Few publishers and publications can credibly claim to have wielded the influence that Ted Byfield and his Alberta Report did in their time. That’s a compliment to Ted and his team. But as this good old name falls under the umbrella of the Western Standard, it is also a daunting challenge for me and my team.
Alberta Report’s heyday was before my time. However, it shaped the Canada I grew up in and the Alberta that I would make my home.
Soon after Alberta Report closed its doors in 2003, Ezra Levant picked up the torch, launching the original Western Standard in 2004. As Levant put it, the Western Standard acknowledged its paternity in the Alberta Report family, with Ted Byfield as its father. Indeed, Ted helped Levant move subscribers to the new publication and supplied much of the editorial team talent — including himself.
I subscribed from the start, and as a young university student without much else of substance available to read, I eagerly consumed its pages. It was then I began to study Ted’s writing.
Alas, it was not meant to last; the first Western Standard closed in 2007. It was too good a publication though, too important a voice of prairie aspiration, to be allowed to stay silent.
So, in an inspired moment in 2019, we brought the Western Standard back to life as a digital publication. We have since become the largest Alberta-based, private-sector news organization, with a vibrant newsroom and a cast of columnists poking the bear daily.
We even have some of the old gang; Linda Slobodian and Shaun Polczer are Alberta Report veterans.
In 2021, we soft-launched the Alberta Report as a locally focused sub-publication of the Western Standard, but it didn’t receive the love and attention it deserved as we charged forward from a start-up into a larger, more professional company.
As we properly pay homage to the late Ted Byfield, we have been working on reviving the masthead he so boldly led for decades. That’s why we’re now refocusing our efforts on a worthy relaunch of the Alberta Report alongside our other new regional publications: West Coast Standard, Saskatchewan Standard, Manitoba Standard, and the Ontario Standard.
These publications will be more locally focussed than our flagship Western Standard. But Alberta Report will be the centrepiece of these regional publications, picking up a storied masthead of which our readers will rightfully have high expectations.
Canada’s independent media has always had a tough time, as shown by the first Alberta Report and Western Standard. It’s even more difficult today: the very few truly independent media that refuse the Trudeau government’s subsidies are forced to compete on a wildly uneven playing field. In addition to not accepting the federal media subsidies, Ottawa further damaged us with the Online News Act, which saw us banned from Facebook and Instagram.
Despite these headwinds, we are determined to carry on Ted Byfield’s vision. We will be leaner, meaner, spicier and more Albertan than the competition.
We stand alone as Alberta’s only major homegrown media voice. (The Calgary Sun, Edmonton Sun, Calgary Herald, and Edmonton Journal are all run out of Toronto, owned by an American hedge fund, and are heavily subsidized by Ottawa.)
Never again can the West be without the voice of Alberta Report or the Western Standard as we were from 2003-2004 and from 2008-2019 respectively. We need Alberta patriots to subscribe in greater numbers and businesses that see our value to advertise and donate.
In the 2023 Alberta election, the entire mainstream legacy media was arrayed in near-uniform hostility against the United Conservative Party and carried water for the NDP. This included formerly conservative-leaning newspapers, such as the Calgary Herald and the two Suns.
This is not healthy for democracy or Western conservatism. With the support of enough Albertans, we can balance the scales. Without that support, I fear Alberta will become as unremarkable as most of North America.
Alberta’s future and that of the West depends on us carrying forward Ted Byfield’s crusade as boldly as he did. However big his shoes are to fill, we have no choice but to walk in them.
Derek Fildebrandt is Publisher of the Western Standard & Alberta Report