Alberta Minute: Economic Plans, Emergency Debates, and an Alberta Pension Plan

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

This Week In Alberta:

• The NDP are pushing for an emergency debate on Monday calling on the UCP to disavow separatism. They are unlikely to have their request granted by the Speaker though, as the topic that the NDP is proposing by no means qualifies under the strict parameters of an emergency debate.
  
  
• Bill 30 (the Health Statutes Amendment Act), Bill 31 (Environmental Protection Statutes Amendment Act) and Tany Yao's private member's bill, Bill 204 (Voluntary Blood Donations Repeal Act) are, again, scheduled to be introduced this week though the government is still failing to keep the Order Paper updated, so we won't know for sure until it happens.
  
  
• There are also ten previously-introduced bills at various stages of the legislative process, many of which will be debated this week.

Last Week In Alberta:

• The UCP announced a plan to boost the economy which included some good and some bad news. On the good side, the previously announced corporate tax cut, from 10% to 8% over the next two years, was sped up and the full cut to 8% took effect on July 1st.
  
  
• The bad news in the plan was the creation of a new investment agency dubbed "Invest Alberta Corporation" and an "Innovation Employment Grant". While full details of how these new programs will work aren't available yet, we're very worried about the trend towards more and more corporate welfare.
  
  
• While "hands off my pension" trends in the echo-chamber of #ableg Twitter, Licia Corbella clarified the facts. The Canadian Pension Plan is an unfunded liability where, much like everything else in Confederation, Albertans are contributing extra to keep the scheme afloat. Albertans contribute disproportionately to the CPP because of our younger population, higher incomes, and historically higher employment rates, meaning every single Albertan is paying out more than they'll ever collect. If Alberta withdrew from the CPP and created an Alberta Pension Plan, our contribution rate could be reduced from 9.9% to 5.85%. (Or we could keep contribution rates the same, and increase pension payments.)

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