Alberta drops almost all public health restrictions – Municipalities will have to follow suit

Alberta is a leader in lifting the majority of public health measures, as the province moves to step two of reopening.

Albertans are now able to enjoy social gatherings without limits again and visit businesses without capacity restrictions. Children and youth are free to resume regular school life and enjoy activities without mandatory prior screening.

The provincial mandatory mask mandate has also ended, except in AHS facilities, continuing care and on public transit in order to protect vulnerable Albertans.

Mandatory isolation for COVID-19 core symptoms or a positive test result remains in place. Isolation periods are five days at home and five days of continued masking for fully vaccinated individuals, or 10 days for partially and unvaccinated individuals.

Step two

Now in effect:

Remaining provincial school requirements (including cohorting) are removed.
Screening prior to youth activities is no longer required.
Capacity limits are lifted for all venues.
Limits on social gatherings are removed.
The provincial mask mandate is lifted in most settings. However, masking will still be required in the following high-risk settings: on public transit, at Alberta Health Services-operated and contracted facilities and all continuing care settings.
- Municipal bylaws may continue to be in effect.
- Albertans may wish to consider individual risk factors and choose to wear masks in other public indoor settings.
Restrictions on interactive activities, liquor service and operating hours are lifted.
Mandatory work-from-home requirement is removed.

Step three

To be determined based on hospitalization rates continuing to trend downwards.

COVID-19-specific measures in continuing care and AHS facilities and on public transit will be removed.
Mandatory isolation becomes a recommendation only.

Legislation will ensure consistent public health rules

Alberta’s government will introduce legislation to limit the ability of municipalities to enact bylaws that are contrary to provincial public health policy and expertise.

The proposed amendments to the Municipal Government Act (MGA) will restrict the ability of municipalities to pass bylaws that contradict public health policies and rules enacted by the province. This will ensure Alberta has one clear policy as we move together toward a path to normal.

“As we safely move beyond COVID restrictions, we need clarity, consistency and unity. It would be confusing and divisive to have multiple different public health policies, particularly when there is no compelling public health rationale. It is time for us to move forward together.”

Jason Kenney, Premier

“This proposed change will create clarity and certainty for Albertans when it comes to public health policy after almost two years of changing guidelines. Municipalities have asked the provincial government to take the lead on public health policy many times in the past, and we are confident now is the right time for everyone in the province to follow the same rules to avoid confusion and frustration.”

Ric McIver, Minister of Municipal Affairs

Provincial legislation supersedes any municipal bylaw where they are inconsistent.

Additional details on all restrictions and measures in place are available at alberta.ca.

“I am proud of our province and its people on reaching this milestone. The majority of Albertans came together to keep everyone safe, and this is the result we were working towards. The pressure on our health-care system and the people it serves is lessening and we can now move forward. As we safely get our lives back to normal, we can move forward toward Alberta’s great economic recovery.”

Jason Kenney, Premier

“Thanks to the vaccination uptake in the province and the commitment of millions of Albertans these past two years, we are closing in on normal life. As we shift to an endemic response, I am confident that we can take the lessons we have learned through this pandemic to build an even more robust health-care system for our province’s future.”

Jason Copping, Minister of Health

Related Topics:#AlbertaCOVIDRestrictions feature

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Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

Published on July 14, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona

‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’

Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.

Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.

That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.

“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.

Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.

In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.

According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.

The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.

For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.

“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.

“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”

As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.

“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.

Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.

“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.

“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”

The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.

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Published on July 14, 2025

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A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.