Media Releases

While the promise to ban corporate and union donations to political parties is a positive step in making much-needed changes to Alberta’s political finance laws, more comprehensive reform is necessary to remove the longstanding influence of money in provincial politics.

At least 40 percent of Alberta’s projected deficit for fiscal year 2015/16 could be eliminated by simply returning to the royalty formulas in place prior to 2009.

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, according to the findings of a new fact sheet released today by the Parkland Institute.

With Albertans in the early days of another provincial election cycle, a new report released today by the Parkland Institute says that the values of Albertans are much more diverse than over 43 years of unbroken Progressive Conservative rule would suggest, and don’t fall neatly into left-versus-right polarization.

The report, A Monochrome Political Culture? Examining the Range of Albertans’ Values and Beliefs, is based on public opinion surveys conducted by the University of Alberta’s Population Research Laboratory in 2014. 

Edmonton - The 2015/16 provincial budget tabled this afternoon by Finance Minister Robin Campbell is a missed opportunity to make the structural changes necessary to stabilize provincial revenues and equitably wean the province off its overdependence on resource revenue, according to the Parkland Institute.

A week before the Prentice government introduces its 2015/16 provincial budget, a new fact sheet released today by the Parkland Institute challenges the often-repeated claim that Alberta’s current fiscal woes are due to overspending by the provincial government.

Women in Alberta have been disproportionately impacted by the 2001 shift to a single rate tax regime in the province, and now face higher income gaps, unpaid work gaps, and after-tax income gaps than women in the rest of Canada, according to the findings of a comprehensive new report released today by the Parkland Institute.

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.