The Pulse: Dec. 3, 2021

Disastrous flooding in British Columbia that has blocked rail and road shipments has also highlighted Edmonton's potential as a transportation and distribution hub, with its 1,100-kilometre rail link to Canada's fastest-growing port.

In "Edmonton Could Help Save Christmas As Supply Chain Chaos Continues," published by commercial real estate broker CBRE, Edmonton managing director Dave Young talks about Edmonton as being Canada's best-positioned inland port to bypass blockages in the Lower Mainland.

The B.C. flooding, which has closed sections of the Trans-Canada and Coquihalla highways for up to two months and caused havoc along key rail corridors, has exacerbated pandemic-triggered supply chain disruptions in the Edmonton marketplace. Suppliers are warning shoppers to expect shortages of Christmas trees, turkeys, Asian foods, and alcohol imports.

The only undamaged rail route from B.C.'s west coast to Edmonton and markets across North America starts with CN Rail's line at the Port of Prince Rupert.

The Prince Rupert route cuts a full day off shipping time from Edmonton compared to Canada's busiest port at Vancouver. Access to the port is expected to overtake Montreal in five years as the country's second-largest, Edmonton Global said in a blog post on Edmonton's global connectivity advantage.

• The Valley Line southeast LRT has been delayed for a third time. Service on the 13-km line is now scheduled to begin in summer 2022. Construction began on the Valley Line in 2016 with an original expected completion date of December 2020.
• On Edmonton's tax levy survey, 34% indicated they were in favour of a tax increase, while 42% said they want tax levels to stay the same. The survey had 8,644 respondents in total. City council is currently contemplating a 1.8% tax increase, which would work out to $14 more than last year on every $100,000 of assessed property value.
• The Edmonton Reuse Centre will reopen Jan. 12 after shutting down in March 2020 due to the pandemic. All items will be available for free to celebrate the centre's 15th anniversary.
• An Edmonton police officer has been fined $2,000 for assaulting an Indigenous man during an arrest in 2019. An internal disciplinary hearing has been on hold pending the outcome of the criminal trial, which will determine if Const. Michael Partington will remain on the force.
• The worsening of COVID-19 in Europe and the emergence of the Omicron variant has affected planning for the IIHF 2022 world juniors, which begin in Edmonton and Red Deer on Dec. 26. "We're not using the term 'bubble' because it's not everyone that will be in a bubble. But when we say the teams are in a protected environment, they're in a bubble," Hockey Canada president Scott Smith told Postmedia. Additionally, there will be no pre-tournament games, and event organizers have paused plans to hold a grand opening for Edmonton's Ice District.

If you're feeling unequipped to engage with discussions on human rights, the Rhizome Podcast offers a social and community justice toolkit for understanding such issues as "food security, anti-Asian racism, sex education in the public school system, and the Black Muslim woman experience."

The podcast is the creation of the Roots4Change Collective — a network of young people from diverse backgrounds working together to unpack systemic issues in our education and justice systems from the perspective of those with lived experience. It is supported by the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights, which "works to advance dignity, freedom, justice, and security through collaborative relationships and transformative education on peace and human rights," and it is funded by the Edmonton Community Foundation.

Hosts Wen Chan, Reese Kurian, Elaine Tran, Ruth Hopkinson, and D Santos come from diverse backgrounds, educational histories, and passions. When the team first started working on the podcast, they were going to call it the Taproot Podcast, but, well, that was taken. The continued search for a roots-related play on words let them to rhizome. "Rhizomes are stems that start from one plant and spread laterally to create new offshoots," they note in their introductory episode. "We thought this reflected how we're all interconnected, once we dig a little deeper."

The Rhizome Podcast is not the collective's only project. The group has also published a zine and been involved in podcast workshops, youth gatherings, and a virtual roundtable about hate crime victims and survivors, which was held on Nov. 20.

You can find the show on the Roots4Change site, Anchor, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

You can listen to podcast picks from Taproot on Listen Notes or Spotify.