Alberta
Junior and Senior High Students at home for 2 weeks in Red Deer and other large Alberta Cities

Targeted regional measures to bend the curve
New mandatory measures will address growing COVID-19 cases in hot spot communities across Alberta.
Targeted restrictions will apply to municipalities or regions where there are at least 350 cases per 100,000 people and 250 currently active cases.
New measures will apply to junior and senior high schools, and sports and fitness activities in these communities.
These targeted restrictions will remain in place for at least two weeks for any community or area that reaches this trigger. After 14 days, the enhanced measures will be lifted once the municipality falls back below the threshold.
Expanded public health measures
The following mandatory public health measures will come into effect for hot spot municipalities and regions:
Schools – Starting May 3
- While schools remain a safe place and are not a main driver of community spread, in order to limit in-person interactions, all junior and senior high school students (Grades 7 and above) will shift to online learning.
- K-6 students will continue in-classroom learning unless otherwise approved by Alberta Education to shift to online-learning.
Indoor fitness – effective April 30
- All indoor fitness activities are prohibited. This includes:
- all group physical activities, such as team sports, fitness classes and training sessions
- all one-on-one lessons and training activities
- all practices, training and games
- Outdoor fitness activities may continue under provincewide restrictions currently in place, including individual or household one-on-one training with a trainer.
Indoor sport and recreation – effective April 30
- All youth and adult indoor group physical activities, including team sports and one-on-one training sessions, are prohibited.
- Outdoor sport and recreation activities may continue under provincewide restrictions currently in place:
- Outdoor team sports where two-metre distancing cannot be maintained at all times (such as basketball, volleyball, soccer, football, slo-pitch and road hockey) remain prohibited.
- Outdoor fitness training is allowed, as are physically distanced group fitness classes with a maximum of 10 participants.
- Outdoor group physical activity with different households must be limited to 10 people or fewer and two-metre distancing must be maintained at all times.
- All indoor recreation facilities must close. Outdoor recreation amenities can be open to public access unless specifically closed by public health order.
Curfew
The government will implement a curfew where case rates are significantly high, specifically case rates above 1,000 per 100,000, and if a municipality or region requests it. Details will be announced prior to any curfew being implemented.
All other current public health restrictions, including masking, physical distancing, prohibitions on social gatherings and working from home requirements remain in place provincewide.
Alberta’s government is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by protecting lives and livelihoods with precise measures to bend the curve, sustain small businesses and protect Alberta’s health-care system.
Quick facts
- Current communities with a case rate above 350 per 100,000 people and at least 250 active cases:
- Fort McMurray
- City of Red Deer
- City of Grande Prairie
- City of Calgary
- City of Airdrie
- Strathcona County
- City of Lethbridge
- City of Edmonton
- Future updates for active case rates for municipalities and a map of those under enhanced restrictions will be available at alberta.ca.
- Moving forward, targeted restrictions will be applied to any communities or regions with a case rate above 350 per 100,000 people and 250 active cases, and remain in place for at least two weeks.
- If, after two weeks, the case rate falls below the threshold of 350 cases per 100,000 people, these targeted measures will be removed and only current provincewide restrictions will apply.
- If a municipality goes below the threshold measure of 350 cases per 100,000 people before the two weeks are finished, the enhanced restrictions will still apply until the two-week period is over.
- To prevent rural areas with small populations from being unfairly impacted, municipalities with fewer than 250 active cases will be excluded from the threshold.
- Health officials will continue to closely monitor the spread of COVID-19 to assess whether additional action is needed to reduce transmission and when these restrictions are no longer required.
“We have no choice but to implement these targeted measures to slow growth and bend the curve and protect our health system over the next few weeks. These measures are layered on top of Alberta’s robust public health restrictions and will buy a little more time for our vaccination program to protect more Albertans and win the race against the variants. We must respond with a firm stand against COVID-19 now so that we can enjoy a great Alberta summer.”
“The highly transmissible variants of concern are a game-changer and in turn, we have to change our approach to be successful. No one person or community is to blame, but the evidence is showing that certain areas are experiencing significantly higher spread. To get cases in these municipalities under control, we must take additional action. By following these new restrictions and ramping up our vaccination program, we will be successful in winning this fight.”
“I know Albertans, even those who have faithfully followed the health guidance and worked to keep not only themselves but their fellow citizens safe, are tired. But if we can muster the strength to make it through these next few weeks, we will allow our vaccination program a chance to protect more Albertans, and in end, we will get COVID-19 under control in Alberta.”
Alberta
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith Discusses Moving Energy Forward at the Global Energy Show in Calgary

