- Mayor Amarjeet Sohi shared a series of funding requests ahead of the provincial budget on Feb. 24, identifying four urgent needs totalling $39 million: supportive housing, transit operations, downtown recovery, and the 2026 FIFA World Cup bid. "This will be an opportunity for our provincial government to show up for Edmonton," he said.
- Snow-clearing crews are working non-stop to combat the pooling water near blocked catch basins, due to melting windrows. So far, the city has responded to around 23% of calls about the issue that came in the last four days, and they expect the challenge will continue as the weather continues to stay above zero for the next few days.
- The Federation of Canadian Municipalities' Big City Mayors' Caucus — which includes Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi — published an open letter, urging provincial and federal governments to provide more funds for public transit to deal with the impact the pandemic has had on revenues.
- The Edmonton Oilers have signed Evander Kane to a one-year contract for the remainder of the 2021-22 season. Kane will wear #91 for the Oilers. The deal followed an announcement from the NHL that there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that Kane "knowingly made misrepresentations regarding his COVID-19 status or test results in connection with his international travel."
- Alberta Education will host a series of online forums from Jan. 31 to Feb. 28 to collect feedback on its proposed K-6 curriculum. "These new sessions will enable Albertans to have focused conversations and share specific, constructive feedback on the draft blueprint and subjects they are interested in," Education Minister Adriana LaGrange told Global News.
- Alberta Health Services has opened its pandemic response unit in Edmonton to provide monitoring and support for patients "who are close to being released from hospital." Premier Jason Kenney said that he is confident that public health measures, including the Restrictions Exemption Program, will be relaxed by the end of March.
- The United Nurses of Alberta voted 87% in favour of a new collective agreement with the province. The changes, which are retroactive from April 2020 until March 24, will see an increase in pay to the tune of 4.25% over four years, and a one-time, lump-sum payment for every hour of work the nurses did last year, to account for all the effort put in during the pandemic.
- In the ongoing court battle between harm reduction organizations and the province, judges from the Alberta Court of Appeal are reserving a decision on the organizations' request to halt the province's supervised consumption site policy, which comes into effect on Monday. Critics say that this policy — which requires SCSs to take personal healthcare numbers of people who use their services — will push people to use drugs in unsafe conditions. It is not clear when the Court of Appeal will issue a decision.
Headlines
By Mack Male and Doug Johnson