 | |
| News Editor | Dave Naylor |
|---|---|
| Opinion Editor | Nigel Hannaford |
| Publisher | Derek Fildebrandt |
| Founder | Ted Byfield |
| First issue | 1973; 52 years ago (1973) |
| Final issue | 2003; 22 years ago (2003) |
| Website | albertareport |
TheAlberta Report was a conservative weekly newsmagazine based inEdmonton. It was founded and edited byTed Byfield, and later run by his son,Link Byfield. It ceased publication in 2003.[1]
Promoting his ownsuccessor publication in 2004,Ezra Levant described the Report as having been the only general interest magazine in Western Canada covering the news from a conservative perspective.[2]
In 2022, the Alberta Report was returned as an online publication under the ownership ofWestern Standard New Media Corp.[3]
In 1973, Byfield returned to journalism by publishing theSt. John's Edmonton Report, a local paper, as part of the operations of theCompany of the Cross, a layAnglicanreligious order, also co-founded by Byfield, which included a series of traditional Anglican private boarding schools for boys, starting with theSaint John's Cathedral Boys' School in 1957.[4][5][6] The minister of St. John's School, Keith T. Bennett, served on the original editorial board. In the early years the school and the magazine operated under the same system where staff lived in a communal apartment block and everyone worked for a dollar a day plus room and board.[7]
TheSt. John's Edmonton Report combined Byfield's interest in journalism and current affairs with his desire to use media to education others about Christian values. It provided a space for Byfield to comment on "homosexuals, abortionists, human rights commissions and public education" which he strongly opposed.[7] Prior to the establishment of the Alberta Report in 1979,[8] Byfield also launched theSt. John's Calgary Report in 1977. When the two magazines were merged into theAlberta Report,[7] Byfield shifted the business model from that of the lay order to a more commercial enterprise to attract a higher quality of journalists.
The emergence of theAlberta Report coincided with Alberta's energy wars with the federal government. Byfield'sReport provided the voice forWestern Canada's growing sense of discontent and alienation in the 1970s and 1980s.[7] In response to the province of Quebec's call for separation, Byfield wrote about "western separatism".[7] The magazine became so popular in Alberta that the circulation reached a record average of 53,277 a week by 1987.[7] In the late 1980s as the economy of Alberta declined, so did the circulation. In 1990 a group of Calgary oil magnates offered to buy the report in an effort to provide financial stability to a journal they regarded as politically congenial.[9]
The magazine was published for a time in three separate editions, theAlberta Report,BC Report, andWestern Report. These were merged in 1999 intoThe Report, later known as theCitizens Centre Report in connection with Link Byfield's successor organization, the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy.[citation needed]
The magazine often struggled financially, with the senior Byfield mortgaging his own house four times to keep it afloat. It shut down in June 2003.[8] According to theEdmonton Sun, some employees were still owed back pay nearly six months later, and complained when the Citizens Centre was directing money toward its political agenda.[10]
A number of right-wing journalists and commentators in Canada who are prominent today began their careers writing forThe Report magazines, includingKenneth Whyte, the editor in chief ofMaclean's; Colby Cosh of theNational Post, Kevin Michael Grace,Lorne Gunter,Ezra Levant, Brian Mulawka, and Kevin Steel. Other former staff include: freelance journalist Ric Dolphin, formerNational Post writer Dunnery Best, U.S. food writer (and founding editor ofEquinox magazine) Barry Estabrook, formerProfit editor and publisher Rick Spence, author D'Arcy Jenish, and Paul Bunner, who in 2006 became a speechwriter for Prime MinisterStephen Harper. Bunner is currently speech writer for Alberta PremierJason Kenney.[11] C.P. (Chris) Champion startedThe Dorchester Review, a small but influential history magazine, in 2011, and in 2020 served as a curriculum advisor under Minister of Education,Andrea LaGrange.[11] Canadian Conservative leaderPierre Poilievre also contributed to the Alberta Report.[12]
TheWestern Standard, launched in 2004, by Levant with the participation of several otherReport alumni, aimed to fill the space in the market that had been held by theReport. TheStandard ceased publication in 2007, but returned as an online daily news publication in 2019.
In 2022, Alberta Report was acquired byWestern Standard New Media Corp., returning it to publication online.[3]
In the 1990s, AR produced a number of articles expressing opposition to a possible amendment to theCanadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) that would prohibit discrimination against homosexuals.[13]
In the wake of the successful lawsuit against the government of Alberta for wrongful sterilization, launched by Leilani Muir, and the subsequent 1995 trial oneugenics, the weekly magazine published five articles oneugenics from 1995 and 1999.[14] The articles covered the court case, placing it into an historical context.[14] A 1995 article by Joe Woodward[15]: 38–42 and a 1996 article by Chris Champion investigated the decision by theUniversity of Alberta to remove the name of theJohn M. MacEachran (1877 – 1971)—co-founder of theCanadian Psychological Association and theAlberta Eugenics Board's chairman responsible for the forced sterilizations—from several scholarships and a library at the University.[16]: 40–43
