📣 The Tyee is hiring! 📣
When the cards fall on Oct. 19 for the B.C. election, we’re not slowing down.
Join our team this November as a full-time labour reporter.
And share this with anyone you think might be fit for the role!
#CdnMedia
#bclab
#canlab
The risk of a child dying from COVID is 6 to 9 times higher than the risk of a child dying from influenza, and kids can face long-term serious medical conditions even after initially only experience “mild” COVID symptoms.
Cholera didn’t stop ravaging the working poor of Europe until engineers improved water treatment and wastewater disposal, robbing it of its breeding ground.
The point is, we can’t expect a pandemic to just end in the very environment it thrived.
“As a journalist, my job is not to sugar coat reality, cheer lead for the status quo or defend the powerful.”
This week, a Tyee article went viral, accused of hyperbole and fear mongering. Today, Andrew Nikiforuk addresses the critics.
#COVID19
“I’m going to be blunt. As a resident of Alberta and someone trained to recognize threats to democracy, I have an obligation to be.
“The UCP is an authoritarian force in Alberta. Full stop.
“I don’t come by this argument lightly.”
“I’m going to be blunt. As a resident of Alberta and someone trained to recognize threats to democracy, I have an obligation to be.
“The UCP is an authoritarian force in Alberta. Full stop.
“I don’t come by this argument lightly.”
@DrJaredWesley
writes.
“I’m going to be blunt. As a resident of Alberta and someone trained to recognize threats to democracy, I have an obligation to be.
“The UCP is an authoritarian force in Alberta. Full stop.
“I don’t come by this argument lightly.”
@DrJaredWesley
writes.
.
@paulwillcocks
: No one should be “happy” a 20-year-old suspect has been shot dead.
Especially a Conservative politician who supposedly believes in the rule of law and sanctity of human life.
#USPoli
#CanPoli
#TrumpRally
Experts have warned for years that disinformation campaigns directed by foreign actors could dangerously pollute democracies and polarize debate with low-cost internet campaigns.
Despite the rising number of COVID cases, overwhelmed hospitals and the tremendous long-term toll on individuals, prevention efforts have been abandoned.
Andrew Nikiforuk writes.
#NEW
: In his law society hearing Wednesday, Alberta Justice Minister Tyler Shandro appeared to seriously breach the personal privacy of a witness.
It was unnoticed by members of the tribunal and Shandro’s lawyer.
Tyee reporter Charles Rusnell caught it.
“I’m going to be blunt. As a resident of Alberta and someone trained to recognize threats to democracy, I have an obligation to be.
“The UCP is an authoritarian force in Alberta. Full stop.
“I don’t come by this argument lightly.”
In the week when Postmedia endorsed Andrew Scheer because “he is a man for whom what you see is what you get,” the Conservatives were further exposed for dirty tricks and a mounting number of campaign falsehoods.
#elxn2019
#cdnpoli
“It’s almost as though they’re trying to test how little information they can release to the public and maintain trust.”
Our reporter
@amandajfollett
set out to investigate outbreak numbers. What she found was a labyrinth in B.C.'s
#FOI
system.
The COVID pandemic will not disappear until engineers address the niche the virus favours, says MIT nuclear engineer Charles Forsberg: dirty air in crowded indoor spaces, a product of modern buildings designed to save energy.
“Canada appears to be doubling down on the colonial relationship, instead of making things right.
“Meanwhile, the blueprints for change exist and have been carefully charted for decades.”
Danielle Smith said during the Rachel Notley years, Alberta lost 183,000 jobs.
But economist Trevor Tombe confirmed that in fact jobs grew by 42,400 during Notley's time as premier.
Andrew Nikiforuk: Thirty years ago, if a premier was shown to have spoken with a criminally charged extremist, and she told him she was discussing his case with officials, that politician would be hounded from office.
But not in Alberta today.
Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has maintained schools are not a meaningful site of transmission.
