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Alberta

Province pumping up support for growing school enrolment

Published

1 year ago

6 minute read

Supporting more students in classrooms

Budget 2023 provides more than $820 million over the next three years to support enrolment growth in schools.

Based on strong population growth in Alberta, a large increase in student enrolment is expected in September 2023.

“With Alberta’s rising population, we know many school authorities across the province continue to face growing enrolment pressures. Our strong funding commitment in Budget 2023 will empower school authorities to hire more teachers and obtain more resources for students.”

Adriana LaGrange, Minister of Education

Over the next three years, Education’s operating expense is increasing by nearly $2 billion. This will support the hiring of approximately 3,000 education staff, including teachers, educational assistants, bus drivers and school support staff, and will help authorities manage growing class sizes.

Funding increases for enrolment will be provided to school authorities through existing grants that include enrolment components. This includes the Early Childhood Services and Grades 1-9 Base Instruction grant and the High School (Grades 10-12) Base Instruction grant, as well as grants in the services and supports category, such as Specialized Learning Support, English as an Additional Language, and Program Unit Funding. The Operations and Maintenance grant also includes an enrolment component. The flexible funding provided allows local authorities to make decisions on how to best use the funding to support their students.

The Funding Manual for School Authorities 2023/24 School Year and projected operational funding profiles are being released March 9, providing school authorities with their funding information for the coming year.

“ASBA is pleased that government has been responsive to school boards’ requests for early release of the funding manual and operational funding profiles, as it assists in informed decision-making. Government’s investment in enrolment growth is welcome news as boards address the growing, diverse and complex student needs within their divisions while remaining accountable to their communities.”

Marilyn Dennis, president, Alberta School Boards Association

“This funding announcement is timely and much appreciated. In the 2022-23 school year, enrolment at the Calgary Board of Education has grown by more than 5,800 students and we are projecting another significant increase next year. This investment means we can hire additional teachers, educational assistants and other staff to support our growing student population.”

Laura Hack, board chair, Calgary Board of Education

“As one of the fastest-growing school divisions in the province, the funds provided for enrolment growth will help Rocky View Schools hire more staff to support the 1,000 new students we will welcome in the fall. Knowing additional funding will be available is positive news, as RVS continues to experience increasing enrolment pressures across the division.”

Norma Lang, board chair, Rocky View Schools

“The CASS board of directors recognizes the importance of supporting enrolment growth while maintaining sustainable support for all boards. The early release of the funding manual will assist school authorities in initiating planning needs for the 2023-24 school year.”

Scott Morrison, president, College of Alberta School Superintendents

“The investment in enrolment growth of Budget 2023 and other increases in grants are most welcome and will greatly help school authorities face significant challenges including high inflation and labour shortage. The association also appreciates the timeliness of the release of the funding manual and recognizes the extraordinary work of the department staff to make this possible.”

Francois Gagnon, president, Association of School Business Officials Alberta

Budget 2023 secures Alberta’s 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.

Quick facts

  • Last fall, the government announced a new supplemental enrolment growth grant that provided school authorities with more than $21 million in additional funding. This grant will continue to be available in the 2023-24 school year.
  • Alberta Education introduced the Supplemental Enrolment Growth (SEG) grant in the 2022-23 school year to support school authorities with significant enrolment growth.
  • The SEG grant provided additional per-student funding for authority enrolment growth of more than two per cent in the 2022-23 school year. The SEG grant, in addition to weighted moving average-based allocations, will provide additional funding to school authorities that have significant growth.
  • Over the next three years, the government will provide school authorities with more than $820 million in additional funding to support enrolment growth.
  • In the 2020-21 school year, school boards were funded for about 730,000 students and actual attendance was 705,000.
  • In the 2021-22 school year, school boards were funded for about 730,000 students and attendance was about 716,000.
  • The robust financial health of school jurisdictions continues to be demonstrated by taxpayer funded reserves, reported to be $407 million as of Aug. 31, 2022.
Related Topics:

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Game changer: Trans Mountain pipeline expansion complete and starting to flow Canada’s oil to the world

Published on May 6, 2024

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Workers complete the “golden weld” of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion on April 11, 2024 in the Fraser Valley between Hope and Chilliwack, B.C. The project saw mechanical completion on April 30, 2024. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

‘We’re going to be moving into a market where buyers are going to be competing to buy Canadian oil’

It is a game changer for Canada that will have ripple effects around the world.  

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is now complete. And for the first time, global customers can access large volumes of Canadian oil, with the benefits flowing to Canada’s economy and Indigenous communities.  

“We’re going to be moving into a market where buyers are going to be competing to buy Canadian oil,” BMO Capital Markets director Randy Ollenberger said recently, adding this is expected to result in a better price for Canadian oil relative to other global benchmarks. 

The long-awaited expansion nearly triples capacity on the Trans Mountain system from Edmonton to the West Coast to approximately 890,000 barrels per day. Customers for the first shipments include refiners in China,  California and India, according to media reports.  

Shippers include all six members of the Pathways Alliance, a group of companies representing 95 per cent of oil sands production that together plan to reduce emissions from operations by 22 megatonnes by 2030 on the way to net zero by 2050.  

The first tanker shipment from Trans Mountain’s expanded Westridge Marine Terminal is expected later in May.

Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

 The new capacity on the Trans Mountain system comes as demand for Canadian oil from markets outside the United States is on the rise.  

According to the Canada Energy Regulator, exports to destinations beyond the U.S. have averaged a record 267,000 barrels per day so far this year, up from about 130,000 barrels per day in 2020 and 33,000 barrels per day in 2017. 

“Oil demand globally continues to go up,” said Phil Skolnick, New York-based oil market analyst with Eight Capital.  

“Both India and China are looking to add millions of barrels a day of refining capacity through 2030.” 

In India, refining demand will increase mainly for so-called medium and heavy oil like what is produced in Canada, he said. 

“That’s where TMX is the opportunity for Canada, because that’s the route to get to India.”  

Led by India and China, oil demand in the Asia-Pacific region is projected to increase from 36 million barrels per day in 2022 to 52 million barrels per day in 2050, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. 

More oil coming from Canada will shake up markets for similar world oil streams including from Russia, Ecuador, and Iraq, according to analysts with Rystad Energy and Argus Media. 

Expanded exports are expected to improve pricing for Canadian heavy oil, which “have been depressed for many years” in part due to pipeline shortages, according to TD Economics.  

Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation

 In recent years, the price for oil benchmark Western Canadian Select (WCS) has hovered between $18-$20 lower than West Texas Intermediate (WTI) “to reflect these hurdles,” analyst Marc Ercolao wrote in March.  

“That spread should narrow as a result of the Trans Mountain completion,” he wrote. 

“Looking forward, WCS prices could conservatively close the spread by $3–4/barrel later this year, which will incentivize production and support industry profitability.”  

Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Office has said that an increase of US$5 per barrel for Canadian heavy oil would add $6 billion to Canada’s economy over the course of one year. 

The Trans Mountain Expansion will leave a lasting economic legacy, according to an impact assessment conducted by Ernst & Young in March 2023.  

In addition to $4.9 billion in contracts with Indigenous businesses during construction, the project leaves behind more than $650 million in benefit agreements and $1.2 billion in skills training with Indigenous communities.   

Ernst & Young found that between 2024 and 2043, the expanded Trans Mountain system will pay $3.7 billion in wages, generate $9.2 billion in GDP, and pay $2.8 billion in government taxes. 

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Alberta

Alberta government should eliminate corporate welfare to generate benefits for Albertans

Published on May 2, 2024

By

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
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