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Alberta

Writer opposing Free Alberta Strategy in national article confuses chartered banks with financial institutions

Published

3 years ago

12 minute read

From the Free Alberta Strategy Team

In a new article published in the federal-government-funded “The Conversation” publication, Robert L. Ascah, a researcher at the also-federal-government-funded Parkland Institute, attempts to lay the hatchet to the Free Alberta Strategy.

In his piece, entitled “What the Free Alberta Strategy gets wrong about Canada’s banking system,” Mr. Ascah argues that the Alberta Independent Banking Act that is proposed in the Free Alberta Strategy report is unconstitutional because banking is an entirely federal area of jurisdiction.

Here is the key quote from Mr. Ascah:

“The Free Alberta Strategy, however, purports to allow Alberta to incorporate and regulate banks, which is clearly unconstitutional. There’s no mention that this proposal is beyond the powers of the provincial legislature.”

But, as so often seems to happen, this latest Free Alberta Strategy critic clearly doesn’t appear to have read – or taken the time to understand – what the Free Alberta Strategy is actually proposing.

While it’s true that “chartered banks” are federally regulated, that doesn’t mean that any type or form of “banking”, as the term is colloquially used, must be federally regulated.

Credit unions, for example, offer “banking” services, while not being “chartered banks” that are federally regulated.

This definition, while technical, is the crux of the issue.

And while we admit that this is very technical, when you’re talking about writing laws, technicalities matter a lot.

To be clear, here is the exact proposal from the Free Alberta Strategy report itself:

1. Expanding the number of provincially regulated financial institutions and credit unions;

2. Promoting private ownership of these new financial institutions; and

3. Mandating that all provincially regulated financial institutions and credit unions (including ATB) remain compliant with the Alberta Sovereignty Act as it relates to the non-enforcement of federal laws and court decisions deemed to infringe unduly on Alberta’s provincial jurisdiction.

You will note, very clearly, that this proposal in our Free Alberta Strategy report talks about “provincially regulated financial institutions” not “chartered banks”.

This is because the authors of the strategy understand (unlike Mr. Ascah, apparently) that while “chartered banks” must be regulated by the federal government, “financial institutions” can be regulated by the provincial government.

This is exactly why our Free Alberta Strategy report suggests modelling any new “banks” in Alberta on ATB Financial (previously known as Alberta Treasury Branches), which is a long-standing Alberta financial institution.

(Note: Although ATB is a crown corporation, our proposal envisages privately owned and operated financial institutions, not more government-owned and operated financial institutions. Just in case anyone was worried we were suddenly advocating for bigger government!)

Just as Alberta’s credit unions are not “chartered banks” and so are not federally regulated, ATB Financial is not a “chartered bank”, and so it is not regulated by the federal government.

ATB Financial is a “financial institution” that is provincially regulated by the Alberta government under the ATB Financial Act.

This is precisely what the Free Alberta Strategy report proposes – an increase in the number of provincially regulated financial institutions in Alberta.

We can clearly see then that, despite the claim by Mr. Ascah that provincial regulation of banking is unconstitutional, the mere existence of ATB is proof that our proposal is, in fact, constitutional.

The remainder of Mr. Ascah’s article goes on to argue that if Alberta unconstitutionally incorporated its own new “chartered banks”, the federal government would cut those banks off from being able to transfer funds to other banks in Canada, making them impractical for the public to use.

Maybe it’s true that the federal government would cut off any unauthorized provincial “chartered banks” from payment mechanisms.

But, given no one is proposing Alberta incorporate its own new “chartered banks”, this entire second half of the article is an irrelevant straw man argument.

Again, the Free Alberta Strategy proposes to incorporate new provincially regulated financial institutions, like ATB.

And, in case you haven’t noticed, ATB has not been cut off from being able to transfer funds to other banks by the federal government, because – shock – the existence of ATB is perfectly constitutional.

