Legal Aid Alberta gets a $70-million boost

From the Province of Alberta

Ensuring Albertans have access to justice

October 11, 2018

The Alberta government is increasing support for legal aid to ensure low-income and vulnerable Albertans can access the justice system for years to come.

A $70-million increase over four years will allow Legal Aid Alberta, which manages the province’s legal aid program, to broaden access, improve services and meet future demand. Last year, over 60,000 Albertans accessed Legal Aid, with more than a third of those cases serving family matters. The funding will also make Alberta’s legal system more efficient by minimizing delays and reducing court backlogs.

“Legal aid helps people in some of the most trying periods of their lives. Whether it’s a parent fighting for child support, or a survivor of domestic violence fleeing an abusive partner, fairness before the courts shouldn’t depend on the size of a person’s bank account. That’s why we’ve increased funding for legal aid, to make sure it’s there when Albertans need it and that our justice system works for everyone.”

Rachel Notley, Premier

The funding increase supports a new governance agreement with Legal Aid Alberta and the Law Society of Alberta. Under the agreement, Legal Aid Alberta will focus on streamlining application and referral processes and determining how best to provide clients with the right service at the right time. This includes making legal information and advice available at all first appearance bail hearings, and offering phone and in-person legal help for family law matters.

“A properly funded legal aid program is critical to a fair, effective and accessible justice system. We have negotiated a new legal aid governance agreement that provides this critical program with stable and predictable funding now and into the future. By reversing decades of underfunding in Alberta’s legal aid program, we are helping to ensure all Albertans can access legal services.”

Kathleen Ganley, Minister of Justice and Solicitor General

“This new agreement provides a clear mandate and sustainable funding that enables us to increase access to justice for all Albertans, and the flexibility to contribute to a more efficient justice system. The renewed spirit of collaboration with our partners and stakeholders allows us to work more closely to innovate and improve our service, and ensure Albertans receive tremendous value for dollar.”

John Panusa, president and CEO, Legal Aid Alberta

“The Law Society is in a unique position to see how many struggle to find legal help. This is why our collaboration with the government and Legal Aid Alberta was so important in developing a new Legal Aid Governance Agreement. We are proud of the innovative framework that will help Legal Aid deliver legal services in a way that improves the protection and representation of vulnerable and disadvantaged Albertans.”

Don Cranston, QC, president, Law Society of Alberta

“This agreement represents marked and significant improvement to the legal aid plan in Alberta and creates needed funding stability. The Government of Alberta has listened to and addressed the concerns of crucial stakeholders in the legal aid system. Many Albertans will benefit from this new agreement and we are confident that this investment in legal aid will make a significant positive impact on the justice system in Alberta.”

Daniel Chivers, president, Criminal Trial Lawyers Association

Recognizing that legal aid is a crucial part of the justice system, the government began negotiations on a new governance agreement in September 2017. A review of legal aid helped inform the new agreement, and included feedback from a wide range of justice system and legal community stakeholders. The previous governance agreement was set to expire in 2019.

Quick facts

This funding boost means that the Alberta government has increased Legal Aid funding by 72 per cent since 2015.
Legal Aid Alberta is receiving an additional $14.8 million for 2018-19. This increases the total operating grant to $104.1 million for 2018-19.
By 2021-22, the total operating grant will be $110.4 million.
The Alberta government, Legal Aid Alberta and the Law Society of Alberta are part of a tripartite agreement for providing essential legal aid services for low-income and vulnerable Albertans.

Related Topics:Legal Aid Province of Alberta

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Alberta

Alberta government should eliminate corporate welfare to generate benefits for Albertans

Published on May 2, 2024

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Spencer Gudewill and Tegan Hill

Last November, Premier Danielle Smith announced that her government will give up to $1.8 billion in subsidies to Dow Chemicals, which plans to expand a petrochemical project northeast of Edmonton. In other words, $1.8 billion in corporate welfare.

And this is just one example of corporate welfare paid for by Albertans.

According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, from 2007 to 2021, the latest year of available data, the Alberta government spent $31.0 billion (inflation-adjusted) on subsidies (a.k.a. corporate welfare) to select firms and businesses, purportedly to help Albertans. And this number excludes other forms of government handouts such as loan guarantees, direct investment and regulatory or tax privileges for particular firms and industries. So the total cost of corporate welfare in Alberta is likely much higher.

