Hard Math, Harder Choices
Alberta's Budget Reality
Barring unexpectedly rapid improvements in the energy sector, the Notley government will soon be forced to address the previous government's budgetary legacy; not only the massive revenue hole resulting from the precipitous drop in resource revenues that began in the fall of 2014, but also a structural deficit that emerged even when resource prices were high.
Illegal and Injurious
How Alberta Has Failed Teen Workers
Most Albertans will hold a job at some point during their teen years. Yet teens employed in Alberta face widespread illegality and injury on the job, and Alberta does not effectively enforce the employment laws that are supposed to protect teen workers, including the Employment Standards Code and the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Successive PC governments in Alberta experimented with neoliberal approaches to the non-profit social services sector, with negative consequences for the sector and the people it serves.
Ending Pay to Play
The Need for Political Finance Reform in Alberta
A ban on corporate and union donations is widely expected to be one of the new NDP government's first bills, but it is important that the government does not stop there, but rather works to systematically change Alberta's campaign finance rules to reform the provinces’s political culture in the public interest.
Billions Forgone
The Decline in Alberta Oil and Gas Royalties
Alberta introduced new royalty formulas in 2009, expecting to collect an additional $2 billion per year. Instead, total royalties collected over the following five years went down by $13.5 billion.
From Gap to Chasm
Alberta’s Increasing Income Inequality
The gap between the rich and the poor in Alberta is the widest in the country, and the disparity between those Albertans at the top of the income ladder and those at the bottom has been growing faster than in any other province.
A Monochrome Political Culture?
Examining the Range of Albertans' Values and Beliefs
This survey-based study examines the diversity of Albertans' values and beliefs on four dimensions: economic conservatism, traditional values, libertarianism, and political alienation.
Looking in the Mirror
Provincial Comparisons of Public Spending
Does Alberta really have a spending problem? Is public sector spending in the province really outpacing the level of public expenditures in other provinces? This report brings facts to the Alberta budget discussion.
The Alberta Disadvantage
Gender, Taxation, and Income Inequality
This report analyzes gender inequality in Alberta, and offers a series of recommendations to reverse the decades-long slide in gender equality in Alberta, restore stability to provincial revenues, and create a more equitable provincial taxation system.
A Dirty Business
The Exclusion of Alberta Farm Workers From Injury Compensation
Alberta farm workers are excluded from workers' compensation protection, despite facing a high risk of workplace injury, including developing occupational cancer. This report examines why the Alberta government continues this exclusion.
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