Western Standard publisher Derek Fildebrandt announced the Alberta Report will be reborn and return to publication as a daily online newspaper as of next week, carrying on the legacy former publisher Ted Byfield left.

At the same time, Fildebrandt said the Western Standard will be launching the West Coast Standard out of Vancouver and the Saskatchewan Standard out of Regina.

“But it is really the Alberta Report that I am most proud to stand before you and to stand before Ted and announce it’s back,” said Fildebrandt in a Wednesday speech at Toasting Ted: An Evening to Remember and Honour Ted Byfield in Edmonton.

“It may be a new generation carrying Ted’s torch, but we are not without some of Ted’s disciples.”

This is because Western Standard opinion editor Nigel Hannaford was friends with Byfield, and business reporter Shaun Polczer and columnist Linda Slobodian worked under him at the Alberta Report. Fildebrandt said independent media has always faced challenges in Canada.

While independent media has prospered, he said it “now faces gale force winds in the form of a federal Liberal government that has assumed more control over the press than any government in the Western world since the end of the Second World War.” He pointed out the Canadian government’s media subsidies cover close to half of the salaries of many reporters in Canada.

Although many news outlets are subsidized, he said the remnants of the free press must work harder and speak out against the media subsidies. After refusing to take media subsidies for four years, he said the Canadian government interfered by passing Bill C-18, leading to the Western Standard being restricted on Facebook.

However, he said the Western Standard struggles on, “knowing that a new dawn of a free, independent press is coming.” One year from now, he predicted the Liberals will lose the Canadian election and see its media subsidies, censorship, and CBC swept away.

He said the Western Standard will be meaner, stronger, spicier, and more Albertan than anyone else. If people have the ability to support it, he called for them to do so.

While Byfield has died, Fildebrandt said his legacy lives on in it and the few independent news outlets in Canada.

“So stand with me tonight as we honour the legacy of Ted Byfield and proudly carry the torch that he lit for the freedom of Alberta,” he said.

Canadian author Jonathon Van Maren started off the event by saying he had the immense privilege to be Byfield’s biographer.

“Now unlike so many of you in this room, I only knew him for 10 years,” said Van Maren.

“Many of you knew him for decades and in some cases 50 years, but it was a great privilege for me to know the Lion in Winter.”

Van Maren said he lived an extraordinary life by every measure and the calibre of Toasting Ted’s speakers are a testament to it. While he had many job titles, he said he was a political powerhouse.

Former Reform leader Preston Manning said he knew Byfield since the 1970s.

“And like has been said by many people tonight, Ted was many things,” said Manning.

“He was a journalist, he was an editorialist, he was a publisher, he was a small businessman, he was a populist, he was a conservative, he was a man of conviction, a man of faith.”

Through all of these titles, Manning said one of his greatest gifts was his ability to tell and publish stories. That was the part of his legacy he wanted to pay special tribute to now.

Byfield died in 2021.

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