Alberta Minute: Massive Deficits, Cabinet Shuffles, and a New Lieutenant-Governor

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

This Week In Alberta:

• With the one-day fiscal update completed, the Legislature's summer break continues with the fall session not due to start until October 26th.
  
  
• There are also no Committee meetings scheduled for this week, though there are two currently planned for later in September.
  
  
• There are also currently 22 public engagements open for you to make submissions on over summer, covering everything from Firearms to Flooding.

Last Week In Alberta:

• The province's long-awaited fiscal update was released and the Alberta government will run a $24.2 billion deficit this year, bringing the total provincial debt to $99.6 billion. As a reminder, in 2017, when the total debt was just $45 billion, Jason Kenney said that Alberta was "drowning in debt" and that "Alberta's fiscal house is on fire". Of course, the government can't control oil prices or COVID, but they do control everything else in the budget. Maybe, now, it's finally time to cut some spending?
  
  
• A surprise cabinet shuffle was announced, along with a re-organization of a Ministry. Doug Schweitzer was moved from the Ministry of Justice to head the newly expanded Ministry of Jobs, Economy, and Innovation. Kaycee Madu was moved from Minister of Municipal Affairs to Minister of Justice. Tracey Allard was promoted from the backbenches to Cabinet as the new Minister of Municipal Affairs, while Tanya Fir was removed from Cabinet.
  
  
• Outgoing Lieutenant-Governor Lois Mitchell performed her final official function on Tuesday, swearing in new provincial government Ministers during the aforementioned cabinet shuffle. Alberta's 19th Lieutenant-Governor was sworn in on Wednesday. Born and raised in Kampala, Uganda, Salma Lakhani has a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Clinical Biochemistry from the University of Manchester.

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