Despite the release of her own study last year showing 80% of kids and youth in the province have contracted COVID at least once. 🦠
#BCCovid
“It is time to take our province back,” proclaims Danielle Smith’s campaign website. Since the UCP has been in power for three years, it's a fair question to ask exactly who Alberta will be repossessed from.
Mike Roman was indicted in Georgia along Trump for allegedly conspiring to steal the U.S. election. Why should Canadians care?
His resume includes preaching to Conservative party insiders and working with former PM Harper.
#USPoli
We interrupt this public mood of denial: Although many Canadians act as though the pandemic has ended,
#COVID19
continues to evolve at an amazing pace with devastating consequences.
Andrew Nikiforuk on why masks and air filters remain vital. 🦠
Yesterday, 215 pairs of shoes were placed on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery as a memorial to the latest, shocking reminder of the cruelty wrought by colonial institutions.
Getting
#COVID19
can result in blood clots, kidney failure, brain damage and more.
The current fashionable dogma of a COVID infection as inevitable and even beneficial is an outright form of malpractice. Andrew Nikiforuk explains.
.
@djclimenhaga
: Just me? Or are other Albertans unnerved by how after Premier Smith mused about how hard it is for the UCP to get its paws on our Canada Pension Plan funds, her energy minister ruminated about how the oil industry needs our help?
When asked for comment on his past interactions with far-right influencer Lauren Southern, Conservative Party of BC executive director Angelo Isidorou responded on X — and attacked The Tyee.
#bcpoli
What sort of politician undermines a booming industry anyways? Looks like while the rest of the world gets busy (and possibly rich) building renewable energy, Alberta will sit this one out, Lisa Young writes.
No Premier
@jkenney
,
@Tommy_Slick
doesn’t report for us (unfortunately). But if asking tough and fair questions “sounds like you’re reporting for The Tyee,” we’re honoured. Here are some of the people who DO report for The Tyee:
@660NEWS
@TheTyee
For Kenney’s full answer to
@Tommy_Slick
’s question on an Alberta transition, it’s here. The weird questioning a reporter’s Calgary-ness is a small part of a broader, more typical Kenney answer in defence of oil sector. (h/t
@maxfawcett
)
Andrew Scheer’s climate policy has 60 pages, 16 of which are filled with big photos of Scheer — looking at corn, looking at carrots, holding a crab, throwing a rock into a lake — and no plan to address the climate crisis, writes Paul Willcocks.
#cdnpoli
Protect Our Province BC has argued for some time now that there is functionally no public health in B.C.
As if to highlight the point, the province just dropped the requirement for health-care workers to wear masks around sick patients.
The COVID pandemic will not disappear until engineers address the niche the virus favours, says MIT nuclear engineer Charles Forsberg: dirty air in crowded indoor spaces, a product of modern buildings designed to save energy.
“Our public health officials gambled with the future and chose a fantasy world instead.
“Now COVID has become a runaway train with unknown biological consequences.”
”Kenney’s decision to abandon Albertans, Florida-style, to the unpredictable evolution of a novel virus defies not only basic science but every conservative tenet of what good governance means.”
Andrew Nikiforuk writes.
A young surgeon is suing Alberta Health Services, alleging executives strung him along for two years when they had no intention of hiring him for the job he was offered and was specially trained for at the University of Alberta.
@charlesrusnell
reports.
The Tyee did expand on and clarify certain claims that got misconstrued on social media, or were initially unclear.
For example: We clarified evolving variants can damage “vital organs in the body” as opposed to “any organ,” to be more precise.
“We have seven health-care authorities with 64 vice-presidents with the average salary of $400,000 per year. The red tape is phenomenal. If we eliminated 64 of those VPs tomorrow the quality of care wouldn’t decrease. It might actually get better.”
The COVID pandemic will not disappear until engineers address the niche the virus favours, says MIT nuclear engineer Charles Forsberg: dirty air in crowded indoor spaces, a product of modern buildings designed to save energy.
Eleven Indigenous academics stand in solidarity with Jody Wilson-Raybould after her resignation from cabinet — while calling out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Liberal insiders.
Read their full statement here.
