While most Canadians are acutely aware of how home prices and rents have skyrocketed in the last 15 years or so, few are aware of the restructuring of farmland ownership occurring in rural areas.  Since 2014, we’ve been studying changing land tenure patterns in the Prairies, where 70 per cent of Canada’s agricultural land is situated. Our research reveals three major trends — ongoing farm consolidation, increasing land concentration and expanding investor ownership of farmland — leading to growing land inequality.

After months of delays, the official handover of community laboratory services from Alberta Precision Laboratories to DynaLIFE  took place on December 5. With that, the political tug-of-war within and over Alberta’s medical laboratory system enters yet another round, but Albertans are the ones who will lose out. This op-ed appeared in the Edmonton Journal on December 16, 2022.

Recently Parkland Institute had the opportunity to work with our friends at the Alberta Federation of Labour, Public Interest Alberta, and Friends of Medicare on a campaign called Better Way Alberta. We have produced five short research reports that included clear, implementable, and evidence-based policy recommendations on areas of public policy that are of critical importance today.

The most in-depth glimpse into Premier Smith’s thinking on a range of critical public policy issues is contained in a 20-page paper entitled “Alberta’s Key Challenges and Opportunities.” Smith’s paper was published in June 2021, before oil and gas prices rose and substantially changed the province’s fiscal outlook. In this blog, Robert Ascah outlines and analyzes her fiscal policy ideas and health-care proposals.

Alberta’s new premier Danielle Smith is taking the reins of government at a time when many families are struggling to pay their bills. Inflation is high. The wages of many Albertans are not keeping up. Alberta’s minimum wage has been frozen at $15 since October 1, 2018. Premier Smith could give minimum-wage workers a hand up during these difficult times by raising the minimum wage. The UCP government should also legislate annual increases to the minimum wage that align with the annual rate of inflation.

It is well known that health and well-being are importantly influenced by the conditions in which we are born, grow, live, work, and age, including the quality and integrity of our natural environments. These are the social and ecological determinants of health. The unequal distribution and quality of those conditions create health inequities: differences in health and well-being between social groups that are unfair because they are avoidable.

In his response to the UCP government’s February 24, 2022 budget, President Bill Flanagan of the University of Alberta characterized its allocations for post-secondary education positively, as a “turning point for the University of Alberta.” In his statement, Flanagan highlights a UCP initiative called “Alberta at Work,” which promises to invest $171 million over three years to increase enrolment in programs selected by the government, and asserts that the U of A will move quickly to take advantage of this new funding program (along with 21 other post-secondary education institutions, or PSEIs).

When the Alberta government passed Bill 32: The Restoring Balance in the Workplace Act in the summer of 2020, a number of observers noted the many ways in which it unfairly targeted unions and their members. My Parkland Institute report analyzing Bill 32, however, made it clear that changes like those in the Act have broader implications for the rights of ALL Albertans. The report, Tipping the Balance, concluded that the legislation represented an Americanization of labour relations in Alberta and that many provisions undermined rights protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

While there is no roadmap on how to feel or the actions that might help truth and reconciliation, Don McIntyre urges us to never stop pressing for more stories of the lost children in unmarked graves. Never stop telling the story of Phyllis and her orange shirt. These stories are our Truths.

The climate crisis, low oil and gas prices and accelerating automation in Alberta’s oil and gas industry has reignited decades-long pleas to diversify the province’s economy and has strengthened calls for a just transition.