Alberta’s latest provincial budget — released last week — is perhaps the most consequential budget in years. But in many important ways, it’s widely misunderstood. Like any budget, it contains thousands of individual decisions. Each comes with tradeoffs, and each should be subject to examination and debate. Unlike other budgets, there’s disagreement over what exactly […]

As governments and economies across the world wrestle with how to tackle climate change, Alberta’s oil and gas sector is developing technology to help minimize greenhouse-gas emissions and lessen its environmental footprint. In early September, Suncor Energy announced it would be making a $1.4-billion investment to build a new power cogeneration plant just outside Fort […]

A majority of Calgarians who shared their feedback with the city in the days leading up to council’s decision on the $550-million arena deal were opposed to the project, a Postmedia review suggests. An analysis of more than 4,000 individual public submissions found about 55 per cent of those who wrote to the City Clerk’s […]

In 2016, the Alberta Electric System Operator, or AESO, filed a report recommending that Alberta’s electricity market transition from an “Energy Only” to “Energy and Capacity” markets. The previous NDP government accepted this recommendation, but on July 24 the UCP government scrapped the idea. Electricity markets are complex. They require a constant balance between supply […]

A Calgary economist says the current Alberta government likely made the right decision to cancel big changes to the province’s electricity system. The former NDP government had proposed an overhaul of the power market to help avoid big price swings for consumers, while ensuring there’s enough power to meet the province’s needs. The Alberta government […]

Last week, the Department of Finance issued a paper trumpeting Canada’s tax competitiveness for large corporate investment. We are not only more competitive than the United States but all other G7 countries and the OECD on average. The assessment is based on the so-called Marginal Effective Tax Rate (METR) that has been estimated by the […]

For the better part of five years, Calgary and the Flames danced around plans to build a new arena with help from the public purse. Now, after plans for a $290-million public contribution were released late on Monday, city councillors have only days to decide. There are difficult questions we should be asking, and complex […]

Canada is a trading country, or so we tell ourselves. We embrace international trade, no doubt, and are expanding opportunities abroad with comprehensive deals such as CETA and TPP. But we have real difficulty trading with ourselves. We always have. At Confederation, well over 90 per cent of provincial trade was with other countries rather […]

Many Albertans have long complained that Canada’s equalization system isn’t there for them when their province goes through an economic bust. But a University of Calgary economist says calls for reform should be focused, instead, on a lesser known federal program of wealth distribution. “What Albertans should really complain about is the fiscal stabilization program, […]