Alberta Minute: New Year, Population Increase, and EMS Plan Announced

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

This Week In Alberta:

• The Legislature is adjourned and there are no Committee meetings until the second week of January on account of the holidays.
  
  
• The fuel tax will drop by 13 cents starting January 1st. But, what the provincial government giveth, the federal government taketh away. The federal carbon tax is set to rise, also on January 1st.
  
  
• It’s the final week of 2022. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas. From the entire team at the Alberta Institute, we wish you a safe and happy new year! May 2023 be your best year yet.

Last Week In Alberta:

• Alberta announced a plan to improve EMS response times. The Province plans to transport non-emergency patients to hospitals using taxis and shuttles, freeing up ambulances and paramedics to deal with more urgent cases. A pilot project has been running in Calgary and a few other communities for the past six months. Premier Danielle Smith said she expects the reform to free up ambulances for about 70 more trips each day across Alberta.
  
  
• Data from StatsCan showed that Alberta had its largest quarterly population increase since this information began being collected. Nearly 60,000 people moved to Alberta between July and October with Ontario and BC the largest contributors to migration to the province within Canada. Perhaps those "Alberta is Calling" ads were useful after all…
  
  
• The Province has reached an agreement with Legal Aid lawyers, ending their job action. Beginning January 1st, their interim rate will increase from $100 to $125 per hour. Job action began in early August with lawyers largely refusing to accept new legal aid cases since the end of September. Criminal courts across the province now face significant backlogs.

-----

Donate:

The Alberta Institute doesn't accept any government funding and never will. We think you should be free to choose, for yourself, which organizations to support. If you're in a position to contribute financially, you can make a donation here.

-----

Share:

If you're not in a position to donate, we understand, but if you appreciate our work, you can help by spreading our message. Please forward this email to your friends, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and help make sure every Albertan knows what's going on in our province.