The real question then, is whether or not the first half of Mr. Ascah’s article, where he claims we are proposing to do something unconstitutional, is simply a misunderstanding, or a deliberately misleading diatribe.

Either way, such a fundamental error really makes you wonder why the Parkland Institute would allow the article to be published at all!

Are Parkland Institute staff no longer expected to read the thing they are publicly criticizing anymore?

Are The Conversation editors no longer expected to check whether their authors have their facts straight?

Perhaps the oddest part of this whole situation is that the Parkland Institute, where Mr. Ascah works, has previously written about the benefits of having an Alberta-based, Alberta-regulated financial institution!

They did so in a report that goes into detail explaining the difference between federally regulated chartered banks and provincially regulated financial institutions!

Even stranger still – which Parkland Institute researcher do you think it was who wrote this report?

Yes, you guessed it, it was Robert L. Ascah!

It gets worse…

Once upon a time, Mr. Ascah worked at Alberta Treasury, the government department that is responsible for regulating ATB.

Then, after he worked at Alberta Treasury, Mr. Ascah went to work at ATB itself, where he was responsible for government relations, strategic planning, and economic research.

That’s right folks…

Our Free Alberta Strategy critic, who attacked us by claiming that provincially regulated financial institutions are unconstitutional, actually worked as a senior executive at both the organization he claims is unconstitutional, and the organization that is supposed to regulate the thing that he claims is unconstitutional.

We must either believe, then:

  • That Mr. Ascah, who has written about the benefits of provincially-regulated financial institutions, has worked for a provincially-regulated financial institution, and has worked for the organization that regulates provincially-regulated financial institutions, is somehow entirely unaware that provincially-regulated financial institutions are legal.

Or, we must believe:

  • That Mr. Ascah perfectly understands that provincially-regulated financial institutions are legal and that that is how ATB is established, but that it’s somehow, all of a sudden, now beneficial for him to pretend that he doesn’t, and that anyone suggesting other financial institutions be regulated in that way is suggesting something “unconstitutional”.

How could it possibly be beneficial for Mr. Ascah to pretend that this idea is unconstitutional all of a sudden, I hear you ask?

Well, the answer to that question is actually the least confusing part of his article.

Contained right at the bottom of the article, under “Disclosure statement” (and conveniently excluded from most re-publications of the piece by the media) are 9 little words:

“Robert (Bob) L. Ascah is affiliated with Alberta NDP.”

Of course, affiliated with is a little bit of an understatement in this case.

Mr. Ascah has donated thousands of dollars to the Alberta NDP for many years, while several of his Parkland Institute colleagues are actually running as Alberta NDP candidates in the 2023 Alberta election!

Now, as a non-partisan organization, we generally try to avoid pointing out the political affiliations of individual people.

As an organization, we base our support for ideas on whether the ideas are good or not, rather than on who is proposing them.

But, in this case, we’re not criticizing the person proposing the ideas, but the lack of independence and the conflict of interest inherent in a situation where federal-government-funded researchers are published by federal-government-funded websites and re-printed by federal-government-funded newspapers.

Unfortunately, in a world where government-funded academics get government funding to write government propaganda published in government-funded media, there’s really no incentive to cover the truth anymore.

As to why the federal government would want to fund researchers to write propaganda for them, and fund media outlets to publish it for them, we’ll leave that one to you to answer!

In the end, this is exactly why we need more independent research and independent distribution of ideas in our society.

The Free Alberta Strategy jealously guards our independence.

That’s why we never accept any money or resources from any government, regardless of political stripe.

But that’s also why we need your help.

We need your help so that we can continue to do research and analysis on ways in which Alberta can fight back, such as the Sovereignty Act.

We need your help to further our work to protect Alberta’s interests from a hostile and divisive federal government in Ottawa.

We need your help to grow our supporter, activist, and volunteer network across our great province.

We need your help to share our work with like-minded friends and family in order to get the word out to as many members of the public as possible.

