Alberta
Premier Smith says Auto Insurance reforms may still result in a publicly owned system

Better, faster, more affordable auto insurance
Alberta’s government is introducing a new auto insurance system that will provide better and faster services to Albertans while reducing auto insurance premiums.
After hearing from more than 16,000 Albertans through an online survey about their priorities for auto insurance policies, Alberta’s government is introducing a new privately delivered, care-focused auto insurance system.
Right now, insurance in the province is not affordable or care focused. Despite high premiums, Albertans injured in collisions do not get the timely medical care and income support they need in a system that is complex to navigate. When fully implemented, Alberta’s new auto insurance system will deliver better and faster care for those involved in collisions, and Albertans will see cost savings up to $400 per year.
“Albertans have been clear they need an auto insurance system that provides better, faster care and is more affordable. When it’s implemented, our new privately delivered, care-centred insurance system will put the focus on Albertans’ recovery, providing more effective support and will deliver lower rates.”
“High auto insurance rates put strain on Albertans. By shifting to a system that offers improved benefits and support, we are providing better and faster care to Albertans, with lower costs.”
Albertans who suffer injuries due to a collision currently wait months for a simple claim to be resolved and can wait years for claims related to more serious and life-changing injuries to addressed. Additionally, the medical and financial benefits they receive often expire before they’re fully recovered.
Under the new system, Albertans who suffer catastrophic injuries will receive treatment and care for the rest of their lives. Those who sustain serious injuries will receive treatment until they are fully recovered. These changes mirror and build upon the Saskatchewan insurance model, where at-fault drivers can be sued for pain and suffering damages if they are convicted of a criminal offence, such as impaired driving or dangerous driving, or conviction of certain offenses under the Traffic Safety Act.
Work on this new auto insurance system will require legislation in the spring of 2025. In order to reconfigure auto insurance policies for 3.4 million Albertans, auto insurance companies need time to create and implement the new system. Alberta’s government expects the new system to be fully implemented by January 2027.
In the interim, starting in January 2025, the good driver rate cap will be adjusted to a 7.5% increase due to high legal costs, increasing vehicle damage repair costs and natural disaster costs. This protects good drivers from significant rate increases while ensuring that auto insurance providers remain financially viable in Alberta.
Albertans have been clear that they still want premiums to be based on risk. Bad drivers will continue to pay higher premiums than good drivers.
By providing significantly enhanced medical, rehabilitation and income support benefits, this system supports Albertans injured in collisions while reducing the impact of litigation costs on the amount that Albertans pay for their insurance.
“Keeping more money in Albertans’ pockets is one of the best ways to address the rising cost of living. This shift to a care-first automobile insurance system will do just that by helping lower premiums for people across the province.”
Quick facts
- Alberta’s government commissioned two auto insurance reports, which showed that legal fees and litigation costs tied to the province’s current system significantly increase premiums.
- A 2023 report by MNP shows
Alberta
Alberta extracting more value from oil and gas resources: ATB

