00:00:00.000A Safeway and Medicine Hat has reversed its decision to remove the Alberta flag from a local product display after complaints from anti-independence activists associated with Thomas Lukasik.
00:00:21.000Education Minister Dimitrios Nikolaides is defending Alberta's new school library standards after the Canadian Civil Liberties Association claimed they amount to censorship.
00:00:31.000Alberta is also continuing to push back on the province's bike lanes, this time against Edmonton.
00:00:37.000Plus, Alberta is pushing ahead with its Pacific Trade Corridor Plan and cracking down on predatory tow truck practices.
00:00:44.000All this and more on this week's Alberta Roundup. I'm your host, Isaac Lamoureux. Let's dive into that first story right away.
00:00:50.000So, a Medicine Hat Safeway store removed the Alberta flag from its store after receiving complaints from anti-independence activists associated with supporting the petition of former Progressive Conservative Minister Thomas Lukasik.
00:01:02.000A member of the Forever Canadian Facebook group, Sean Copland, took credit for pressuring upper management at Safeway into lowering Alberta's provincial flag in a public post.
00:01:11.000The group describes itself as supporters of the petition spearheaded by Lukasik, and Lukasik is a member of the group but did not comment or interact with the post publicly.
00:01:20.000True North reached out to him, asking him whether he supports businesses removing Alberta flags or whether the flag is considered a separatist symbol, but received no reply.
00:01:29.000And despite suggesting the flag was political, the pictures show it was just hanging there, as any flag would.
00:01:35.000The decision to take it down was met with immediate pushback from Albertans who argued the provincial flag is a symbol of Alberta's heritage, not a political campaign.
00:01:43.000And critics accused the store of caving to political pressure over an emblem that belongs to all Albertans.
00:01:49.000Even Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreschen came to the flag's defence.
00:02:16.000This is unfortunate that people are inferring any ill intent from the placement of flags in our stores.
00:02:23.000There is no political statement being made here.
00:02:25.000We are showcasing our local products by province to highlight for customers as part of a national local program.
00:02:32.000For our next story, we'll move to a different Alberta minister.
00:02:35.000Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides is pushing back against what he calls misleading claims from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association
00:02:43.000that the province's ban on sexually graphic materials in school libraries constitutes a book ban.
00:02:49.000He has repeatedly, of course, said that this is not a book ban.
00:03:25.000Alberta's Minister of Education and Child Care recently issued an order banning some books from all school libraries in the province.
00:03:32.000This means that from September onwards, classics such as George Orwell's 1984 and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale will be banned from all school libraries for all students ages 6 to 18.
00:03:44.000The CCLA leaders further misleadingly claimed the policy would also restrict access to sexual health resources and coming-of-age stories such as Catcher in the Rye and the Perks of Being a Wallflower.
00:03:55.000Of course, Nicolaides has said repeatedly that his ministry could not ban specific books even if it wanted to, and that it doesn't want to.
00:04:01.000He said the order only targets graphic sexual content inappropriate for children holistically.
00:04:16.000Does the Canadian Civil Liberties Association support showing these images to minors?
00:04:20.000Their op-ed would lead you to believe they do.
00:04:22.000He added that the CCLA's publication misled the public, saying, quote,
00:04:27.000The op-ed ran in the journal is riddled with incorrect information.
00:04:30.000I would expect more from an institution such as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
00:04:35.000They are trying to weave a false narrative and go against Albertans who have said,
00:04:39.000These books have no place in our school libraries.
00:04:42.000Nicolaides also argued that the order emerged from a democratic process, citing the nearly 80,000 survey responses that these changes were derived from.
00:04:53.000I won't apologize for protecting Alberta's children from images they shouldn't see at school.
00:04:57.000Go and look at the images yourself and you'll be scratching your head wondering how it is that any of these books ever got into elementary schools in the first place.
00:05:04.000The government's new rules, which were finalized on July 10th, require all school libraries to remove books with sexually explicit content by October 1st, 2025.
00:05:12.000And by January 1st, 2026, further standards, including parental access to library material lists, must also be in place.
00:05:19.000For our next story, we're back on the trail of bike lanes, considering it is continuously heating up ahead of October's municipal elections.
00:05:26.000At a press conference this week, Alberta Transportation and Economic Corridors Minister, Devin Drishan, confirmed he will meet with Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi next week to discuss the bike lane plans.
00:05:37.000Again, emphasizing that they should not remove or take over any existing traffic lanes.
00:05:42.000In fact, take a quick listen of what Drishan had to say.
