Every Albertan should watch this video before they vote

Take 5 minutes and get informed about the big issues in Alberta's coming election.

The Alberta Party has a better way. Read the Alberta Party Platform.

Alberta Party will restore trust in government

Albertans are disheartened and discouraged by the lack of integrity and honesty from the PCs.

When Jim Prentice became Premier, he made a lot of promises to clean up government, but the PCs continue to abuse the weak ethics laws they wrote.

Here are a couple examples:

• Education Minister Gordon Dirks conduct in during last falls by-election was labelled "Blatant Political Opportunism" by Alberta's Ethics Commissioner.
• The PCs have a secret deal with Kan-Alta Golf Management Ltd. worth 9.3 million to repair a Kananaskis golf course.
• Last week, the PCs were forced to revoke newly introduced rules that were designed to intimidate public servants from participating in politics.

The Alberta Party has a better way.

The Alberta Party will fight to restore trust in our government by advocating for the toughest ethics laws in Canada.

The Alberta Party will:

1. Prohibit public spending announcements during an election. 

2. Prohibit cabinet ministers from using their office for political gain. 

3. Conduct government business in the legislature - not behind closed doors.  

4. Toughen Alberta's campaign finance laws. 

5. Strengthen our democracy by redefining the role of MLAs to better serve constituents and reforming how the Legislature operates.

Red Deer needs Red Deer College

Red Deer College

There are many reasons why investing in post-secondary education is important. Here are just four:

1. We want our children to graduate from our K-12 public education and continue learning as adults. Having post-secondary education available can reduce overall poverty rates in the province while increasing quality of life and standards of living. 

2. Economic diversification is dependent on healthy colleges and universities. 

3. During tough economic times, many people choose to enter or re-enter post-secondary education to grow their skills. 

4. Alberta needs more post-secondary access, not less. Red Deer College is growing to meet our students’ needs, and with proper funding and support, Red Deer College could become a degree-granting institution. 

Alberta already has the lowest post-secondary participation rate in Canada, and now we know that the number of Albertans being turned away from college and university has doubled in the past four years. 15, 000 qualified students are being turned away from Alberta’s post-secondary institutions.

“Having access to high quality and affordable post-secondary education is critical to our economy. Sadly, the devastating cuts that the PCs have made to our trade schools, technical institutes, colleges and universities has made accessing the system more difficult than ever and significantly diminished the quality of education students receive,” said Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark.

Governments who cut education to save money are like farmers who sell their topsoil to pay the bills. This is why the Alberta Party is calling on the province to cancel planned cuts to post-secondary and instead invest to meet the growing demand. 

“Red Deer College is a wonderful place that is conveniently accessible to Red Deer North. However, if Jim Prentice and the PCs are allowed to continue their cuts to post-secondary education, Red Deer College will become a place for only rich people’s children,” said Alberta Party Red Deer North candidate Krystal Kromm.

“My 30 years of teaching at Red Deer College has made it clear to me how important Red Deer College is to Red Deer and central Alberta. The Alberta Party would restore post-secondary education funding, improve the student loan system and increase grants and bursaries,” said Alberta Party Red Deer South candidate Serge Gingras.

“A vote for the Alberta Party will be a vote for investing in this province’s colleges and universities.”

Reduce the number of MLAs by 30%

The Alberta Legislature is the most ineffective legislature in Canada

Most of the government of Alberta’s business is done behind closed doors in cabinet or in the PC caucus room, far from public scrutiny. The Alberta Legislature also works far less than other Canadian legislatures - only PEI and Nunavut sat for fewer days last year. For example, Alberta MLAs only sat for 42 days last year, compared to 77 for Ontario Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). 

What’s even more astonishing, is that Alberta has significantly more MLAs per capita than many other provinces. So we have a lot more people doing a lot less work.

Learning from Alberta’s big cities and other provinces 

Alberta could learn a lot from other jurisdictions, including the governments of its two largest cities, which have fewer elected representatives governing more people. The table below compares the number of legislators or council members in various jurisdictions. 

Why do city councillors in Calgary and Edmonton represent far more people than the MLAs in those cities?

Councillors in Calgary and Edmonton represent far more people than MLAs in each city. If we applied the same ratio of representatives to our big city councils, Calgary would have 25 councillors, instead of 14, and Edmonton would have 18 councillors, instead of 12.    

