Alberta
Celebrate all things feline on ‘Caturday’, June 1st!
Edmonton’s International Cat Festival is BACK and better than ever, with even more activities and programming and YEG’s very own Instagram-famous Adventure Cat!
The festival is the only event of its kind and is a massive celebration of cats, cat culture and cat people, created to raise money to help cats in need. The event was the first of its kind in Canada when it began in 2014, and today is the only event of its kind in Alberta.
100% of ‘purr-ceeds’ from this year’s Edmonton International Cat Festival will be donated to 5 cat rescues: Little Cats Lost, Zoe’s Animal Rescue, SAFE Team Rescue, GEARS, and A Pet’s Pantry.
Since 2014, the Edmonton Cat Festival has donated $81,000 to rescues helping improve the welfare of homeless cats, helping them find forever homes, and managing the wild cat population in the region.
Activities you (and your cat of course!) can take part in include cat board games, paint-your-cat portrait sessions, kitty play pens, kitten mazes, mock cat show judging, a pop-up cat-themed escape room, cat yoga, giant cat puzzle challenges, cat LEGO, robo-cats, cat photo contest, a cat scavenger hunt and cat-themed Instagrammable Wall!
50 cat vendors will also be on hand and you can take in some cat presentations including ‘Meowtains, Meowdeling and Meowdest Instagram Success: How I Made my Cat Semi-Internet Famous’ and ‘Good Night, Moon: How to Process Grief and Honour Our Pets Who’ve Passed On’.
Click here for a full list of activities and programs.
There will even be meet & greets with Edmonton’s own celebrity cat Suki the Adventure Cat(@sukiicat), who has over 1.4 MILLION FOLLOWERS WORLDWIDE! The Edmonton-based cat and her fur-pawrent will be doing two meet & greets with fans at the festival, along with an on-stage interview.
The 5th Edmonton International Cat Festival takes place in downtown Edmonton at the MacEwan Robbins Health Learning Centre 10910 104 Avenue, Saturday June 1, 2019 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Remember, 100% of proceeds from the event go to local cat rescues. This year’s goal is to take the total donated since 2014 from $81,000 up to $100,000!
Tickets are $15 in advance (get them online here), $20 at the door.
Kids 12 and under = FREE!
Stay up to date on festival news and information and enjoy these photos from years’ past!
Alberta
Alberta government should eliminate corporate welfare to generate benefits for Albertans
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
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