It's time to take Alberta's Oil Savings Seriously

The oil industry is critically important to Alberta -- Albertans are fortunate for the prosperity that oil has generated over the years.

Since 1971 PC governments in Alberta have collected almost $200 billion in royalties on oil and natural gas, and when adjusted for inflation, that represents $300 billion.

Alberta’s Heritage Trust Fund was created in 1976 by the PC’s first premier Peter Lougheed; however, following Lougheed’s retirement in 1985, the PC governments have not invested in the Heritage Trust Fund. Not one dime has been added to the Fund since 1987.

Peter Lougheed taught Alberta to, “think like an owner… This is a sale of a depleting resource that’s owned by the people. Once a barrel of oil goes down the pipeline it’s gone forever. It’s like a farmer selling off his topsoil… what is fair return?”

The PCs has seen signs of crashing oil prices for years and did very little to get our province off of our heavy reliance on a cyclical economy of boom and bust. Why do the PCs still base almost 30% of the province’s operating budget on oil and gas royalties? What if they took more initiatives to diversify our economy and started saving those royalties? Would we still have billion dollar deficits?

“The PCs have made Alberta too dependent on oil, but it’s not your fault. It’s the PCs,” said Alberta Party leader Greg Clark.

“The PCs have forgotten the wisdom of their first premier Peter Lougheed. It is time Alberta stopped neglecting the Heritage Trust Fund,” said Red Deer South candidate Serge Gingras.

The Alberta Party would employ the leadership needed to diversify our economy while still promoting the responsible development of our resources. We would balance Alberta’s budget over six years and would protect the services we need by reducing our dependence on oil and gas royalties and rebuilding the Heritage Fund.

The Alberta Party would work with the City of Red Deer

Municipalities provide the majority of services we use on a daily basis, including water, transit, recreation, fire protection, sewer, policing, roads and parks. Even though municipalities own 60% of all public infrastructure and deliver critical services, they only receive 8 cents of every dollar paid in taxes to all levels of government.

“For too long, municipalities have not been treated as an equal partner with the provincial government. The Alberta Party would enter into a new partnership with the City of Red Deer,” said Red Deer North Alberta Party candidate Krystal Kromm.

“Under the PCs, municipal governments are reliant on grants from the other orders of government and are only allowed to raise money through the property tax and user fees. The City of Red Deer needs stable and predictable funding,” said Red Deer South Alberta Party candidate Serge Gingras.

Our municipalities face some key challenges and the Alberta Party would address them head on.

“The Alberta Party believes we can make Alberta stronger by making our municipalities stronger,” said Alberta Party leader Greg Clark.

The Alberta Party will enter into a new partnership with municipalities. Here are 7 actions the Alberta Party would take to help make the City of Red Deer better a place:

1. Stop Ignoring the Housing Crisis:
fund the construction of quality social housing, including seniors housing

• assist renters and homeowners by following Ontario’s lead and legalize secondary suites throughout the province and reform the building code to make it easier to build safe secondary suites

2. Reduce congestions by investing in Transit

• make investments in bus based transit systems.

• follow the federal government’s lead and create a permanent fund dedicated to supporting transit in our cities.

3. Fund Family and Community Services (FCSS)

• FCSS is a program fund by the Province and municipalities to provide social service programs that are tailored to the local community. Unlike the PCs, the Alberta Party would properly fund it.

4. Provide stable and predictable funding

• The Alberta Party would provide municipalities with stable and predictable funding by allocating a percentage of income tax revenues to fund municipal infrastructure. We would also work with municipalities to determine other stable and predictable revenue streams, such as a hotel room tax.

5. Allow regionalization to fix the revenue imbalance

• The Alberta Party would allow for the creation of more regional municipalities, such as Fort McMurray, so that towns and cities which provide services to the residents of the region can share in the property tax and linear assessment revenue generated in the region.

6. Create City Charters for Calgary and Edmonton

• New legislation would provide Calgary and Edmonton with much more flexibility in structuring their local governments in a manner that makes sense for a big city It would also provide the city with greater authority on matters where the city has significant expertise, such as planning, environmental remediation and housing.

7. Modernize the Municipal Government Act

• Municipalities need to be treated as an equal partner in government in our province. The Alberta Party believes that the Municipal Government Act needs to be reformed to recognize that municipalities are duly elected governments and are accountable to their citizens.

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.