Currently, Alberta has 87 MLAs and a population of 4.1 million, which equates to 47,000 people per MLA. Compare this to Ontario, which has 107 MPPs and a population of 12.8 million, which equates to 119,000 people per MPP.  Even British Columbia which, despite having a larger population of 4.7 million individuals, has two fewer MLAs than Alberta.

Fewer MLAs, better government

If Alberta were to reduce the number of MLAs by 30 percent to 61 MLAs, each MLA would represent approximately 67,000 constituents, which would still be well below the number of people represented by elected officials in Ontario, or the city councils in Calgary and Edmonton. 

We believe that having fewer MLAs will lead to better government for the following reasons:

1. Save money.  

Reducing the number of MLAs will save taxpayers nearly $32 million over four years. We would reallocate this money to more urgent priorities, such as healthcare and education. 

2. Make the decision-making process in the Alberta legislature more efficient. 

It is well understood that smaller groups can make decisions faster. With 87 MLAs, its very difficult to allocate sufficient time for each MLA to express their constituents views in the legislature. By reducing the number of MLAs we can expect the quality of the debate to improve.

3. Increase the profile and effectiveness of individual MLAs. 

Currently, there are so many MLAs, it is difficult for constituents to know who their representative is and to keep track of what their representative is doing on their behalf.

4. Increase resources for rural MLAs to provide better service.

A reduction in the number of MLAs means that rural constituencies will will get larger. MLAs with large geographic areas could be provided with additional resources to better serve constituents. For example, these MLAs may be allowed to have multiple offices and extra staff to serve citizens. MLAs could also be equipped with more technology to better connect with citizens.  

We note that rural Federal MPs currently represent far larger geographic areas than Alberta provincial constituencies. Even after the reduction in the number of MLAs, provincial constituencies will be far smaller than Federal electoral districts. 

How would this plan be implemented?

The Alberta Party would appoint an independent boundary commission to establish new constituency boundaries. These new boundaries would take effect for the next general election. The independent commission would also establish a reasonable limit for population variances between constituencies, so that all Albertans are represented fairly.

The Alberta Party has a better way.

Read the backgrounder on this plan >

Read our full platform >

Alberta Party's environmental leadership

Many Albertans are rightfully concerned about our environment. The energy industry in our province is currently emissions-intensive from the electricity we produce, to the fuel we burn, to the hydrocarbons we export.

In Alberta, we have dedicated a considerable amount of time, effort and resources on becoming the world’s second largest exporter and fourth largest producer of natural gas while simultaneously helping Canada become the seventh largest producer of oil.

“While I am fiercely proud of our energy industry and I believe we should continue the responsible development of our natural resources, Alberta has huge, untapped potential as the world transitions to a knowledge-based economy,” said Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark.

The Alberta Party understands what Saudi Arabia’s second Oil Minister (1962-1986) Sheikh Zaki Yamani meant when he said, “The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

“We know the world is changing, and how we interact with our environment must change so that our children inherit a better planet than what our parents gave us,” said Red Deer South Alberta Party candidate Serge Gingras.

“We know that human induced climate change is real. The Alberta Party has strong environmental policies that will help turn this challenge into an opportunity to transition to greener energy technologies that will position our economy for a stronger future,” said Red Deer North Alberta Party candidate Krystal Kromm.

The Alberta Party envisions Albertans that are empowered to make sustainable choices to reduce the amount of waste they produce and to conserve more energy and water. One of the top 4 priorities in the environmental policy is our climate. Albertans want leaders in energy production and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions management.

The Alberta Party would gradually increase carbon prices to further encourage low-carbon innovation and greener energy while also ensuring an economically robust energy industry.

Appropriate carbon pricing will more accurately reflect the environmental cost of releasing GHG into the environment.

The Alberta Party supports shifts in our electrical generation to renewable sources such as solar and wind. We would encourage an increase in natural gas, distributed generation to feed back into the grid, and cogeneration facilities where more thermal energy would be put to use.

We need to continue to be responsible with our renewable and nonrenewable energy resources and continue to fund green initiatives to better diversify our economy and protect our environment, which will make Alberta into another world leader.

The Alberta Party will diversify our economy

The PCs have failed to diversify Alberta's economy

During the last forty-four years the PCs have been saying that we need to diversify Alberta’s economy. Forty-four years later the PCs are saying exactly the same thing with no real results.

In fact, former PC finance minister Ted Morton recently revealed how Alberta taxpayers are on the hook for $26 Billion for processing payment to build the Northwest Upgrader, a bitumen refinery near Edmonton.

