News Editor | Dave Naylor |
---|---|
Opinion Editor | Nigel Hannaford |
Publisher | Derek Fildebrandt |
Founder | Ted Byfield |
First issue | 1973 |
Final issue | 2003 |
Website | albertareport |
The Alberta Report was a conservative weekly newsmagazine based in Edmonton. It was founded and edited by Ted Byfield, and later run by his son, Link Byfield. It ceased publication in 2003. [1]
Promoting his own successor publication in 2004, Ezra Levant described the Report as having been the only general interest magazine in Western Canada covering the news from a conservative perspective. [2]
In 2022, the Alberta Report was returned as an online publication under the ownership of Western Standard New Media Corp. [3]
In 1973, Byfield returned to journalism by publishing the St. John's Edmonton Report, a local paper, as part of the operations of the Company of the Cross, a lay Anglican religious order, also co-founded by Byfield, which included a series of traditional Anglican private boarding schools for boys, starting with the Saint John's Cathedral Boys' School in 1957. [4] [5] [6] The minister of St. John's School, Keith T. Bennett, served on the original editorial board. In the early years the school and the magazine operated under the same system where staff lived in a communal apartment block and everyone worked for a dollar a day plus room and board. [7]
The St. John's Edmonton Report combined Byfield's interest in journalism and current affairs with his desire to use media to education others about Christian values. It provided a space for Byfield to comment on "homosexuals, abortionists, human rights commissions and public education" which he strongly opposed. [7] Prior to the establishment of the Alberta Report in 1979, [8] Byfield also launched the St. John's Calgary Report in 1977. When the two magazines were merged into the Alberta Report, [7] Byfield shifted the business model from that of the lay order to a more commercial enterprise to attract a higher quality of journalists.
The emergence of the Alberta Report coincided with Alberta's energy wars with the federal government. Byfield's Report provided the voice for Western Canada's growing sense of discontent and alienation in the 1970s and 1980s. [7] In response to the province of Quebec's call for separation, Byfield wrote about "western separatism". [7] The magazine became so popular in Alberta that the circulation reached a record average of 53,277 a week by 1987. [7] In the late 1980s as the economy of Alberta declined, so did the circulation. In 1990 a group of Calgary oil magnates offered to buy the report in an effort to provide financial stability to a journal they regarded as politically congenial. [9]
The magazine was published for a time in three separate editions, the Alberta Report, BC Report , and Western Report. These were merged in 1999 into The Report, later known as the Citizens Centre Report in connection with Link Byfield's successor organization, the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy.[ citation needed ]
The magazine often struggled financially, with the senior Byfield mortgaging his own house four times to keep it afloat. It shut down in June 2003. [8] According to the Edmonton Sun , some employees were still owed back pay nearly six months later, and complained when the Citizens Centre was directing money toward its political agenda. [10]
A number of right-wing journalists and commentators in Canada who are prominent today began their careers writing for The Report magazines, including Kenneth Whyte, the editor in chief of Maclean's ; Colby Cosh of the National Post , Kevin Michael Grace, Lorne Gunter, Ezra Levant, Brian Mulawka, and Kevin Steel. Other former staff include: freelance journalist Ric Dolphin, former National Post writer Dunnery Best, U.S. food writer (and founding editor of Equinox magazine) Barry Estabrook, former Profit editor and publisher Rick Spence, author D'Arcy Jenish, and Paul Bunner, who in 2006 became a speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Bunner is currently speech writer for Alberta Premier Jason Kenney. [11] C.P. (Chris) Champion started The Dorchester Review, a small but influential history magazine, in 2011, and in 2020 served as a curriculum advisor under Minister of Education, Andrea LaGrange. [11]
The Western Standard , launched in 2004, by Levant with the participation of several other Report alumni, aimed to fill the space in the market that had been held by the Report. The Standard ceased publication in 2007, but returned as an online daily news publication in 2019.
In 2022, Alberta Report was acquired by Western Standard New Media Corp., returning it to publication online. [12]
In the 1990s, AR produced a number of articles expressing opposition to a possible amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) that would prohibit discrimination against homosexuals. [13]
In the wake of the successful lawsuit against the government of Alberta for wrongful sterilization, launched by Leilani Muir, and the subsequent 1995 trial on eugenics, the weekly magazine published five articles on eugenics from 1995 and 1999. [14] The articles covered the court case, placing it into an historical context. [14] A 1995 article by Joe Woodward [15] : 38–42 and a 1996 article by Chris Champion investigated the decision by the University of Alberta to remove the name of the John M. MacEachran (1877 – 1971)—co-founder of the Canadian Psychological Association and the Alberta Eugenics Board's chairman responsible for the forced sterilizations—from several scholarships and a library at the University. [16] : 40–43
Maclean's, founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian perspective on current affairs and to "entertain but also inspire its readers". Rogers Media, the magazine's publisher since 1994, announced in September 2016 that Maclean's would become a monthly beginning January 2017, while continuing to produce a weekly issue on the Texture app. In 2019, the magazine was bought by its current publisher, St. Joseph Communications.