#cdnpoli
#snclavalin
People like Amber Heard and Evan Rachel Wood are wealthy, white, well-supported. If they’re subjected to almost nuclear-level attacks on their personal lives, professions, families and friends, what would less powerful women have to contend with?
More than 30 per cent of federal inmates are Indigenous, the highest level in decades. Yet Indigenous people make up five per cent of the Canadian population.
It’s impossible to ignore O’Toole’s implicit racism.
David Suzuki: Indigenous people’s perspectives are seen as an obstacle to extraction.
And yet, they are the only group with a track record of living in balance with the environment for thousands of years.
Alberta owns a new record.
The province is home to an abandoned gas well that leaks methane, an explosive
#GreenhouseGas
, into the atmosphere at the highest rate ever recorded in North America.
Andrew Nikiforuk reports.
About one million infections occur every week and this translates like clockwork into more than 1,000 deaths per week from COVID-19 in Canada.
Ultimately these infections will result in more cases of long COVID in both younger and older populations.
Andrew Nikiforuk: Media has focused on Danielle Smith’s character — how she soft-pedalled Putin, praised anti-vaxxers, championed odd medicines.
It failed to grasp right-wing populists are popular not despite, but because of, the bullshit they spew.
.
@paulwillcocks
: I’ve been a newspaper publisher, editor, reporter and am co-ordinating The Tyee election coverage with a great team.
I have never wanted my media outlet to become the story.
But that’s what happened, due to the Conservatives’ tactics.
“We’re not protesting. We’re just living on our territory.”
Members of a Gitxsan wilp installed a gate in May to prevent B.C. from logging their
#OldGrowth
. It’s working.
Poilievre’s “demonizing opponents, intimidating journalists, disrespecting institutions, politicizing the rights of the vulnerable and undermining truth are warning signs for democratic erosion,” writes Christopher Holcroft.
A top U.S. epidemiologist has pierced the silence about COVID’s deeply destructive long tail.
“If we learn one thing from this pandemic, we must recognize ‘pandemics disable people.’”
His testimony deserves a broad audience, writes Andrew Nikiforuk. 🦠
The man who verbally attacked and intimidated Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Friday told The Tyee he’s proud of his behaviour and unconcerned by public condemnation.
Nurses call for defunding of police services, reallocation of funds into trauma-informed and culturally safe crisis de-escalation supports, alongside social, health and housing systems that improve community health.
Tyler Nielsen has had no traffic tickets in his five years living in B.C.
But after a video he took reopened a probe into police conduct, he’s been pulled over six times in 18 months — with no resulting tickets or charges.
“I have never in my life seen a tree that big on a truck.”
The photograph got 15,000 shares and some called it fake. It’s real — and for many, it became a symbol of the ongoing battle over
#OldGrowth
logging in B.C.
@A_MacLeod_Tyee
reports.
#BCPoli
Danielle Smith wants to skim off investment income from the famously mismanaged Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund to prop up oilpatch investment ideas so bad they can’t get financial support from conventional lenders.
@djclimenhaga
writes.
In 1922, Dr. Peter Bryce left his role as chief medical health officer to write an exposé on the extinction of Indigenous people. Most Canadians didn’t know, understand, or care. Andrew Nikiforuk writes.
David Suzuki: Indigenous people’s perspectives are seen as an obstacle to extraction.
And yet, they are the only group with a track record of living in balance with the environment for thousands of years.
“Education is not about politics,” John Rustad said in 2002. Now, if elected, he’s proposing to review B.C. school books to ensure they’re “neutral.”
By whose standards?
@HarrisonMooney
writes.
#BCElxn2024
Red dresses hang along a road near the Unist'ot'en healing centre, where residents await RCMP enforcement of an injunction to evict them from the area.
The red dresses have become a symbol of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls in Canada.
📷 by
@amandajfollett
.
#EXCLUSIVE
: The RCMP spent $11 million on patrolling a resource road on
#Wetsuweten
territory to protect a pipeline project — despite no significant police actions in the area, according to documents obtained by The Tyee.
