Alberta Minute: Heritage Day, Legislature Updates, and Energy Industry Arguments

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

This Week In Alberta:

• Today is Heritage Day in Alberta, which means a day off for many Albertans. If you're planning to spend the day visiting one of our province's beautiful parks, note that Parks Canada is warning Albertans about long waits, and even no parking at many of the province's more popular attractions, despite the lack of international visitors.
  
  
• The Legislature is now officially on break for the Summer. The fall session isn't due to start until October 26th, but the government has announced plans for a one-day sitting on August 27th to debate the long-delayed first-quarter fiscal update. Premier Kenney recently revealed the 2020 deficit will be "significantly higher" than the latest $20 billion estimated deficit from April.
  
  
• Committees will continue to meet while the Legislature is on break, but there are no committee meetings currently scheduled for this week. The next meeting is currently listed as a Resource Stewardship Committee meeting on September 17th, though this is subject to change.

Last Week In Alberta:

• The Legislature's very long spring session finally ended on Wednesday after late-night debates on the government's health and labour reform bills. Overall, the legislature passed 34 government bills in the session.
  
  
• International arguments continued over Alberta's oil and gas industry with Total announcing they will be writing off $9.3-billion worth of their Alberta oil sands assets. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers claimed the move is just virtue-signalling from Total as the company continues to invest in questionable regimes around the world with poor human rights and environmental records.
  
  
• Premier Jason Kenney said he will support a "discrete approach" to future outbreaks of COVID-19. Absent a large province-wide outbreak, the government would work with local leaders to introduce restrictions in only those areas.

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