Alberta Minute: Coal Lawsuit, Tax Indexation, and Impact Assessment Act

Alberta Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Alberta politics.

This Week In Alberta:

• The Legislature continues its break until October 31st. There are no scheduled committee meetings until the end of October either, but that’s subject to change pending the results of the United Conservative Party leadership race.
  
  
• The Province is looking for an Ombudsman and Public Interest Commissioner. The deadline for applications is July 25th, so if you have a “background in executive-level leadership, investigative and management experience” and want to investigate government wrongdoing or bureaucratic unfairness, go ahead and throw your hat in the ring.
  
  
• Alberta’s biggest party, the Calgary Stampede, is in full swing. Stampede-goers will have their choice of pancake breakfasts to attend, served with a side order of politics. Sitting MPs and MLAs, as well as potential leadership hopefuls for the United Conservative Party and the Conservative Party of Canada will be vying for votes over flapjacks. Vote with your stomach! There are almost 100 breakfasts over the duration of Stampede.

Last Week In Alberta:

• A new report shows that the Alberta government collected $646 million more in taxes than they would have otherwise done had they not paused the indexation of tax brackets to inflation in 2019. The last thing Albertans need right now is an annual automatic tax increase, so tax brackets should be immediately re-indexed to inflation, and not just going forward, but also retrospectively to what the thresholds would have been had they been adjusted every year since 2019.
  
  
• Cabin Ridge Holdings Ltd. announced legal proceedings against the Alberta government over the government's about-face on provincial coal policy. The company is seeking $3.4 billion in damages due to the devaluation of its Eastern Slope properties now that coal mining will be prohibited in the area.

• The federal government has officially appealed to the Supreme Court to keep the "no more pipelines" in force, after the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled in May that the legislation was a violation of provincial jurisdiction. Ottawa is confident the Supreme Court will rule in favour of the federal government and overturn the Alberta ruling, but all nine other provinces have joined the case as intervenors.

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