“What began as a low-risk, low-cost project to encourage domestic bitumen upgrading has morphed into a multibillion-dollar boondoggle with high risks for Alberta taxpayers,” said in a paper released by the University of Calgary School of Public Policy.

The Alberta Party has a better way.

The Alberta Party believes in market-driven economic diversification where entrepreneurs and the free market, not the PCs, decide the future direction of Alberta’s economy. 

 
We will:

• Promote entrepreneurship by gradually phasing out Alberta’s small business tax.

• Invest an additional $100 million in the Alberta Enterprise Fund, an arms-length agency that provides venture capital funds to support Alberta startups.

• Invest in infrastructure that supports our creative industries and protect arts and cultural funding.

• Diversify markets for our agricultural products by working with the federal government to promote them internationally.

• Increase support for the development of new value added agricultural products for local and domestic markets. 

We believe that the government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers. The Northwest Upgrader is just the latest failed PC attempt to diversify the economy. Instead, we believe that the government should establish an environment that supports entrepreneurship and innovation.

The Alberta Party has a better way.

Read our full platform here.

Red Deer's Education Crisis

Red Deer’s School Crisis:

• Here is Red Deer Public School District's letter in regards to the PC's education cuts. 

• Here is Red Deer Catholic School District's letter in regards to the PC's education cuts.

• Red Deer Public has 2.7 million less dollars than in 2014-15.

• Red Deer doesn’t have enough schools -- class sizes are at all time highs and provincial funding is not keeping up with population growth.

• In 2014-15, Red Deer Public school board used funds from its reserves to address the shortfall from government funding in order to sustain services to learners. In 2015-16, school boards won’t have the same flexibility in drawing from reserves and will have to justify the use of reserves to government and only for what government approves. 

• Red Deer schools will have higher class sizes, less support to learners and teachers, higher school fees and more obsolete technology.

• Too many classrooms in Red Deer have 30 or 40 students.

• One year ago, Red Deer schools had 5 RCMP resource officers. Today, they have been cut to one.

• Red Deer Public has 1000 staff for 10,000 students. Red Deer Public has a $100 million budget.

• Red Deer Catholic has 700 staff for 9,000 students. Red Deer Catholic has a $90 million budget.

• Both Red Deer Public and Catholic have similar budget breakdowns: 77% to instruction, 13% to facilities and maintenance, 8% to Transportation, 3% to Administration.

Provincial Education Crisis:

• 19 Growing Alberta School Boards released a joint press release expressing shared concern over how the 2015-1016 budget will have significant effect on student success and the overall education system in Alberta. http://trustees.rockyview.ab.ca/assets/joint-budget-statement

• The new PC budget provides no funding for the 12,000-19,000 new students that are expected to enroll in public education. In fact, it does not provide funding for any of the growth expected over the next three years. This means that school boards will have to stretch every dollar even more every year and serve more students with less money.

• Alberta families paid 142.6 million in school fees in 2012/2013 compared to 46.1 million in 2008-2009. Families will pay more fees for activities, services and supplies as a result of school boards being forced to increase fees to sustain minimum support and services to students and teachers.

• Government is dictating to school boards on how to allocate the budget, taking away any autonomy regarding what is best for students in their own schools and forcing them to make difficult decisions that will affect students and teachers.

• Schools will lose teaching assistants, counsellors, social workers and other support while teachers will have to accommodate larger numbers of students with even more complex needs in their classrooms. 

• Alberta Schools suffer because they do not have sustainable, predictable and sufficient funding.

• Teachers have already agreed to a 3 year pay freeze, now the PCs have announced that teachers pay will be indefinitely frozen until government can balance the budget.

The Alberta Party will:

• fight to build schools, protect our teachers, provide adequate support to learners and reduce class sizes

• reverse the PCs’ cuts to education and guarantee per-student funding to match population growth and inflation.

• invest in new schools to keep pace with Alberta’s population growth.

• phase out school fees

• reduce taxpayer subsidies to private schools that do not serve the public interest.

Serge and Krystal understand:

• Governments who cut education to save money are like farmers who sell their topsoil to pay their bills.

• Education is not an expense -- it’s an investment.

• There is no more fat to cut from the education budgets in Red Deer. The PCs are cutting into bone.

Learn about the Alberta Party’s Better Way:

www.albertaparty.ca

www.krystalkromm.com

www.sergegingras.ca