As Alberta freezes renewable energy amid Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season, the world is taking notice of climate change, whether Premier Smith and office manager Rob Anderson like it or not.
@djclimenhaga
writes. 🇨🇦🛢
“Nobody ’earns’ a billion dollars. Such sums are only redistributed from the collective effort of many into the hands of the few.”
@michalrozworski
writes, from October 2019.
“Look at this top quality ‘journalism’ from the folks over at the totally not left-wing rag Tyee. What would we do without them?”
When a Tyee reporter made a straightforward request for comment, the BC Conservatives responded with an attack on X.
#bcpoli
Poilievre’s “demonizing opponents, intimidating journalists, disrespecting institutions, politicizing the rights of the vulnerable and undermining truth are warning signs for democratic erosion,” writes Christopher Holcroft.
Between 2011 and 2020 in Vancouver, a Black person was five times likelier than a white person to be arrested.
An Indigenous person was 11 times likelier to be arrested.
“‘Records management’ was code for deleting emails.”
Efforts to hide daily operations, ordered by the premier’s office, far exceed previous Alberta governments, former and current senior UCP political staffers told The Tyee.
Canadian police forces have received millions of dollars from oil companies, banks, and financiers, through shadowy charitable foundations that have little public oversight.
#vanpoli
#cdnpoli
Vienna has lessons for cities with unaffordable housing: control rents, tax private property, keep land in city hands and build non-market housing, which will eventually return money back to the public sector from rent.
#vanre
One nuclear engineer says we’ve got a bad case of historical amnesia: History tells us plagues end messily and some of us are choosing to ignore that lesson.
Why the clean air movement is the answer. 🦠
We’ve got big Tyee news! We’re now a non-profit, and the website has a whole new look. Check out our refreshed pages and expect the same commitment to quality journalism.
“We hope that all the insurers will drop out of ensuring the TMX pipeline, and that it will fall through as it is not an economically viable or environmentally viable project,” said a protestor.
Alberta has launched a grizzly bear hunt.
But don’t worry, it’s “a safety measure.”
“I’ve never raised cattle, but I was the agriculture reporter for the Calgary Herald long enough to recognize the smell of BS.”
@djclimenhaga
writes. 🐻
#abpoli
A basic income is no silver bullet. But it sure would’ve made a difference, including for:
• Sex workers, gig workers and freelancers excluded from emergency supports
• Parents doing child care during school closures
• Workers with no sick leave
This is the second time in just over a year. The Office of the Wet’suwet’en is asking why it wasn’t immediately notified after 1,000 litres of contaminants were spilled on the nation’s traditional territory at a Coastal GasLink pipeline work camp.
.
@paulwillcocks
: After Mayor Ken Sim promised to cut spending on “non-core services,” The Tyee revealed he gave $32 million from taxpayers to a pricey private school — a non-core service.
Meanwhile he pressed libraries to raise their own monthly funds.
Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry previously likened relaxing pandemic measures to taking off a raincoat when it stops raining.
It’s a false reassurance, says the BC Greens’ Sonia Furstenau.
“We actually need accurate weather reports.” 🌧
#BCPoli
🚨 Tyee staff are increasingly noticing our content being blocked by Meta.
Follow these steps to ensure you remain directly in touch with The Tyee and not at the mercy of tech giants.
#CdnMedia
#BillC18
#OnlineNewsAct
#CanPoli
.
@paulwillcocks
: No one should be “happy” a 20-year-old suspect has been shot dead.
Especially a Conservative politician who supposedly believes in the rule of law and sanctity of human life.
#USPoli
#CanPoli
#TrumpRally
Conservative Leader John Rustad’s distrust of accepted climate science was on full display during an almost two-hour interview with Jordan Peterson.
@jenstden
breaks down the highlights.
#bcpoli
#canpoli
“I think these 215 sacred little kids managed to pierce through this dehumanization, this idea these kids are statistics. People can viscerally feel these were little children, and they died alone, afraid and away from their family.”