Craig B. Chandler is a Canadian businessman, lobbyist, and political activist. He is co-founder and CEO of the Progressive Group for Independent Business (PGIB). He was a candidate at the federal 2003 Progressive Conservative leadership convention, a candidate for Member of Parliament in Ontario, candidate for Member of the Legislative Assembly in Alberta, and candidate for Ward 12 City Councillor in Calgary, Alberta.
Ezra Isaac Levant is a Canadian conservative media personality, political activist, writer, broadcaster, and former lawyer. Levant is the founder and former publisher of the conservative magazine, The Western Standard. He is also the co-founder, owner, and CEO of the far-right media website Rebel News. Levant has also worked as a columnist for Sun Media, and he hosted a daily program on the Sun News Network from the channel's inception in 2011 until its demise in 2015.
The Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta was an Albertan autonomist, libertarian and conservative political party in Alberta, Canada.
The Calgary Herald is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Publication began in 1883 as The Calgary Herald, Mining and Ranche Advocate, and General Advertiser. It is owned by the Postmedia Network.
The Western Standard is a Canadian conservative social commentary media website operated by Western Standard New Media Corp. and its president Derek Fildebrandt. The Standard is based in Calgary, Alberta, where its main offices are located. The Standard also has bureaus in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg and Ottawa.
The Calgary School is a term coined by Ralph Hedlin in an article in the now defunct Alberta Report in reference to four political science professors – Tom Flanagan, Rainer Knopff, Ted Morton, and Barry F. Cooper – who became colleagues at Alberta's University of Calgary in the early 1980s. They shared and promoted similar ideas about how political scientists could shape the rise of a particular kind of conservatism in Canada – informed by theories based on Friedrich Hayek and Leo Strauss. Cooper and Flanagan had met in the 1960s at Duke University while pursuing doctoral studies, while Knopff and Morton were both mentored by Walter Berns, a prominent Straussian, at the University of Toronto. They were economic, foreign policy, and social conservatives who were anti-abortion and were not in favour of legalizing gay marriage. They supported Stephen Harper in his 1993 election campaign, and former Alberta premiers Ralph Klein and Jason Kenney. A fifth University of Calgary professor, David Bercuson, co-authored publications with Cooper but was more loosely associated with the group and, at times, disagreed with the others on these public policies and candidates.
Strathmore-Brooks was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first-past-the-post method of voting from 1997 to 2019.
Eric Linkord Byfield was a Canadian news columnist, author, and politician.
BC Report was a newsmagazine published in British Columbia, Canada, that was noted for its right-wing or conservative editorial stance. BC Report was published by the producers of the comparable Alberta Report and Western Report magazines, and its first editor-in-chief was Alberta Report founder Ted Byfield.
In 1928, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act. The Act, drafted to protect the gene pool, allowed for sterilization of mentally disabled people in order to prevent the transmission of traits to offspring deemed undesirable.
John Malcolm MacEachran was a Canadian philosopher and psychologist, whose most notable credentials involved the development of the Psychology and Philosophy Department at the University of Alberta. He was a co-founder of the Canadian Psychological Association and the appointed Chairman of the Alberta Eugenics Board which was responsible for approving the sterilization of thousands of Albertans, hundreds of which were without consent.
Leilani Marietta (O'Malley) Muir, previously named Leilani Marie Scorah, was the first person to file a successful lawsuit against the Alberta government for wrongful sterilization under the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta. Her case led to the initiation of several other class action lawsuits against the province for wrongful sterilization. Muir's advocacy shed light on eugenics, institutionalisation, human rights for persons with a disability, and self-advocacy.
Edward Bartlett Byfield was a Canadian conservative journalist, publisher, and author. He founded the Alberta Report, BC Report and Western Report newsmagazines.
Saint John's Cathedral School (SJCS) was a private Anglican boarding school for boys named for the Saint John's Cathedral in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, out of whose youth program it had emerged". It was the first in a series of schools, operated from 1958 until 2008, by an Anglican lay religious order called the Company of the Cross.
The Company of the Cross was a lay religious order which was affiliated with the Anglican Church of Canada when founded in 1957 by Frank Wiems and Ted Byfield. For many years, the Company operated under the authority of the Anglican bishops in Winnipeg, the diocese of Edmonton and the diocese of Toronto On November 17, 1990, the Company of the Cross was unincorporated in Manitoba.
Alberta Views is a Calgary, Alberta regional magazine, established in 1997, that covers political, social and cultural issues in the province of Alberta. It is published 10 times annually and its monthly print run was 15,000 copies by 2016. Its monthly readership in 2016 was 76,000. Alberta Views was named Canadian Magazine of the Year at the 2009 National Magazine Awards. John Ralston Saul has called Alberta Views "the new model for what a magazine can be in Canada."
The Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada (LAE) is a major research project, led by philosophy Professor Robert Wilson of the University of Alberta. The LAE seeks to investigate and understand the many aspects of the eugenics movement in western Canada. The project began in 2009 and is funded by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Derek Alexander Gerhard Fildebrandt is a Canadian politician and media executive. He is the publisher, president and chief executive officer of the Western Standard New Media Corp. He is a former member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.
Rebel News is a Canadian far-right political and social commentary media website operated by Rebel News Network Ltd. It has been described as a "global platform" for the anti-Muslim ideology known as counter-jihad. It was founded in February 2015 by former Sun News Network personalities Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley.