Alberta Minute: Federal Election, Budget Day, and Greta Thunberg

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

This Week In Alberta:

• It's election day! Today is your last chance to vote in the federal election. Polls open at 7:30 am and close at 7:30 pm. You can find your polling station here, and a list of the documents accepted for proving identity and address here.
  
  
• Thursday is provincial budget day. There are lots of rumours flying around about various spending increases and cuts. We'll find out for sure at 3.15 pm on Thursday.
  
  
• Three Bills introduced last week will continue through the Legislature this week. Bill 19 (Public Lands Modernization) has completed the Committee of the Whole stage, Bill 17 (Clare’s Law) has passed First Reading, and Bill 18 (Electricity Capacity Market Termination) has completed Second Reading. There are also three Committee meetings scheduled for this week - the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Tuesday, and the Annual Public Meeting of the Standing Committee on the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund on Thursday.

Last Week In Alberta:

• Greta Thunberg made a brief stop in Calgary before heading up to join a protest at the Legislature. Jason Kenney probably said it best: "at the end of the day if you believe the entire modern industrial economy should be shut down tomorrow, that the airplanes should stop flying, that the cars should all stop driving, that millions of people should be put into unemployment because we need to turn off all the consumption of hydrocarbon energy... you're not going to be a supporter of what we're doing in Alberta."
  
  
• Bill 14 passed Third Reading and is awaiting Royal Assent. Bill 14 will create a new crown corporation, the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation. The move is a little confusing, as the UCP promised to sell crown corporations not create new ones during the campaign, but we believe that this entity will be used to fund the development of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

• Bill 15 also passed Third Reading and is awaiting Royal Assent. Bill 15 allows the Minister to dismiss the current Real Estate Council of Alberta members and appoint an official administrator, after a review of the body "identified the need for urgent governance reform".

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