00:05:45.000So I think that's something that obviously I have a meeting with Mayor Sohi next week to be able to discuss that lane, as well as just the concept of having active transportation on bike routes, where they obviously make sense, but not to cannibalize or to take over existing driving lanes that have been here for sometimes over 100 years, which just doesn't make sense.
00:06:06.000So that's something that obviously as a growing population, there's more and more drivers in Edmonton every year, and to reduce the road capacity for those vehicles is the opposite of what we're doing as a provincial government when we're investing billions of dollars into adding more roads and more lanes, whether it's on our provincial highway networks or even Twilliger Drive here in Edmonton, which is a municipal road as well.
00:06:27.000So it's frustrating to see certain bike lane projects go ahead, but we're continuing the conversations with both Edmonton and Calgary to make sure we can have some sanity when it comes to bike routes instead of bike lanes.
00:06:40.000And you may remember that the residents of Delton in Edmonton submitted a formal petition to the city with the signatures of a clear majority of residents in opposition to the bike lanes.
00:06:49.000However, the city has ignored the petition thus far, although with the elections coming up, more and more city councillors and prospective mayors are seeming to turn against the bike lanes.
00:06:59.000For example, Dreeshan recently celebrated Gondek calling the bike lanes temporary.
00:07:04.000Her claim comes, of course, despite the Edmonton bike lanes costing $100 million between 2023 and 2026 with an $11 million annual cost to maintain.
00:07:13.000And I assume the Calgary costs are likely similar. These are just the data that the CTF provided me.
00:07:18.000Remember, it's the citizens that pay for these things through an increase in their property taxes.
00:07:22.000And speaking of the CTF, Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Chris Sims, told me that Alberta has referendums at the municipal and provincial levels.
00:07:32.000And she said that if a referendum occurred on bike lanes, she expected around 80% of residents would be opposed.
00:07:38.000So it's not even close. And as the election creeps closer and closer, we'll see how many more turn against the bike lanes and how long they hold the line for.
00:07:47.000But for our next story, we'll stretch a bit beyond Alberta's border.
00:07:51.000Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan are moving ahead with plans for a cross-country energy and trade corridor.
00:07:56.000But without Manitoba's participation, the project could face a significant geographic hurdle.
00:08:02.000This week, the three provinces jointly issued a request for proposals to study the feasibility of a new west-to-east pipeline and related infrastructure.
00:08:10.000The corridor would connect Alberta's oil, gas and critical minerals to refineries and tidewater ports in southern Ontario, while also boosting rail and trade capacity.
00:08:19.000Premier Daniel Smith called the plan a, quote, defining moment for our country, saying it would secure long-term energy access for families and businesses, create thousands of jobs and open new doors for trade and investment.
00:08:30.000Ontario Premier Doug Ford stressed that Canada can no longer rely on energy infrastructure outside its borders, while Saskatchewan Premier Scott Mo highlighted the role the corridor would play in securing export markets and strengthening energy security.
00:08:43.000But Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kanu refused to sign the Memorandum of Understanding, citing the need for Indigenous consensus before moving forward with any major infrastructure projects.
00:08:53.000He said, quote, our government will not treat consultation as a box to check after the decisions are made.
00:08:59.000We believe reconciliation requires shared decision making from the start.
00:09:03.000While the Memorandum remains open to further signatories, Manitoba's absence looms large.
00:09:08.000Any pipeline or railroad from Alberta to Ontario would have to pass through Manitoba, making its cooperation essential to the project's success.
00:09:15.000The request for proposals is open to companies all across Canada and will have to wait and see whether Manitoba throws a spanner in the works.
00:09:22.000Moving back to Alberta for our last story, Alberta has ramped up enforcement against unsafe and unlicensed tow truck operators.
00:09:28.000Previously, the province had no penalties to address towing vehicles without consent, not providing necessary information to vehicle owners or exploiting emotionally vulnerable crash victims.
00:09:39.000However, as of Friday, the province has implemented a 200-meter exclusion radius around collision scenes, prohibiting tow truck drivers from pitching their services.
00:09:49.000Anyone who does so will be subject to a $1,000 fine.
00:09:52.000Transportation Minister Devin Drishan said, quote,
00:09:55.000The last thing someone needs after a collision is to be taken advantage of by aggressive tow truck operators charging excessive fees.
00:10:03.000These new rules will protect Albertans from unethical behavior, give drivers more control in a stressful moment and help reduce insurance costs caused by inflated towing bills.
00:10:14.000According to the province, some drivers have reported being charged up to $2,500 for unrequested towing services.
00:10:20.000Also, Edmonton and Calgary have already introduced some measures to combat the predatory practices.
00:10:26.000But that wraps up this week's Alberta Roundup.