If you’re ready to help, click here:

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Alberta

Alberta’s new diagnostic policy appears to meet standard for Canada Health Act compliance

Published on December 19, 2025

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Nadeem Esmail, Mackenzie Moir and Lauren Asaad

In October, Alberta’s provincial government announced forthcoming legislative changes that will allow patients to pay out-of-pocket for any diagnostic test they want, and without a physician referral. The policy, according to the Smith government, is designed to help improve the availability of preventative care and increase testing capacity by attracting additional private sector investment in diagnostic technology and facilities.

Unsurprisingly, the policy has attracted Ottawa’s attention, with discussions now taking place around the details of the proposed changes and whether this proposal is deemed to be in line with the Canada Health Act (CHA) and the federal government’s interpretations. A determination that it is not, will have both political consequences by being labeled “non-compliant” and financial consequences for the province through reductions to its Canada Health Transfer (CHT) in coming years.

This raises an interesting question: While the ultimate decision rests with Ottawa, does the Smith government’s new policy comply with the literal text of the CHA and the revised rules released in written federal interpretations?

According to the CHA, when a patient pays out of pocket for a medically necessary and insured physician or hospital (including diagnostic procedures) service, the federal health minister shall reduce the CHT on a dollar-for-dollar basis matching the amount charged to patients. In 2018, Ottawa introduced the Diagnostic Services Policy (DSP), which clarified that the insured status of a diagnostic service does not change when it’s offered inside a private clinic as opposed to a hospital. As a result, any levying of patient charges for medically necessary diagnostic tests are considered a violation of the CHA.

Ottawa has been no slouch in wielding this new policy, deducting some $76.5 million from transfers to seven provinces in 2023 and another $72.4 million in 2024. Deductions for Alberta, based on Health Canada’s estimates of patient charges, totaled some $34 million over those two years.

Alberta has been paid back some of those dollars under the new Reimbursement Program introduced in 2018, which created a pathway for provinces to be paid back some or all of the transfers previously withheld on a dollar-for-dollar basis by Ottawa for CHA infractions. The Reimbursement Program requires provinces to resolve the circumstances which led to patient charges for medically necessary services, including filing a Reimbursement Action Plan for doing so developed in concert with Health Canada. In total, Alberta was reimbursed $20.5 million after Health Canada determined the provincial government had “successfully” implemented elements of its approved plan.

Perhaps in response to the risk of further deductions, or taking a lesson from the Reimbursement Action Plan accepted by Health Canada, the province has gone out of its way to make clear that these new privately funded scans will be self-referred, that any patient paying for tests privately will be reimbursed if that test reveals a serious or life-threatening condition, and that physician referred tests will continue to be provided within the public system and be given priority in both public and private facilities.

Indeed, the provincial government has stated they do not expect to lose additional federal health care transfers under this new policy, based on their success in arguing back previous deductions.

This is where language matters: Health Canada in their latest CHA annual report specifically states the “medical necessity” of any diagnostic test is “determined when a patient receives a referral or requisition from a medical practitioner.” According to the logic of Ottawa’s own stated policy, an unreferred test should, in theory, be no longer considered one that is medically necessary or needs to be insured and thus could be paid for privately.

It would appear then that allowing private purchase of services not referred by physicians does pass the written standard for CHA compliance, including compliance with the latest federal interpretation for diagnostic services.

But of course, there is no actual certainty here. The federal government of the day maintains sole and final authority for interpretation of the CHA and is free to revise and adjust interpretations at any time it sees fit in response to provincial health policy innovations. So while the letter of the CHA appears to have been met, there is still a very real possibility that Alberta will be found to have violated the Act and its interpretations regardless.

In the end, no one really knows with any certainty if a policy change will be deemed by Ottawa to run afoul of the CHA. On the one hand, the provincial government seems to have set the rules around private purchase deliberately and narrowly to avoid a clear violation of federal requirements as they are currently written. On the other hand, Health Canada’s attention has been aroused and they are now “engaging” with officials from Alberta to “better understand” the new policy, leaving open the possibility that the rules of the game may change once again. And even then, a decision that the policy is permissible today is not permanent and can be reversed by the federal government tomorrow if its interpretive whims shift again.