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
Investment in ‘value-added’ projects more than doubled to $4 billion in 2024
In the 1930s, economist Harold Innis coined the term “hewers of wood and drawers of water” to describe Canada’s reliance on harvesting natural resources and exporting them elsewhere to be refined into consumer products.
Almost a century later, ATB Financial chief economist Mark Parsons has highlighted a marked shift in that trend in Alberta’s energy industry, with more and more projects that upgrade raw hydrocarbons into finished products.
ATB estimates that investment in projects that generate so-called “value-added” products like refined petroleum, hydrogen, petrochemicals and biofuels more than doubled to reach $4 billion in 2024.
“Alberta is extracting more value from its natural resources,” Parsons said.
“It makes the provincial economy somewhat more resilient to boom and bust energy price cycles. It creates more construction and operating jobs in Alberta. It also provides a local market for Alberta’s energy and agriculture feedstock.”
The shift has occurred as Alberta’s economy adjusts to lower levels of investment in oil and gas extraction.
While overall “upstream” capital spending has been rising since 2022 — and oil production has never been higher — investment last year of about $35 billion is still dramatically less than the $63 billion spent in 2014.
Parsons pointed to Dow’s $11 billion Path2Zero project as the largest value-added project moving ahead in Alberta.
The project, which has support from the municipal, provincial and federal governments, will increase Dow’s production of polyethylene, the world’s most widely used plastic.
By capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions and generating hydrogen on-site, the complex will be the world’s first ethylene cracker with net zero emissions from operations.
Other major value-added examples include Air Products’ $1.6 billion net zero hydrogen complex, and the associated $720 million renewable diesel facility owned by Imperial Oil. Both projects are slated for startup this year.
Parsons sees the shift to higher value products as positive for the province and Canada moving forward.
“Downstream energy industries tend to have relatively high levels of labour productivity and wages,” he said.
“A big part of Canada’s productivity problem is lagging business investment. These downstream investments, which build off existing resource strengths, provide one pathway to improving the country’s productivity performance.”
Heather Exner-Pirot, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s director of energy, natural resources and environment, sees opportunities for Canada to attract additional investment in this area.
“We are able to benefit from the mistakes of other regions. In Germany, their business model for creating value-added products such as petrochemicals relies on cheap feedstock and power, and they’ve lost that due to a combination of geopolitics and policy decisions,” she said.
“Canada and Alberta, in particular, have the opportunity to attract investment because they have stable and reliable feedstock with decades, if not centuries, of supply shielded from geopolitics.”
Exner-Pirot is also bullish about the increased market for low-carbon products.
“With our advantages, Canada should be doing more to attract companies and manufacturers that will produce more value-added products,” she said.
Like oil and gas extraction, value-added investments can help companies develop new technologies that can themselves be exported, said Shannon Joseph, chair of Energy for a Secure Future, an Ottawa-based coalition of Canadian business and community leaders.
“This investment creates new jobs and spinoffs because these plants require services and inputs. Investments such as Dow’s Path2Zero have a lot of multipliers. Success begets success,” Joseph said.
“Investment in innovation creates a foundation for long-term diversification of the economy.”
Alberta
Alberta government must restrain spending in upcoming budget to avoid red ink

From the Fraser Institute
By Tegan Hill and Milagros Palacios
Whether due to U.S. tariffs or lower-than-expected oil prices, the Smith government has repeatedly warned Albertans that despite a $4.6 billion projected budget surplus in 2024/25, Alberta could soon be in the red. To help avoid this fate, the Smith government must restrain spending in its upcoming 2025 budget.
These are not simply numbers on a page; budget deficits have real consequences for Albertans. For one, deficits fuel debt accumulation. And just as Albertans must pay interest on their own mortgages or car loans, taxpayers must pay interest on government debt. Each dollar spent paying interest is a dollar diverted from programs such as health care and education, or potential tax relief. This fiscal year, provincial government debt interest costs will reach a projected $650 per Albertan.
And while many risk factors are out of the government’s direct control, the government can control its own spending.
In its 2023 budget, the Smith government committed to keep the rate of spending growth to below the rate of inflation and population growth. This was an important step forward after decades of successive governments substantially increasing spending during good times—when resource revenues (including oil and gas royalties) were relatively high (as they are today)—but failing to rein in spending when resource revenue inevitably declined.
But here’s the problem. Even if the Smith government sticks to this commitment, it may still fall into deficit. Why? Because this government has spent significantly more than it originally planned in its 2022 mid-year plan (the Smith government’s first fiscal update). In other words, the government’s “restraint” is starting from a significantly higher base level of spending. For example, this fiscal year it will spend $8.2 billion more than it originally planned in its 2022 mid-year plan. And inflation and population growth only account for $3.1 billion of this additional spending. In other words, $5.1 billion of this new spending is unrelated to offsetting higher prices or Alberta’s growing population.
Because of this higher spending and reliance on volatile resource revenue, red ink looms.
Indeed, while the Smith government projects budget surpluses over the next three fiscal years, fuelled by historically high resource revenue, if resource revenue was at its average of the last two decades, this year’s $4.6 billion projected budget surplus would turn into a $5.8 billion deficit. And projected budget surpluses in 2025/26 and 2026/27 would flip to budget deficits. To be clear, this is not a far-fetched scenario—resource revenue plummeted by nearly 70 per cent in 2015/16.
In contrast, if resource revenue fell to its average (again, based on the last two decades) but the Smith government held to its original 2022 spending plan, Alberta would still have a balanced budget in 2026/27.
Bottom line; had the Smith government not substantially increased spending over the last two years, Alberta’s spending levels today would align with more stable ongoing levels of revenue, which would put Alberta on more stable fiscal footing in the years to come.
Premier Smith has warned Albertans a budget deficit may be on the way. To mitigate the risk of red ink moving forward, the Smith government should show real spending restraint in its 2025 budget.
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