Why should Albertans care?

First off, there’s little evidence that corporate welfare generates widespread economic growth or jobs. In fact, evidence suggests the contrary—that subsidies result in a net loss to the economy by shifting resources to less productive sectors or locations (what economists call the “substitution effect”) and/or by keeping businesses alive that are otherwise economically unviable (i.e. “zombie companies”). This misallocation of resources leads to a less efficient, less productive and less prosperous Alberta.
And there are other costs to corporate welfare.

For example, between 2007 and 2019 (the latest year of pre-COVID data), every year on average the Alberta government spent 35 cents (out of every dollar of business income tax revenue it collected) on corporate welfare. Given that workers bear the burden of more than half of any business income tax indirectly through lower wages, if the government reduced business income taxes rather than spend money on corporate welfare, workers could benefit.

Moreover, Premier Smith failed in last month’s provincial budget to provide promised personal income tax relief and create a lower tax bracket for incomes below $60,000 to provide $760 in annual savings for Albertans (on average). But in 2019, after adjusting for inflation, the Alberta government spent $2.4 billion on corporate welfare—equivalent to $1,034 per tax filer. Clearly, instead of subsidizing select businesses, the Smith government could have kept its promise to lower personal income taxes.

Finally, there’s the Heritage Fund, which the Alberta government created almost 50 years ago to save a share of the province’s resource wealth for the future.

In her 2024 budget, Premier Smith earmarked $2.0 billion for the Heritage Fund this fiscal year—almost the exact amount spent on corporate welfare each year (on average) between 2007 and 2019. Put another way, the Alberta government could save twice as much in the Heritage Fund in 2024/25 if it ended corporate welfare, which would help Premier Smith keep her promise to build up the Heritage Fund to between $250 billion and $400 billion by 2050.

By eliminating corporate welfare, the Smith government can create fiscal room to reduce personal and business income taxes, or save more in the Heritage Fund. Any of these options will benefit Albertans far more than wasteful billion-dollar subsidies to favoured firms.

Authors:

Spencer Gudewill

Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute

and

Tegan Hill

Associate Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute

Alberta

Official statement from Premier Danielle Smith and Energy Minister Brian Jean on the start-up of the Trans Mountain Pipeline

Published on May 1, 2024

Government of Alberta

Alberta is celebrating an important achievement for the energy industry – the start-up of the twinned Trans Mountain pipeline. It’s great news Albertans and Canadians as this will welcome a new era of prosperity and economic growth. The completion of TMX is monumental for Alberta, since this will significantly increase our province’s output. It will triple the capacity of the original pipeline to now carry 890,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to British Columbia’s Pacific Coast.

We are excited that Canada’s biggest and newest oil pipeline in more than a decade, can now bring oil from Edmonton to tide water in B.C. This will allow us to get our energy resources to Pacific markets, including Washington State and California, and Asian markets like Japan, South Korea, China, and India. Alberta now has new energy customers and tankers with Alberta oil will be unloading in China and India in the next few months.

For Alberta this is a game-changer, the world needs more reliably and sustainably sourced Alberta energy, not less. World demand for oil and gas resources will continue in the decades ahead and the new pipeline expansion will give us the opportunity to meet global energy demands and increase North American and global energy security and help remove the issues of energy poverty in other parts of the world.

Analysts are predicting the price differential on Canadian crude oil will narrow resulting in many millions of extra government revenues, which will help fund important programs like health, education, and social services – the things Albertans rely on. TMX will also result in billions of dollars of economic prosperity for Albertans, Indigenous communities and Canadians and create well-paying jobs throughout Canada.

Our province wants to congratulate the Trans Mountain Corporation for its tenacity to have completed this long awaited and much needed energy infrastructure, and to thank the more than 30,000 dedicated, skilled workers whose efforts made this extraordinary project a reality. The province also wants to thank the Federal Government for seeing this project through. This is a great example of an area where the provincial and federal government can cooperate and work together for the benefit of Albertans and all Canadians.