Media Releases

The agricultural industry has among the highest fatality rate of any occupation in the country, and farm workers face higher risk for a range of occupational cancers. Despite that reality, the Alberta government continues to exclude tens of thousands of Alberta farm workers from the provincial workers’ compensation system.

The Saskatchewan government maintains that their proposed privatization of the province’s liquor retailing system will not result in diminished government revenues. However, a new joint study by Alberta’s Parkland Institute and the Saskatchewan Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives demonstrates that even with the existing mark-up and taxation regime in place, the government stands to lose millions in potential revenue under a privatized liquor system.
 

Parkland Institute’s annual fall conference this year will seed to address why, at a time of remarkable wealth production, the money seems to be skewing in very particular directions, and away from workers, women, visible minorities, the disabled, and the poor and towards a small minority, and what can and should be done about it.

A new fact sheet released this morning by the Parkland Institute finds that Alberta’s new energy regulator, the AER, will do very little to improve Albertans’ abilities to have a say in how the province’s energy resources, particularly its massive bitumen deposits, are developed.

A new study released this morning by the Parkland Institute recommends that the Alberta government should step back from its current moves to reduce unionization and restrict collective bargaining, as labour unions play an important role in improving wages, improving workplace safety, and reducing inequality across the province.

A new study released this morning, on the second anniversary of the 2012 Alberta election, reports that Albertans cite a lack of time and inhibiting structural factors as key reasons for their failure to vote, and recommends increased advocacy and education efforts emphasizing voting as a responsibility of citizenship.

A new fact sheet released this morning by the Parkland Institute in response to the 2014 Alberta Budget says that the Alberta government has missed an opportunity to address a significant roadblock to improved health, happiness, prosperity, and overall well-being for the province.

A new fact sheet released this morning by the Parkland Institute says that Alberta should introduce progressive taxes and improve public services in the provincial budget in order to improve health outcomes and significantly reduce costs.

The fact sheet, written by Parkland Institute research director Shannon Stunden Bower, is titled Sick of Inequality: The case for action by the Alberta government on the social determinants of health. Stunden Bower highlights that inequality in Alberta is currently the highest in the nation. In 1982, the top 1% of income earners made ten times what the bottom 10% did. By 2011, the spread had grown to 18 times. At the same time, the earnings of the middle class have been severely squeezed.

A new report by the Parkland Institute raises serious concerns about elder care in Alberta, and calls into question the government’s policies of privatization, offloading, and cutbacks.

For adults, falling leaves evoke Norman Rockwell scenes of school drop-offs, homework and planning Halloween costumes. For a growing number of students in North America, that picture is totally different.  Rather than hoisting a backpack and throwing leaves in the school playground, on Monday morning a lone child sits at a computer at home and logs into a standardized off-the-shelf web-based program.