- Boyle Street Community Services, which marked its 50th anniversary this year, will move into a new $28.5-million facility two blocks north in Spring 2023. The Oilers Entertainment group purchased Boyle Street's current property for $5 million, and donated an additional $10 million, leaving the organization to fundraise the remaining $13.5 million.
- Alberta announced that unvaccinated adults will be able to attend indoor holiday gatherings. The move drew criticism from medical staff in Alberta: "It's a big risk, and I think that it's potentially setting us up for a rapid rise in cases over the holidays like we saw about a year ago," Edmonton emergency physician Dr. Shazma Mithani said.
- Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw said that the province may face a fifth wave, due to the spread of Omicron. "We face a very real risk of experiencing a significant fifth wave with this new variant that could be worse than previous waves in terms of overall impact on our health system due to sheer volume of cases. We simply don't know yet," she said.
- An agreement between the University of Alberta and Tribal Chiefs Ventures Inc. will see more Indigenous doctors trained. The goal of this effort is to improve health care in Indigenous communities in northern Alberta.
- More than half of Albertans are unhappy with the province's direction. The new Leger poll also found that many believe the provincial government's handling of the pandemic has damaged its reputation in Canada.
- The city is recruiting 50 members to join 16 different civic boards, including tribunal appeal and review boards, socially focused boards and urban planning and design boards. Civic board members provide input to council — as of Jan. 1, some of them may also receive honorariums for attending meetings.
- Edmonton-born Alphonso Davies was named the Canada soccer player of the year on Wednesday. Davies is a star player with Bayern Munich.
Headlines
By Doug Johnson