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Coating gravel roads in oil sludge to keep the dust down is a time-honoured rural tradition in Alberta: burying oil sludge inside the roads, however, is a slightly newer wrinkle. [...]

Edmonton's downtown has been dying a slow death since the 1950s flight to suburbia began. The city core saw an office-tower boom in the following two decades that brought in [...]

Joseph Zinkowitz remembers his first thought after 'taggers' sprayed a wall outside his downtown Calgary hair salon--two weeks after he whitewashed a previous defacement: 'I thought they should have their [...]

Peter Pocklington's 1976 union with the Edmonton Oilers began the way most marriages do--with gifts. He purchased the team with his wife's 12-carat diamond ring and a Renoir painting, along [...]

Edmonton considers revamping its most popular (and least authentic) festival A July visitor to Edmonton might be forgiven for thinking the city was a raucous 19th-century boomtown, where drunken prospectors [...]

Edmontonians are experiencing a bad case of political deja vu. When they dumped out a socialist mayor and several left-leaning members of council in the 1995 civic election, voters thought [...]

Bob Lefevbre was visiting his daughter in Calgary a month ago when he heard that Peace River flood waters had swamped a mall he and eight friends invested in 19 [...]

When Gerry Zelinski became principal of Peerless Lake School 10 years ago, graduation ceremonies were unnecessary because no one ever graduated. 'We had one student in Grade nine,' he recalls. [...]

The French poet Paul Valery once cynically described politics as 'the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.' The Alberta-based Family Action Coalition (FAC), [...]

Christmas 1957 was typical for Barrhead doctor Hugh Horner. He had gone to make one house call, but hours later, he had not returned. When he did come home his [...]

The Edmonton Police Service has a morale problem, according to Chief John Lindsay, but it is nothing that could not be fixed with a 7% wage hike. That would put [...]

Conventional wisdom assumes British Columbia is the choice destination for Canadian seniors on the move. But the image of retirees exchanging their Toronto homes or Saskatchewan farms for west coast [...]

The Alberta economy continues to generate jobs and optimism, with Edmonton showing signs of catching up within the next few years to the brisk pace already being set by Cowtown. [...]

When then-justice minister Kim Campbell changed the Criminal Code provisions on sexual assault in 1992, requiring accused men to prove that their accuser had consented, Toronto lawyer Gwen Landolt, vice-president [...]

Insults, like beauty, depend a great deal on perceptions, which can evolve over time. For instance, the ranching community meant no particular disrespect about a century ago in naming Nigger [...]

In 1995 Vancouver businessman David Stadnyck raised $675,000 on the Alberta Stock Exchange in preparation for buying up to 10 newspapers. In due course Record Publishing, a division of Mr. [...]

Anyone driving through northern Ontario in winter is bound to fear blizzards and icy roads as potential hazards, but hardly natural gas pipelines. Nonetheless a couple cruising along an isolated [...]

Nigel Taylor has special needs, but they are not being met by the Alberta Department of Education. The 12-year-old Edmontonian has cerebral palsy and requires a full-time aide, a costly [...]

In 1995 3,300 Canadians indisputably died in car accidents. Second-hand smoke, by comparison, may have killed 330. Or none. Or some figure in between, depending on which study is right. [...]

Prescription drugs should be free under a national pharmacare system, according to a report released two weeks ago by the Ottawa-appointed National Forum On Health. It also recommends that private [...]

Here's a test: describe and compare subatomic particles called protons, neutrons, and electrons. Then evaluate the evidence for the theory of plate tectonics. These sophisticated brain-teasers were among the questions [...]

Defending Canadian heritage has always been a favourite theme of the federal Liberal party, but it has to be Canadiana of the right sort. Heritage and rare firearms apparently fall [...]

Cash plays a vital role, says an Oxford political scientist-- but other factors matter as much Why do some nations win wars and triumph for decades or even centuries, while [...]

Cheer up, say two right-wing researchers, things aren't nearly so bad as advertised The world is overpopulated! Our water is ever more polluted! The skies are poisoned too! The rich [...]

Their potential is stifled by chaotic property law, says an unusual Peruvian scholar Ask a right-leaning thinker why ThirdWorld and former Communist nations are more often marked by poverty than [...]

Ex-Marxist scholars devastatingly catalogue the crimes of their former faith In the summer of 1933, when the forced Ukrainian famine was at its peak, an Italian diplomatic bulletin from Kharkiv [...]

A veteran newsman assembles a crushing condemnation of an unhallowed institution In the political mythology of Canadian history, our Senate represents the interests of Canada's regions and also functions as [...]

An intrepid young medico not only diagnoses Medicare's ills but prescribes a likely cure That Canada's healthcare system is in serious trouble is hardly news. Its woes are constantly recited: [...]

Mark Milke is British Columbia director of the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation. It is possible, says economist with some highly controversial ideas Abolish income tax. Kill the Canadian Wheat Board. Sell [...]

It would be surprising to learn that Alberta's government received any useful direction from the health summit it sponsored two weeks ago in Calgary. Participants ended up recommending everything and [...]

Adele Boucher says that when she first saw floodwaters pouring into her downtown Peace River travel agency three months ago, she 'practically barfed her breakfast.' Since then, says Ms. Boucher, [...]

This spring's heavy rains in northern Alberta meant the end of a decade of below-average rainfall, and it has been both a blessing and a curse for the users of [...]

The next time you drive over a pothole and curse, consider uttering a second expletive for the politicians who tax fuel but use little of the money to fix roads. [...]

Despite its importance to the prairie economy, agriculture has never been seen as particularly sexy: ranching, maybe, but nothing requiring rubber boots. Oil companies and computer firms may turn investors' [...]

Steam engine #41 is used to being the centre of attention. Built in 1920, it has starred in a TV commercial and three movies, including Brad Pitt's Legends of the [...]

In defence of his intrusive gun control legislation, former justice minister Allan Rock stated repeatedly that firearm registration will save lives. Critics responded that a national registry will do nothing [...]

It takes 8,800 people and $1 billion a year to operate the corporation of the City of Edmonton. The vast majority of those civic employees think the municipal government is [...]

The 'redneck liberation' movement in Alberta dates back to well before July 1994, but that was when the movement received the official recognition of Canada's ultimate cultural arbiter: the Globe [...]

A.E. 'Suds' Sutherland is used to navigating difficult situations. As a night bomber navigator during the Second World War, he would fly over the Danube River and drop magnetic mines [...]

Edmonton City Councillor Michael Phair would like some respect. During a Canadian Association of Journalists panel discussion two weeks ago at Edmonton's Westin Hotel, the openly gay councillor argued the [...]

Olga Yakiwczuk was a passenger in her son's Triumph Spitfire last August when 84-year-old Joseph Chamulke entered Edmonton's Whitemud Drive freeway and drove 36 blocks in the wrong direction, eventually [...]

Declining federal and provincial handouts and stagnant tax revenues have driven city governments into the arms of corporate benefactors more and more often of late. Last year, for example, Edmonton [...]

Jolene Wynder had a difficult pregnancy before giving birth to her first child. Throughout the nine months, she thought: 'If I can just get him here safely than everything will [...]

Until recently, the greatest worry about the loosely-organized Edmonton youth gang who call themselves the North Side Boys was that its 30-odd members would progress from break-ins, violent assaults and [...]

Call it the $96,000 handshake. After an independent report slammed the managerial skills of Edmonton's Emergency Response Department chief Frank Sherburne two weeks ago, the 37-year veteran of the fire [...]

Natural disasters may be known as 'acts of God,' but people pay the bills. Businesses, insurance companies and governments sign the cheques and individuals pay through increased premiums and higher [...]

Bureaucrats at Alberta Education are not usually compared to Nazi Germany's Gestapo, but then Dick Barendregt is not your average parent. He and his wife home-school their eight children on [...]

Those annoyingly expensive photo radar fines that show up in the mail will keep on coming. A round of promotions and retirements of senior Edmonton Police Service officers has given [...]

A visit to the dentist is not as boring as it once was. Some offices have replaced muzak with all-hit FM stations, and the five-year-old magazines in waiting rooms have [...]

Unlike many Alberta villages, Halkirk and its 150 residents are thriving. The community, 25 miles east of Stettler, still has a post office, grain elevator, and a small hotel. But [...]