News

There’s been a lot of discussion in Alberta in recent days regarding several new pieces of provincial legislation that will impact municipalities.

The Alberta government is proposing a series of reforms that aim to clarify the role and scope of municipal governments - and the role of the Province in governing municipalities.

Last week marked a monumental moment for our Free Alberta Strategy team.

When we first wrote the Free Alberta Strategy, one of the key ideas we developed was called the "Sovereignty Act" - you may have heard of it?

Our vision for a stronger, more independent Alberta pushed us to develop this idea of a law that allowed Alberta to take the front foot, and take the fight to Ottawa, instead of waiting on the defensive and constantly having to react to Ottawa's moves.

As you probably know - our idea was adopted by Danielle Smith and passed into law just over a year ago.

As you may have heard, Alberta has announced it will opt out of participating in the federal government's proposed national pharmacare plan.

The massively expensive proposal was, of course, the centerpiece of the 2021 Confidence and Supply Agreement between the Liberal and NDP parties currently sharing power in Parliament.

The Alberta government calls the plan “a hastily arranged, politically motivated program that the Liberal government has agreed to, in an attempt to hold together their confidence and supply agreements with the NDP to avoid an election.”

And, effectively, it amounts to a federal government takeover of yet another aspect of provincial jurisdiction.

Which, naturally, means Alberta is going to pay.

Literally.

Albertans faced a particularly gruesome deep freeze last week, forcing renewable electricity generation to completely shut down and putting the provinces’ entire electricity grid at risk.

That deep freeze caused the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) to issue an emergency alert urging Albertans to reduce electricity usage in order to avoid rolling blackouts.

It’s a common misconception that the point of establishing an Alberta Pension Plan (APP) is to let the Alberta government decide what the money would be invested in.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you’ve been reading the news lately, you’ve probably seen very superficial coverage of the Premier’s Mandate Letters.

In some cases, what’s actually in the letters has been ignored altogether in order to talk about what’s not in them.

But, our team took the time to read and analyze every letter and we’ve been very pleased to see provincial autonomy take center stage in the Premier’s directives to her Ministers.

It was bound to happen eventually.

Justin Trudeau was finally right about a policy:

“I’ll be blunt ... housing isn’t a primary federal responsibility,” said the Prime Minister in a press conference earlier this week.

I know, right?!

After every election in Alberta, once the new government is formed and Cabinet has been selected, the Premier provides documents called mandate letters to each of their new Cabinet Ministers.

These mandate letters outline the government's priorities and policy objectives, as well as the Premier's expectations, for each Minister's performance in their respective roles.

It is also common for these mandate letters to be released publicly, giving us as the public an early look at where the government is likely headed in the coming months and years.

Over the last few days, the first of these mandate letters have been released, so we wanted to bring you a few of the highlights.

The Calgary Stampede was the place to be this last week.

Sure, we often joke that no real work gets done during Stampede, but we all know that amidst the 10-day spectacle of bull riding, calf roping, extreme food, country music, and parties galore, there remains a serious undertone of deal-making and networking, reflective of the province's enterprising spirit.

So, in true Stampede fashion, while the rodeo action was front and centre, the real main event was going on behind the scenes. 

Last week, the federal government tabled Bill C-50 in Parliament, titled “An Act respecting accountability, transparency and engagement to support the creation of sustainable jobs for workers and economic growth in a net-zero economy.”

In other words, it’s the rebranded “Just Transition” legislation, a policy that Ottawa has been preparing to force down the throats of western Canada’s energy industry for the past two years.