Recent Research
Lights and Sirens
The Critical Condition of EMS in Alberta
This report explores the current state of affairs of prehospital emergency medical services in Alberta from the standpoint of those who live it, experience it, and breathe it on a daily basis — the paramedics. More specifically, it outlines findings from a study that explored how COVID-19, the overdose crisis, and other factors have impacted EMS in the province of Alberta. The report aims to give voice to those who work on the front lines of emergency medical services, a voice that has been absent from how policy in Alberta is informed and developed.
No Worker Left Behind
A Job Creation Strategy for Energy Transition in Alberta
The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) recently published an industrial blueprint on how to create 200,000 energy jobs in Alberta as we build a sustainable economy by 2050. This report weaves together key points of the AFL’s plan with insights from financial institutions and policy research groups, as well as contextualization and information provided by Parkland Institute’s February 2022 conference, “Implementing a Just Transition.”
Recent Blog Posts
Whose Future?
What the Alberta Budget Says About the UCP’s Priorities Pre-Election
A deeper reading of Budget 2023 suggests that multiple futures are being claimed and contested: political and electoral futures, as well as ideological and existential ones. How each of these future battles is playing out matters significantly for Alberta’s future, not least in the unanswered question: “Whose future?” In this article, Parkland Institute’s research managers Ian Hussey and Rebecca Graff-McRae break down the possible futures at stake in the lead-up to the spring election and its political aftermath.
While most Canadians are acutely aware of how home prices and rents have skyrocketed in the last 15 years or so, few are aware of the restructuring of farmland ownership occurring in rural areas. Since 2014, we’ve been studying changing land tenure patterns in the Prairies, where 70 per cent of Canada’s agricultural land is situated. Our research reveals three major trends — ongoing farm consolidation, increasing land concentration and expanding investor ownership of farmland — leading to growing land inequality.
After months of delays, the official handover of community laboratory services from Alberta Precision Laboratories to DynaLIFE took place on December 5. With that, the political tug-of-war within and over Alberta’s medical laboratory system enters yet another round, but Albertans are the ones who will lose out. This op-ed appeared in the Edmonton Journal on December 16, 2022.