Edmonton Minute: COVID Updates, Pipeline Delays, and Municipal Report Cards

Edmonton Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Edmonton politics

This Week In Edmonton:

• This week is of course Christmas. Will, Peter, and all our excellent volunteers would like to wish each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
  
  
• Council's winter break continues with no Committee or Council meetings scheduled until January 7th when there will be an Emergency Advisory Committee meeting. We're guessing COVID is on the agenda again.
  
  
• The World Juniors are being played in Edmonton beginning on Christmas Day with Switzerland vs Slovakia kicking the tournament off at noon. Similar to the NHL playoffs, a bubble is in effect and all games will take place at Rogers Place, without spectators of course. Some players tested positive for the virus and the playing schedule is being revised to allow these players extra quarantine time.

Last Week In Edmonton:

• The provincial government started preparations to turn the Butterdome into a temporary field hospital for COVID-19 patients. The government said it would only be staffed if the need arose. In more encouraging news, COVID-19 vaccines have also started being administered to some healthcare workers in Edmonton and Calgary.
  
  
• The province also released a Municipal Report Card which showed Edmonton has higher spending per capita (shocker) than Calgary. Edmonton also had the most debt per person and the highest long term debt at $3,294 per person. This news doesn’t surprise us, in fact, it's a big part of why we're working so hard to bring changes to City Hall.
  
  
• Work on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project was temporarily halted after a worker was injured near Burnaby B.C. This comes after the recent death of a worker in South West Edmonton. "Over the past two months, we have seen safety incidents at our worksites that are unacceptable to Trans Mountain," said Ian Anderson, President and CEO of Trans Mountain. The work stoppage will last until January 4th, 2021.

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