Alberta Minute: Papal Visit, Emissions Caps, and an Annual Policy Survey

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

This Week In Alberta:

• The Legislature remains on break until October 31st. There are no scheduled committee meetings until the end of October either.
  
  
• The Pope is travelling around Alberta today. He will travel to Maskwacis, then to Edmonton, where he will hold an open-air mass on Tuesday before visiting Lac Ste. Anne in the evening. Highway closures are expected throughout the Edmonton region during the visit, which is expected to cost the Province about $20 million.
  
  
• The first-ever edition of the Alberta Institute's annual Alberta Policy Survey is still open for responses for a couple more days. We'd like your help in determining what kinds of issues are the most important for you today, and what types of solutions you would like to see proposed in the future to solve these challenges. It only takes about 5 minutes to help us figure out where we should be focusing our attention as an organization.

Last Week In Alberta:

• The deadline for entering the UCP leadership race has passed. Eight candidates submitted the required paperwork and signatures to the party. Seven of the candidates, with the exception of Raj Sherman, have been confirmed by the party. The new leader will be announced on October 6th.
  
  
• The provincial government has backed down on removing coverage for the insulin pump program following fierce backlash from patients and diabetes advocates. Many users of the program were concerned that the proposed changes, such as using employer health care plans to pay for the pumps, would lead to significant out-of-pocket costs. The government has decided to leave the provincial coverage in place and expand the program to include newer pumps.

• The federal government produced a discussion paper which proposed two ways to make good on their promised oil and gas emissions cap. One of the proposals is an industry-specific cap-and-trade system, while the other is a modified carbon pricing system to set a ceiling for emissions. The oilsands are a massive economic driver for Alberta and, of course, we'll have more to say on this issue in the coming weeks.

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