Provinces looking at how to implement Vaccine Passports

Alberta Ombudsman aligns with provincial counterparts calling for cautious approach to vaccine certification schemes

As countries around the world, and some jurisdictions in Canada contemplate how or if certification of COVID-19 vaccination status will be implemented in daily life, Canadian Ombudsman are stressing a cautious approach that places fairness at the heart of any potential vaccination certification system that is applied to public services.

The Canadian Council of Parliamentary Ombudsman (CCPO) issued a guidance document today aimed at provincial and territorial public sector organizations under the jurisdiction of Ombudsman across the country. This includes agencies and government ministries providing services such as public education, housing, and health services.

“Although we are not seeing yet that people are having to show vaccination status to receive public services in Canada, with the guidance we are providing, we want to plant the seed both with public organizations, and with the public, that if this does start to happen it is done in a way that is fair, reasonable and just,” said Bill Smith, President of the CCPO and Ombudsman for Nova Scotia.

The guidance document calls on provincial and territorial governments to consider key fairness principles when contemplating COVID-19 vaccination certification approaches including:

Clear direction for the use of vaccination certification must be given by government via legislation or publicly available policy.
Any vaccine certification program must be evidence-informed, and all decisions must be subject to review and appeal processes.
Accommodations must be made for those who have not received the vaccine, including alternative service delivery options.
Decisions about restricting access to a service based on a person’s vaccination status must be done in a transparent, procedurally fair manner and be clearly communicated to the affected person in an accessible way

“Implementing new measures such as vaccine passports runs the risk of creating a lot of confusion, concern and formal complaints,” said Smith. “This guidance today serves as a reminder that may help prevent unfairness from occurring if this is something governments decide to apply to their public services.”

Marianne Ryan, Alberta Ombudsman and Public Interest Commissioner, joins her counterparts across Canada in advising government and public sector organizations to account for fairness principles.

“As governments continue to evolve in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is reasonable to consider administrative measures aimed at protecting citizens,” Ryan explains. “However, public administrators have a duty to act fairly and must ensure any vaccine certification program includes principles of procedural fairness rooted in law.”

To view the CCPO guidance document visit here. These administrative fairness principles have been developed by the Canadian Council of Parliamentary Ombudsman.

Government of Alberta

This is a news release from the Government of Alberta.

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Alberta government should eliminate corporate welfare to generate benefits for Albertans

Published on May 2, 2024

Todayville

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

Alberta

Official statement from Premier Danielle Smith and Energy Minister Brian Jean on the start-up of the Trans Mountain Pipeline

Published on May 1, 2024

Government of Alberta

Alberta is celebrating an important achievement for the energy industry – the start-up of the twinned Trans Mountain pipeline. It’s great news Albertans and Canadians as this will welcome a new era of prosperity and economic growth. The completion of TMX is monumental for Alberta, since this will significantly increase our province’s output. It will triple the capacity of the original pipeline to now carry 890,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to British Columbia’s Pacific Coast.

We are excited that Canada’s biggest and newest oil pipeline in more than a decade, can now bring oil from Edmonton to tide water in B.C. This will allow us to get our energy resources to Pacific markets, including Washington State and California, and Asian markets like Japan, South Korea, China, and India. Alberta now has new energy customers and tankers with Alberta oil will be unloading in China and India in the next few months.

For Alberta this is a game-changer, the world needs more reliably and sustainably sourced Alberta energy, not less. World demand for oil and gas resources will continue in the decades ahead and the new pipeline expansion will give us the opportunity to meet global energy demands and increase North American and global energy security and help remove the issues of energy poverty in other parts of the world.

Analysts are predicting the price differential on Canadian crude oil will narrow resulting in many millions of extra government revenues, which will help fund important programs like health, education, and social services – the things Albertans rely on. TMX will also result in billions of dollars of economic prosperity for Albertans, Indigenous communities and Canadians and create well-paying jobs throughout Canada.

Our province wants to congratulate the Trans Mountain Corporation for its tenacity to have completed this long awaited and much needed energy infrastructure, and to thank the more than 30,000 dedicated, skilled workers whose efforts made this extraordinary project a reality. The province also wants to thank the Federal Government for seeing this project through. This is a great example of an area where the provincial and federal government can cooperate and work together for the benefit of Albertans and all Canadians.