From Energy Now
At the energy conference in Calgary, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pressed the case for building infrastructure to move provincial products to international markets, via a transportation and energy corridor to British Columbia.
“The anchor tenant for this corridor must be a 42-inch pipeline, moving one million incremental barrels of oil to those global markets. And we can’t stop there,” she told the audience.
The premier reiterated her support for new pipelines north to Grays Bay in Nunavut, east to Churchill, Man., and potentially a new version of Energy East.
The discussion comes as Prime Minister Mark Carney and his government are assembling a list of major projects of national interest to fast-track for approval.
Carney has also pledged to establish a major project review office that would issue decisions within two years, instead of five.
Alberta
Punishing Alberta Oil Production: The Divisive Effect of Policies For Carney’s “Decarbonized Oil”

From Energy Now
By Ron Wallace
The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate.
Following meetings in Saskatoon in early June between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Canadian provincial and territorial leaders, the federal government expressed renewed interest in the completion of new oil pipelines to reduce reliance on oil exports to the USA while providing better access to foreign markets. However Carney, while suggesting that there is “real potential” for such projects nonetheless qualified that support as being limited to projects that would “decarbonize” Canadian oil, apparently those that would employ carbon capture technologies. While the meeting did not result in a final list of potential projects, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that this approach would constitute a “grand bargain” whereby new pipelines to increase oil exports could help fund decarbonization efforts. But is that true and what are the implications for the Albertan and Canadian economies?
The federal government has doubled down on its commitment to “responsibly produced oil and gas”. These terms are apparently carefully crafted to maintain federal policies for Net Zero. These policies include a Canadian emissions cap, tanker bans and a clean electricity mandate. Many would consider that Canadians, especially Albertans, should be wary of these largely undefined announcements in which Ottawa proposes solely to determine projects that are “in the national interest.”
The federal government has tabled legislation designed to address these challenges with Bill C-5: An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility Act and the Building Canada Act (the One Canadian Economy Act). Rather than replacing controversial, and challenged, legislation like the Impact Assessment Act, the Carney government proposes to add more legislation designed to accelerate and streamline regulatory approvals for energy and infrastructure projects. However, only those projects that Ottawa designates as being in the national interest would be approved. While clearer, shorter regulatory timelines and the restoration of the Major Projects Office are also proposed, Bill C-5 is to be superimposed over a crippling regulatory base.
It remains to be seen if this attempt will restore a much-diminished Canadian Can-Do spirit for economic development by encouraging much-needed, indeed essential interprovincial teamwork across shared jurisdictions. While the Act’s proposed single approval process could provide for expedited review timelines, a complex web of regulatory processes will remain in place requiring much enhanced interagency and interprovincial coordination. Given Canada’s much-diminished record for regulatory and policy clarity will this legislation be enough to persuade the corporate and international capital community to consider Canada as a prime investment destination?
As with all complex matters the devil always lurks in the details. Notably, these federal initiatives arrive at a time when the Carney government is facing ever-more pressing geopolitical, energy security and economic concerns. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that Canada’s economy will grow by a dismal one per cent in 2025 and 1.1 per cent in 2026 – this at a time when the global economy is predicted to grow by 2.9 per cent.
It should come as no surprise that Carney’s recent musing about the “real potential” for decarbonized oil pipelines have sparked debate. The undefined term “decarbonized”, is clearly aimed directly at western Canadian oil production as part of Ottawa’s broader strategy to achieve national emissions commitments using costly carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects whose economic viability at scale has been questioned. What might this mean for western Canadian oil producers?
The Alberta Oil sands presently account for about 58% of Canada’s total oil output. Data from December 2023 show Alberta producing a record 4.53 million barrels per day (MMb/d) as major oil export pipelines including Trans Mountain, Keystone and the Enbridge Mainline operate at high levels of capacity. Meanwhile, in 2023 eastern Canada imported on average about 490,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd) at a cost estimated at CAD $19.5 billion. These seaborne shipments to major refineries (like New Brunswick’s Irving Refinery in Saint John) rely on imported oil by tanker with crude oil deliveries to New Brunswick averaging around 263,000 barrels per day. In 2023 the estimated total cost to Canada for imported crude oil was $19.5 billion with oil imports arriving from the United States (72.4%), Nigeria (12.9%), and Saudi Arabia (10.7%). Since 1988, marine terminals along the St. Lawrence have seen imports of foreign oil valued at more than $228 billion while the Irving Oil refinery imported $136 billion from 1988 to 2020.
What are the policy and cost implication of Carney’s call for the “decarbonization” of western Canadian produced, oil? It implies that western Canadian “decarbonized” oil would have to be produced and transported to competitive world markets under a material regulatory and financial burden. Meanwhile, eastern Canadian refiners would be allowed to import oil from the USA and offshore jurisdictions free from any comparable regulatory burdens. This policy would penalize, and makes less competitive, Canadian producers while rewarding offshore sources. A federal regulatory requirement to decarbonize western Canadian crude oil production without imposing similar restrictions on imported oil would render the One Canadian Economy Act moot and create two market realities in Canada – one that favours imports and that discourages, or at very least threatens the competitiveness of, Canadian oil export production.
Ron Wallace is a former Member of the National Energy Board.
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