The Pulse: April 2, 2021

When it comes to how Edmontonians get around the city, Emily Grisé says there will always be a need for compromise.

"There just isn't enough space on our streets to have it all," she told participants at Taproot's fourth People's Agenda listening session on April 1. "That means we have to start thinking about how we're allocating our street space."

Grisé is an associate professor at the University of Alberta's School of Urban and Regional Planning, where she researches and teaches issues of land use and transportation planning. She has also collaborated with a number of public and private transit agencies to help design transportation services across Canada.

Grisé was the featured speaker at the listening session, which asked more than 20 Edmonton residents to discuss concerns about transportation in the city. The event was prompted by Taproot's People's Agenda, a document that’s being compiled based on responses to this question: What key issue do you want the candidates to talk about as they compete for votes in the 2021 municipal election, and why?

Overall, participants said they want the next city's next municipal government to allocate space to many diverse forms of transit, which would allow people to choose the options that work best for them at any given moment.

• While Premier Jason Kenney has said "Alberta won't aim to drive COVID-19 infections to zero with curfews, stay-at-home orders or widespread business closures," he is urging people to stay home over the Easter long weekend.
• Changes to Alberta's Workers' Compensation Board coverage took effect on April 1, "including the elimination of an employer's legal obligation to rehire and accommodate an injured worker."
• The City of Edmonton will start street cleaning on April 6, and is asking Edmontonians to remove vehicles when crews are working in their neighborhoods.
• "The Giovanni Music store closed its doors Saturday after 53 years of operation in Edmonton, and will reopen with a new owner," reports CTV News. The business was sold to Long and McQuade.
• Edmonton bartender James Grant, who works at Little Hong Kong in the Mercer Warehouse, won the Diageo World Class Canada Finals earlier this week, taking the title of Canada's top bartender. He will represent the country in Spain at the World Class Global Finals in a few months.

The National Angel Capital Organization (NACO) has selected University of Alberta spinoff company True Angle Medical as Edmonton’s startup of the year for 2021, it announced on March 31.

True Angle's founder and CEO Dr. Jana Rieger said NACO's award recognizes the positive impact that the company's Mobili-T product has on the quality of life of cancer patients with swallowing disorders.

Rieger virtually pitched Mobili-T to an audience of angel investors from across Canada to be considered for the award as part of the Edmonton Angel Investment Summit. 

"Doing a five-minute pitch is always a challenge because you have to hit the high point," Rieger told Taproot about the competition against eight other Edmonton companies.

"We are hearing a lot from investors about being a purpose-driven company, but that's just part of it. (Investors) also look at what the company has done in the marketplace and how far they have pushed their innovation. The fact that we launched a product in September of last year says something."

The Read-Along is about to start a new book, and a local one at that, so this seems like a good time to draw attention to Edmonton's own "mini book club for your ears."

Hosts Anita and Scott C. Bourgeois take listeners "on a journey through a good book, one chapter at a time." You literally read along with them, contemplating a chapter every episode until the end, when they go into "full book club mode" and consider the novel as a whole. They also play "Cast That Movie," where they imagine who would play the characters if the book were made into a film.

They have delightful chemistry, thanks in part to the fact that they are married, but also because they both have a background in theatre and improv, and thus a sense for what makes for an entertaining listen. Scott has been podcasting since 2009, when he and Adam Rozenhart started The Unknown Studio. You can also hear him on I Have Some Notes, a movie podcast with Liam Creswick and Gregg Beever, on which Anita has made a couple of entertaining appearances.

This week, The Read-Along is starting a sci-fi horror adventure called Beneath the Rising by Edmonton's own Premee Mohamed. It is the ninth book the podcast has explored since launching in October of 2017, and the first local title.

Disclosure: The Read-Along is a member of the Alberta Podcast Network, which was founded by this recommendation's author.