The sad reality of the provincial-federal health-care relationship in Canada is that it has no fixed rules. Indeed, it may be pointless to ask whether a policy will be CHA compliant before Ottawa decides whether or not it is. But it can be said, at least for now, that the Smith government’s new privately paid diagnostic testing policy appears to have met the currently written standard for CHA compliance.

Nadeem Esmail

Director, Health Policy, Fraser Institute

Mackenzie Moir

Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
Lauren Asaad

Lauren Asaad

Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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Alberta

Housing in Calgary and Edmonton remains expensive but more affordable than other cities

Published on December 19, 2025

By

From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Austin Thompson

In cities across the country, modest homes have become unaffordable for typical families. Calgary and Edmonton have not been immune to this trend, but they’ve weathered it better than most—largely by making it easier to build homes.

Specifically, faster permit approvals, lower municipal fees and fewer restrictions on homebuilders have helped both cities maintain an affordability edge in an era of runaway prices. To preserve that edge, they must stick with—and strengthen—their pro-growth approach.

First, the bad news. Buying a home remains a formidable challenge for many families in Calgary and Edmonton.

For example, in 2023 (the latest year of available data), a typical family earning the local median after-tax income—$73,420 in Calgary and $70,650 in Edmonton—had to save the equivalent of 17.5 months of income in Calgary ($107,300) or 12.5 months in Edmonton ($73,820) for a 20 per cent down payment on a typical home (single-detached house, semi-detached unit or condominium).

Even after managing such a substantial down payment, the financial strain would continue. Mortgage payments on the remaining 80 per cent of the home’s price would have required a large—and financially risky—share of the family’s after-tax income: 45.1 per cent in Calgary (about $2,757 per month) and 32.2 per cent in Edmonton (about $1,897 per month).

Clearly, unless the typical family already owns property or receives help from family, buying a typical home is extremely challenging. And yet, housing in Calgary and Edmonton remains far more affordable than in most other Canadian cities.

In 2023, out of 36 major Canadian cities, Edmonton and Calgary ranked 8th and 14th, respectively, for housing affordability (relative to the median after-tax family income). That’s a marked improvement from a decade earlier in 2014 when Edmonton ranked 20th and Calgary ranked 30th. And from 2014 to 2023, Edmonton was one of only four Canadian cities where median after-tax family income grew faster than the price of a typical home (in Calgary, home prices rose faster than incomes but by much less than in most Canadian cities). As a result, in 2023 typical homes in Edmonton cost about half as much (again, relative to the local median after-tax family income) as in mid-sized cities such as Windsor and Kelowna—and roughly one-third as much as in Toronto and Vancouver.

To be clear, much of Calgary and Edmonton’s improved rank in affordability is due to other cities becoming less and less affordable. Indeed, mortgage payments (as a share of local after-tax median income) also increased since 2014 in both Calgary and Edmonton.

But the relative success of Alberta’s two largest cities shows what’s possible when you prioritize homebuilding. Their approach—lower municipal fees, faster permit approvals and fewer building restrictions—has made it easier to build homes and helped contain costs for homebuyers. In fact, homebuilding has been accelerating in Calgary and Edmonton, in contrast to a sharp contraction in Vancouver and Toronto. That’s a boon to Albertans who’ve been spared the worst excesses of the national housing crisis. It’s also a demographic and economic boost for the province as residents from across Canada move to Alberta to take advantage of the housing market—in stark contrast to the experience of British Columbia and Ontario, which are hemorrhaging residents.

Alberta’s big cities have shown that when governments let homebuilders build, families benefit. To keep that advantage, policymakers in Calgary and Edmonton must stay the course.

Tegan Hill

Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute

Austin Thompson

Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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