divisive.”

Carney’s platform pledges a “new approach that leaves Canadians better off, while reducing our emissions,” which will “place more of the burden on big polluters.”

An accompanying news release provided more details, including tightening Canada’s Output-Based Pricing System for industrial emitters to “provide policy certainty for companies and investors to drive investment to the lowest carbon opportunities.”

Perhaps the most promising aspect of Carney’s climate plan is the adoption of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism—a fancy way of saying a tariff on emissions-intensive products from countries with weak climate policy frameworks.

Carney’s shuffling of former environmental activist Steven Guilbeault out of the environment portfolio indicates a broader break with the policies pursued by Trudeau, which drove the oil and gas industry bonkers, despite being remarkably conciliatory.

In his capacity as UN special envoy, Carney endorsed a November 2023 report by the Energy Transitions Commission, which argued that 65% of oil and gas reserves “must be left in the ground,” but now he sings a different tune.

"We as a nation need to build some new pipelines for conventional energy," Carney told the CBC in February, pledging to accelerate the approval of new pipelines, which would likely mean the repeal of Trudeau’s Impact Assessment Act.

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Notably absent from Carney’s public pronouncements is a position on the draft oil and gas emissions cap, which would be the world’s first if successfully implemented.

On March 12, the Parliamentary Budget Office concluded it would permit industry to increase production, but not as much as it would without the cap in place, representing “close to historical highs.”

The general thrust of Carney’s climate vision is a more collaborative, rather than punitive, approach, which does not bode well for the emissions cap’s future.

As the UN climate envoy, Carney helped establish the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which seeks to work with banks to pursue investment policies consistent with the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

The fate of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance he heralded as UN climate envoy, which seeks to work with banks to pursue investment policies consistent with the goal of net zero by 2050.

Since the beginning of this year, Canada’s six biggest banks have left the alliance, following the exodus of the biggest American banks. Remaining members are now musing about whether to ditch their commitment to limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius altogether.

The fate of the alliance reveals the severe limitations of Carney’s preferred approach to climate.

Many Canadian progressives are understandably breathing a sigh of relief now that the Liberals have elected a leader who might actually be able to defeat Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and his noxious brand of politics in this year’s election (although I remain doubtful).

But with Carney’s exceptionally elite-driven, business-friendly brand of liberalism, I suspect some might come to yearn for the days when Trudeau pledged to “grow the economy from the heart outwards.”

Edmonton police have charged a 32-year-old man with several sexual offences against a minor after the suspect allegedly lured a 14-year-old boy through Snapchat and sexually assaulted him. 

The provincial government laid out how it plans to spend funding for transportation infrastructure throughout the next three years, with major projects highlighted, such as Highway 686, Deerfoot Trail and reaching the Calgary airport via LRT.

In its statement of defence, the health authority says former CEO Athana Mentzelopoulos was terminated because of her 'own inadequacies' in performing her job.

Prime Minister Mark Carney wasted little time in removing a potent point of attack for the Conservatives in recent years: the consumer carbon tax.

The schools in Calgary, Airdrie and Chestermere are still in the planning and design stages — meaning they're still at least two years away from opening, according to Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides.