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Focuses on Alberta Education, winner of the 1998 Canadian Information Productivity Awards. Development of a system for record keeping; How schools in Alberta are connected to each other and to the Internet; How the system has helped make administration more efficient. INSET: Human Resources Development Canada.

Focuses on the manure problem in Alberta, which happened as a result of deregulation of governing responsibility to local municipalities. Contamination from improperly disposed of dung; The suggestion for centralizing responsibility with province-wide standards for livestock operations and manure storage; The examples of the Dutch, who are world leaders in factory farming and manure-related pollution.

Discusses loopholes of the Canada's only instant telephone voting system and their implication for Alberta's Liberal party. Failure of some voters to receive their personal identification numbers (PIN); Use of paper proxy ballots; Overload at the MT&T Technologies Inc.'s operation center in Halifax; Reactions of the Liberals and some candidates.

The article presents the author's opinion regarding the Northern Gateway oil pipeline debate between British Columbia Premier Christy Clark and Alberta Premier Alison Redford in 2012, with a focus on Canada's energy industries. Topics include interprovincial trade in Canada, the economic benefits of the proposed pipeline project, and oil spill prevention measures.

The article discusses the realities of the energy industry. One of Canada's most serious examiners of energy trends and forecasts is Dave Hughes, a Calgary-based geologist with Natural Resources Canada. Hughes has put together an exhaustive open file on oil and gas supplies. The facts not only question the country's pervasive energy myths; they warn that Canadian business will face crippling bills and shortages if the country takes a business-as-usual approach to energy supplies. The world may have lots of oil, but it is running out of cheap conventional crude. In 2004, the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, the gold standard for real numbers on oil and gas, looked at 54 producing countries and outlined the disturbing face of oil depletion. Costs and natural gas are operational obstacles in processing oilsands. Canada's natural gas supply is being burned to extract bitumen, a tarlike mixture of hydrocarbons that is cooked into synthetic crude. Places like the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela hold close to three-quarters of the world's remaining gas reserves and will soon become the new gas czars. Coal-bed methane production is not expected to make up for conventional declines. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has powerful drawbacks. It requires costly infrastructure that takes about five years to build. The process consumes 15% to 30% of the resource transported. Dirty coal is experiencing a resurrection for the simple reason that it is the one hydrocarbon resource the world still has in abundance. Coal boasts a much lower heat cost than gas or oil, is easier to transport, and provides the lowest electricity costs on the planet. But coal also comes with toxic side effects: it produces twice the greenhouse gas emissions of natural gas.

Focuses on Canadian Jim Garner, owner of Rocking Heart Ranch in Alberta. Opposition to his plans to turn part of his ranch into residential lots on the border of Waterton Lakes National Park; Argument that his plan could permanently damage Alberta's ranching economy; Political and personal scandals in Garner's life.

Discusses the efforts to stop the opening of a hog operation by the Taiwan Sugar Company in southern Alberta. How Carol Hougen and Lisa Bechthold organized a campaign to defeat a project approved by the parliament of Taiwan and supported by the Albertan government; Plans by DGH Engineering Ltd. to build the pig factory; Environmental problems which are caused by large hog operations. INSET: A lot of manure.

Presents an outlook for the June 2000 meeting of the World Petroleum Congress (WPC) in Calgary, Alberta. Plans of protestors to demonstrate against globalization during the congress; Issues to be discussed by the congress, including global warming and North America's natural gas shortage; Alberta residents' lack of tolerance for activism and civil disobedience campaigns.

Reports on the effects of the deregulation of utilities in Alberta in the late 1990s. How citizens in the Canadian province have faced regular blackouts; Efforts of industries to close down so as not to use up energy during times when consumer use is high; Efforts of the government to create new legislation that would allow utilities to keep their power plants but not be able to sell to customers directly; Comments.

Reports on the West Edmonton Mall in Alberta with popular businesses such as Planet Hollywood, Red's Hard Rock Cafe, and Hooters. The mall as the world's biggest retail complex; The financial arrangement of the Ghermezian family, the mall's owners; Comments from Raphael Ghermezian and mall manager Gary Hanson.

Reports on Canada's boreal oil sands and oil-mining businesses and their preparation in 1997 for a massive expansion. Expansion includes three to six new sand oil sites over the next five years; Tar sand containing bitumen, which is Canada's hottest resource staple; Mining techniques; The amount of oil in Alberta, Canada's oil sand areas; Proposal of two new pipelines; New technologies driving costs down; Details of Suncor's history since 1993; Oil sands and investor advantages. INSET: Money in, grief out..

Focuses on the Alberta Special Waste Treatment Management Center in Swan Hills, Alberta, as a money pit. Spending fever in Alberta in the 1970s and 1980s; Question of political impropriety; History of the center.

Examines the financial storm battering the retail empire of the Ghermezian brothers--Eskander, Raphael, Nader and Bahman--builders of the giant West Edmonton Mall and now nearly $500 million in debt. Why sales are down; The family's background. INSETS: Married to (and in) the mall;The strange case of the vanishing malls.

The article focuses on the Canadian province of Alberta's Integrated Energy Strategy, which includes little language of efficiency or conservation, and advocates the development and sale of oil, gas and coal. Development consultant Bruce Smedley discusses the weaknesses of the policy, which fails to plan for the limits of declining fossilized fuel reserves. Post Carbon Institute founder and director Julian Darley also comments on the plan.

The article looks at Pooled Registration Pension Plan (PRPPs) savings tool in Canada as of summer 2013. PRPPs are described as portable pensions that would follow employees from job to job. Topics include some provinces' preference for the existing Canada Pension Plan, the administration of PRPPs by a third party bank or insurance company, and the expected rolling out of the PRPPs in the provinces Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2013.

This article discusses the enforcement of Lethbridge, Alberta's business licensing. While most everyone is still fast asleep, Cheri Murphy is up and out the door at 4 a.m. Behind the wheel of her Chrysler Cirrus, she cruises the city's dark parking lots, looking for snowplows. If the name of the company doesn't ring a bell--and after seven years as the bylaw enforcement officer for Lethbridge's business licensing department, Murphy knows almost every business in the city by heart--she calls the office and has them run a check. Last year, her target was to collect $623,000 in licence fee revenues. Instead, she raked in $700,319 from 4,096 business licences.

Focuses on the city of Medicine Hat, Alberta. How the community is the only urban center in Canada to produce, store and distribute its own natural gas; Sale of gas and hedges on the marketplace; Gas prices in the province; Complaints over the business practices of Atco Gas.

Focuses on the Mannix family of Calgary, Alberta, who are among the richest clans in Canada. Their passion for privacy; How the family empire was started; A brief look at their businesses; What the Mannix brothers, Frederick Phillip and Ronald Neil, are estimated to be worth.

This article reports on the labor shortage in Alberta's oil industry that has pushed unskilled workers' wages to $20 an hour and made skilled tradesmen impossible to hire. The author blames Canada's system of employment insurance for the problem. According to research from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Canadian insurance has had a dramatic impact on labor participation by supplementing the wages of workers who work less than 26 hours a week.

Ever since the BSE disaster took a $4-billion chunk out of the nation's beef industry last year, the federal and Alberta governments have doled out nearly $800 million in compensation. But farmer Don Bester, like most of Alberta's 32,000 cow-calf producers, wants to know where it went. And now that the federal government has added another $680 million to the pot, taxpayers and cattlemen alike should demand some honest accounting. In Alberta, where 70% of the nation's beef is fattened and slaughtered, two U.S. multinationals, Cargill and Tyson Foods, account for 86% of all slaughter capacity. Prior to the appearance of BSE last year, producers could sell their animals to the multinationals or directly to the U.S. live cattle market. But since BSE closed that market, "Alberta's two major packers have been able to pay what they chose for the cattle," concluded the Alberta Beef Industry Council last month. Such under-reported problems highlight the need for more independent packing plants out west, as well as a thorough accounting of where all the BSE compensation money has gone so far.

Focuses on the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Money the fund has lost as of August, 2001; Concern of taxpayers that the government is not managing the fund properly; Criticism of John Carpay, the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, that the fund has not been protected against inflation.

Discusses plans to redistribute the wealth in Alberta to other parts of Canada. How the province has made money from its oil industry; Suggestion that the liberal party controlling the federal government will want to redistribute the wealth; Politician Larry Pratt's proposal to set price controls and limit exports of oil; Opinion that the plan would be detrimental to the oil industry in Canada.

Reports on a tax loophole for factory farms in Alberta. How a proposed hog factory built by Taiwan Sugar Corp. (TSC) would be taxed as a farm; Opposition to the tax by Tom Droog, a sunflower grower and sunflower seed packager; How factory farms are much more destructive to country roads and water purification systems than small farms; Inactivity by Alberta's government, which knows about the tax difference.

Comments on the 1999 Western Premiers Conference to be held at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta. Information on the budget, accomodations and sponsorship for the conference; Preparation of the museum for the conference.