Alberta
Budget 2023 – Alberta’s Affordability Action Plan
Budget 2023 funds ongoing programs and services that support Albertans and builds on Alberta’s Affordability Action Plan, expanding relief for high utility costs and providing new measures for students, workers in the social services and disability sectors, and in continuing care.
Alberta’s government is permanently extending the natural gas rebate program. Moving forward, whenever natural gas prices exceed $6.50 per gigajoule, the rebate will take effect.
“Inflation continues to challenge Albertans, and affordability remains top of mind for many. That’s why we are working hard to save Albertans money so they can focus on what really matters. Budget 2023’s strong affordability measures – including extended fuel tax relief, continued utility rebates and new supports for students and social services workers – will help to keep life affordable for families, seniors, individuals and vulnerable groups across the province.”
Supporting post-secondary students
Post-secondary students in Alberta will see real relief, thanks to $238 million for new, targeted affordability measures.
Budget 2023 caps tuition fee increases for domestic students at two per cent annually effective for the 2024-25 school year.
Students receiving financial assistance will get more help repaying their loans, with an extension of the student loan grace period from six months to one year and an increase to the threshold for eligibility for the loan repayment assistance plan to $40,000, up from $25,000 in income.
Albertans repaying student loans will see their payments drop by an average of $15 per month thanks to the new student loan interest rate being reduced from prime plus one per cent to prime.
“These new measures will help all students keep up with the increased cost of living. We are committed to keeping post-secondary education accessible and affordable so that all Albertans can gain the skills and knowledge they need to build successful careers and secure Alberta’s future.”
Supporting families
Parents shouldn’t have to choose between filling up the car and putting food on the table. Budget 2023 leaves more money in the pockets of Alberta families by funding affordability measures, including direct payments of $100 per month through June 2023. All parents or guardians of a dependent under 18 can still apply to get $100 per month for six months for each child if their adjusted household income is below $180,000, based on the 2021 tax year.
Through Budget 2023, investments of $90 million over three years will help secure more supports for families with young children by indexing the Alberta Child and Family Benefit to inflation, increasing benefit amounts by six per cent in 2023.
Enabling parents to expand their families and helping more children find their forever home by making in-Alberta adoptions more affordable is an important initiative in Budget 2023. Alberta’s government is investing $12 million more over three years and providing supplementary health benefits for children adopted from government care or through licensed adoption agencies to ensure more successful adoptions. In addition, there is $6,000 in grant funding for prospective adoptive parents making less than $180,000 a year and an increase of the provincial adoption expense tax credit to $18,210 to match the federal threshold in 2023.
Budget 2023 allocates $1.3 billion in 2023-24, $1.4 billion in 2024-25 and $1.6 billion in 2025-26 in operating expense in the Child Care program from provincial funding and Alberta federal-provincial child-care agreements.
An additional operating expense of $143 million over three years responds to the increasing complexity of children receiving child intervention services and an additional $26 million over three years will support youth and young adults in care transitioning to adulthood.
“We want a better future for our children, which is why we are continuing to prioritize making high-quality child care more affordable and accessible for Alberta families. We are also providing more supports to reduce barriers in the adoption process as well as increasing supports for vulnerable children and youth in care while advancing our government’s priority of making life more affordable for all Albertans.”
Supporting seniors and other vulnerable Albertans
Seniors aged 65 and over with a household income under $180,000 based on the 2021 tax year are still eligible to receive direct payments of $100 per month for six months (January 2023 to June 2023).
Albertans who receive the Alberta Seniors Benefit, AISH and Income Support have been automatically enrolled to receive the same Affordability Relief Payments of $600 over six months.
Alberta’s government is further supporting seniors, low-income and vulnerable Albertans with a six per cent increase to core benefits in 2023. Benefits including AISH, Income Support and the Alberta Seniors Benefit are indexed to inflation, which is helping Albertans combat today’s increased cost of living.
Budget 2023 helps put food on Albertans’ tables by funding local food banks, including $10-million direct funding through the Family and Community Support Services Association of Alberta and $10 million to match private donations, over two years.
Alberta’s government values the work done by disability service providers and workers throughout the province in caring for the disability community. That is why Budget 2023 provides a five per cent increase to the disability sector to help with administration costs in Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) and Family Support for Children with Disabilities (FSCD) provider contracts and family-managed agreements.
It is important that Albertans are able to get to and from work, to a doctor’s appointment, the grocery store or a pharmacy. To support low-income transit pass programs, Budget 2023 is investing $16 million in 2023-24 to support municipalities throughout the province as they provide affordable transit to their residents.
“For so many seniors, low-income individuals and Albertans living with disabilities, the increased cost of living has made life more and more difficult to afford. Alberta’s government is continuing to take steps to support these individuals and families, which I know will have a huge impact for many households across the province.”
Supporting social services and disability services workers
The government is helping to attract and retain more social service workers to support more people in need. Budget 2023 includes $102 million in 2023-24 to increase wages for more than 20,000 workers in disability services, homeless shelters and family violence prevention programs. This funding builds on the $24 million the government provided to service providers in February to enable wage increases retroactive to Jan. 1, 2023.
Alberta’s government is also providing $8 million in 2023-24 for disability service providers to address increasing administrative costs.
Budget 2023 secures Alberta’s bright future by transforming the health-care system to meet people’s needs, supporting Albertans with the high cost of living, keeping our communities safe and driving the economy with more jobs, quality education and continued diversification.
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:
Alberta
Official statement from Premier Danielle Smith and Energy Minister Brian Jean on the start-up of the Trans Mountain Pipeline
A Fed-Controlled Digital Dollar Could Mean The End Of Freedom
The EV ‘Bloodbath’ Arrives Early
Principal at Calgary Elementary School charged with possession of child pornography
Alberta’s vision for passenger rail
-
Alberta1 day ago
Official statement from Premier Danielle Smith and Energy Minister Brian Jean on the start-up of the Trans Mountain Pipeline
-
Economy1 day agoToday’s federal government—massive spending growth and epic betting
-
Economy1 day agoYoung Canadians are putting off having a family due to rising cost of living, survey finds
-
COVID-191 day agoCanada’s COVID vaccine injury program has paid out just 6% of claims so far
-
Environment1 day agoClimate Alarmists Want To Fight The Sun. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
-
Addictions12 hours agoCity of Toronto asks Trudeau gov’t to decriminalize hard drugs despite policy’s failure in BC
-
International2 days agoNYPD storms protest-occupied Columbia building, several arrested
-
International1 day agoU.S. birth rate hit record low last year, signaling surge in childlessness