Alberta families watch a large bite of their take-home pay get eaten up by fees for critical public services. That bite will get bigger with the looming budget cuts.
Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending shows that Alberta’s families already pay the highest out of pocket costs in the country for health care and are in the top for fees for utilities, education and child care.
Services like health care, child care, education and utilities have been affected by deregulation, privatization, and under-funding. Albertans pay for these services either way – through their tax dollars or out of their own pockets. Budget cuts to those services will increase the cost burden for families in Alberta.
Diana Gibson
Diana Gibson has worked nationally and internationally on economic and public policy issues ranging from health care to energy and trade policy. She has over 25 years of experience in social policy research and has been on faculty with Capilano College and was research director of Parkland Institute. She has authored and co-authored many publications on inequality, tax reform, and energy issues at the provincial, territorial and national levels. She is the executive director of the Community Social Planning Council of Greater Victoria, a co-founder and former CEO of The Firelight Group Research Cooperative, a director of PolicyLink Research and Consulting, a co-founding director of the Canadians For Tax Fairness as well as a research associate of the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives, and a distinguished research fellow with Parkland Institute.
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