A new Parkland Institute study reveals many seniors continuing care centres are chronically understaffed and unable to meet the basic care needs of seniors.

Alberta's UCP government released a 2021 budget that will hurt many Albertans while giving billions to protect the bottom lines of major corporations. Parkland Institute notes some of the numbers that will hit hard.

Alberta was eligible for $348 million in COVID-related federal government money for its low-paid essential workers, but only accessed $12 million; a shortfall of $335.8 million that could have been used to assist workers and their families, and to stimulate the province’s struggling economy. This is the highest amount of money left on the table by any provincial government. Parkland Institute director Trevor Harrison comments on a report by CCPA senior economist David Macdonald. This op-ed was published in the Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald.

A new report by the CCPA evaluates recent developments, including new production forecasts, announced expansions of existing pipelines, cost inflation, and prices in U.S. and Asian markets. The report concludes that TMX, if completed, would be surplus to Canadian requirements and would not result in the price premium for Canadian producers.

The importance of dental health cannot be overestimated. A report released today calls for a checkup on dentistry in Alberta and across Canada, and Dr. Carlos Quinonez says a new vision for dental care is needed to address issues of access.

The current whistleblower protection act falls far short of international best practices for whistleblower protection. Worse, the legislation, and its interpretation by the Office of the Public Interest Commissioner that investigates complaints, is laced with pitfalls through which few whistleblowers should ever dare to venture.

A new report by the Parkland Institute reveals how decades of declining public investment in health care entrench political attitudes that prioritize cutting costs and privatizing services at the expense of working conditions and quality of care.

This Op-ed by Trevor Harrision was published in the Edmonton Journal on September 3, 2020.

Echoing Biblical prophecy, Premier Jason Kenney has repeatedly said Alberta is headed for a “fiscal reckoning.” Finance Minister Travis Toews’ recent grim account of Alberta’s financial plight – a deficit of $24.2 billion and a provincial debt climbing to $99.6 billion–sets the stage for the UCP’s budgetary punishment this fall.

Whether the fall budget will see an honest reckoning or merely a further wrecking of the Alberta economy remains to be seen, but the signs are not hopeful.

As the Alberta government launches its Alberta 2030 review of the post-secondary education system, a new report from the Corporate Mapping Project and the Parkland Institute raises big questions related to universities’ fulfillment of their public interest mandate. Authored by Laurie Adkin, a political economist at the University of Alberta, Knowledge for an Ecologically Sustainable Future? Innovation Policy and Alberta Universities examines the implications of the research funding priorities of the federal and provincial governments for the production of the knowledge needed for an ecologically sustainable economy and society.

As details emerge about the working and living conditions of immigrant and temporary foreign workers in Alberta’s meatpacking industry and their link to COVID-19 outbreaks in those plants, a new report by the Parkland Institute highlights the even greater challenges faced by migrant workers in Alberta who have lost their status.