Alberta Minute: Issue 378

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

📅 This Week In Alberta: 📅

• Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen says the provincial government will introduce bike lane legislation when MLAs return to the Legislature in late October, after more than 13,000 people used a provincial website launched last month to identify problem bike lanes. Under the plan, a city wanting to build a new bike lane would have to show evidence that it is needed and will not have negative impacts on the community, and would have to make a case to the Province to keep lanes already in place. Dreeshen says the legislation would give the provincial government authority to demand detailed data on any bike lane, including usage, effects on traffic and neighbouring roads, and impacts on local businesses, and to remove existing lanes that do not meet the threshold. He says neither Calgary nor Edmonton has handed over those numbers, and argues that either councils lacked the data when they made the decisions or the data is weaker than they have let on. Dreeshen acknowledges the plan will draw opposition, saying there will be "loud special interest groups" but that the government is not afraid of making the right decisions.
  
  
• On another file, Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen says Alberta has eliminated 20 unsafe carriers from its roads and issued 443 administrative penalties since October as part of a continuing crackdown on commercial trucking. Of those, 13 were what the Province calls chameleon carriers, companies that change names, create new entities or relocate operations across jurisdictions to evade regulatory oversight. One of them, Conquer Transportation, was shut down in June after an investigation into a fatal collision in Brandon, Manitoba, found wilful and sustained non-compliance. The carrier was fined $16,500 and had its safety fitness rating downgraded to unsatisfactory, which halted its operations immediately, and Manitoba says the same company had lost its safety certificate there in 2021 before re-registering in Alberta under a slightly different name. Dreeshen also says 5 fraudulent Class 1 trucking schools have been shut down, and that a three-day check stop in May found 20% of the 81 commercial drivers stopped were suspected of being misclassified as independent contractors. Alberta is working with other provinces and the federal government on a national database intended to close the interprovincial data-sharing gap that chameleon carriers exploit.
  
  
• Albertans will face 10 questions when they vote in the October 19th referendum. Four of them are related to constitutional issues, asking whether Alberta should work with other willing provinces to name its own Court of King's Bench judges, opt out of federal programs with no loss of funding, establish the supremacy of provincial laws over federal law, and abolish the Senate. Justice Minister Mickey Amery argues that provinces lack a meaningful voice in the appointment of superior court judges, a federal power dating to 1867, and Premier Danielle Smith has said provincial control would help ensure judges reflect Alberta's "distinct legal traditions". The Canadian Bar Association counters that the language implicitly impugns sitting judges, and a retired Court of King's Bench justice said she is at a loss to identify what a distinct Alberta legal tradition would be.
  
  
• Alberta has likely accumulated a surplus of $3.8 billion so far this fiscal year, according to University of Calgary economics professor Trevor Tombe, a sharp reversal from the $9.4-billion deficit the provincial government tabled in February. Tombe estimates that every US$1 per barrel change in the price of oil is worth about $680 million to the province's bottom line, and West Texas Intermediate crude sat at US$83.09 on Tuesday afternoon against US$60.50 when the budget was tabled. He calculates that Alberta needs oil at US$66 per barrel to balance the budget, and that at current futures prices the year could instead close with a surplus of roughly $6 billion. Tombe cautions that high prices do not fix what he considers the province's underlying problem, a deepening reliance on a volatile revenue source that will eventually fall again. A press secretary to the minister of jobs, economy, trade and immigration said the Province will publish an update on the impact of oil prices on the deficit later this month, and that the long-term effects remain uncertain. Sustained high prices cut the other way for households, and Tombe earlier estimated that oil holding near US$90 a barrel would cost the average family about $1,000 more a year.
  
  
• The Alberta government is delaying some of the changes included in its new education legislation. The postponed measures include restrictions on which flags schools can display, a requirement to play the national anthem weekly, and giving the education minister authority to name or rename public schools. The government says it remains committed to the changes but wants more time to ensure schools and education partners are prepared. Critics, including teachers and the Opposition, have raised concerns about the impact of the flag rules on schools’ ability to recognize different communities and cultures. Other parts of the legislation, including changes to student conduct, provincial exams and school board responsibilities, are still expected to take effect September 1st.

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