Alberta Minute: Fiscal Update, Covid Clampdown, and More Corporate Welfare

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

This Week In Alberta:

• The Legislature is in session again this week with sittings in the afternoon and evening on Monday, all day Tuesday and Wednesday, and morning and afternoon on Thursday.
  
  
• The Special Standing Committee on Members' Services will meet on Monday morning, the Standing Committee on Private Bills and Private Members' Public Bills and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts will both meet on Tuesday morning, while the Standing Committee on Legislative Offices will meet on Friday morning and afternoon.
  
  
• There are still a large number of government bills currently before the House, including fifteen Government Bills, six Private Members' Public Bills, and one Private Bill.

Last Week In Alberta:

• The latest Q2 provincial fiscal update shows slightly better figures than the Q1 update, but almost everything the government touches is still drowning in red ink. In particular, it projects a $21.3 billion deficit for 2020-21, $41.4 billion in revenue, an 8.1% Real GDP drop, and for Real GDP to only recover to 2014 levels by 2023.
  
  
• The provincial government introduced even more severe restrictions on people's daily lives, including outdoor gathering limits, indoor gathering bans, occupancy limits for businesses, changes to the school year, and more.
  
  
• It was also revealed that the province is still using taxpayer money for corporate welfare, this time giving $4 million to the NHL as some kind of quid pro quo for Edmonton hosting some of the Stanley Cup Finals. Remember, the supposed benefits of hosting those games have already been shown to have been wildly over-stated. Is this really what we should be spending taxpayer money on right now?

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