Affordability: Alberta’s top priority
By Lethbridge Herald on June 8, 2024.
AT THE LEGISLATURE
Nathan Neudorf – UCP MLA for Lethbridge East
It should come as no surprise that addressing the cost of living is a top priority for the UCP government. After all, creating the new Ministry of Affordability and Utilities was one of the first things Danielle Smith did after becoming the Premier.
Alberta’s government has taken an all-government approach as we continue to build on existing affordability measures. Our government’s Affordability Action Plan has already helped measurably lower the rate of inflation for Albertans. In addition to the over $5 billion that our government spent on affordability efforts since 2022, more than $1.5 billion is committed this year to support Albertans with the cost-of-living.
Albertans have the lowest overall taxes in Canada with no PST, no payroll tax or health premium, as well as a low provincial income tax that about 40 per cent of Alberta tax filers don’t pay. As promised, we expanded the Alberta Taxpayer Protection Act to protect Albertans and Alberta businesses against future income tax hikes, with nearly a billion dollars going towards indexing personal income taxes this year alone.
Alberta’s fuel tax relief program saves Albertans on gas and diesel when oil prices are high. With that, Alberta’s government is also taking action on high auto insurance rates by introducing price protections.
For Alberta’s families, our government is expanding accessible, affordable and high-quality childcare for families by reducing childcare fees, increasing subsidy eligibility, and creating thousands more childcare spaces. We also invested $12 million in increased tax breaks and subsidies to help cover the costs of adoptions in Alberta, reducing adoption costs by as much as 50 per cent.
Supporting families and children in the province goes beyond the household as well. Alberta’s government is making kids’ sport and recreation activities more accessible and affordable through the Every Kid Can Play Program and investing $30 million in new funding for sport and recreation facilities. More than $24 million is going to help school authorities cover higher transportation costs and ensure more funding for student transportation this year. Through the School Nutrition Program, we are ensuring more than 58,000 Alberta students have access to quality, nutritious meals.
Students are Alberta’s future, and training homegrown talent in-province is essential to keeping the Alberta advantage. That’s why our government has dedicated $86 million to support post-secondary students, capped domestic tuition increases at two per cent, extended the interest-free grace period for student loans, and more.
Protecting and supporting vulnerable Albertans, including seniors, is top of mind when it comes to addressing affordability. This includes over $400 million in supports such as indexing financial benefits like AISH to inflation, increased wages in the social sector, and rent assistance programs. We followed through on our campaign promise for a senior’s discount, providing them with a 25 per cent discount on personal registry services.
Housing, food, and utilities are basic necessities, not luxury goods. That’s why our government continues to focus on lowering Albertans’ bills.
Alberta’s government continues to encourage new residential housing construction by reducing red tape and supporting innovative strategies to build more homes faster. Together with its partners, Alberta is supporting $9 billion in investments into affordable housing to support 25,000 additional low-income households by 2031. This spring, we also passed legislation to promote more housing development, which included exempting non-profit affordable housing from property taxes, encouraging more homes to be built while driving down costs. Alberta is building more homes, resulting in almost 14,000 new housing starts in the first four months of the year – a historic record for the province.
Our government is also continuing to strengthen our agricultural sector and invest in funding for food banks, helping ensure Albertans have access to affordable, high-quality food.
Alberta’s government is reviewing the province’s entire electricity system as we work to help lower Albertans’ utility bills. Our government has already taken action by providing nearly a billion dollars in monthly power bill rebates. We’re restricting the practice of economic withholding, which is estimated to save Albertans more than $8 billion over the next decade. This spring, we also passed the Utilities Affordability Statutes Amendment Act, which will lower and stabilize local access fees on utility bills, saving the average Calgarian $145 annually, with families on the Rate of Last Resort saving $937 per year. Our government is committed to ensuring our province continues to generate reliable and affordable power and these changes are just the start.
However, affordability must be addressed by all levels of government – federal, provincial, and municipal. It is unacceptable for municipalities to be raking in hundreds of millions in surplus revenue off the backs of Alberta’s ratepayers. Albertans need and deserve their fair share of federal funding for housing. And one of the main contributors to rising costs in Canada continues to be the federal carbon tax.
Alberta’s low-tax, business-friendly environment, combined with our government’s ongoing red tape reduction and affordability measures, are helping keep life affordable for everyday Albertans. Our government is working tirelessly to lower the cost-of-living, and keep Alberta the best place to call home.
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When this minister in this government talks about ‘reducing red tape’, why does it always sound like lowering standards and bypassing regulations designed to protect people and the environment?
It is like a used car salesman selling you an ‘affordable’ car that is going to cost you dearly as long as you own it.
The government of Alberta is captured by the interests of foreign coal mining companies, predatory lending and insurance companies, the building industry and the royalties from a fossil industry. ‘Affordability’ solutions seem to depend on transferring more and more tax revenues to these entities with a hope and a prayer that it will ‘trickle down’.
Meanwhile, this government creates real red tape in the form of the We Will Decide Bill 18 and the Subverting Democracy Bill 20. But, it seems, real red tape represents only those barriers obscene profits for our masters, to disciplining workers, and to punishing the poor.
If we want to create an affordable place to live, create mortgage-capable jobs, curb predatory lending and speculation, tax ills while supporting goods, and foster a democracy that encourages the common good (as opposed to a libertarian authoritarianism that encourages a desperate free for all to grab what is left).
SophieR, “Red Tape” you must mean, like for instance, having the entire community (residents/business) being held “hostage” and forced to rise up in actual protest/petitioning to protest the Supervised Consumption Site, which was heralded by Rachael Notely and tooted by none other than our soon to resign MLA Shannon Phillips??? Yeah, that was in deed “Red Tape” thank the Good Lord and answers to prayer, that the UCP stepped in and shuttered that “den of iniquity”!
Other than that “close to home example” SophieR, there was a plethora of “red tape” to waddle through in the health care and education sectors…remember those as well SophieR???
In conclusion, as you SophieR identify, (Bills 18, 20) the UCP are proceeding to “govern” our great province in a thorough effective, responsible and conservative manner. Not “red tape” at all, rather structuring “our” Alberta out of the masssive debt and shagrin caused/created by the NDP. (No lose that Shannon Phillips will be gone on July 1st) what did she say/do regarding opposition to Bills 18/20 in her roll as financial critic??? That’s right, nothing!
About the only thing you said that is remotely connected to reality is your quotes around “govern” as related to the UCP.
Particularly jaw-dropping was the last comment, which should read “I did not watch or read any comments from right wing media or hear anything from the prosperity pulpit that noted Phillip’s comments on Bill 18 or 20.”
Helping keep life affordable for everyday Albertans? Surely, he jests.
We face increasing costs which are not offset by anything else this government does…..food, fuel, electricity(the 2nd highest in the country), insurance, property taxes, income taxes (not everyone is paying their fair share)….the list goes on.
The Smith/Parker UCP/TBA: tone deaf, or could care less?
Are you absolutely blind, deaf and dumb? Do you not see/hear the progess in Alberta??? 250,000 new Albertans last year and more coming in along with business and enterprise! Alberta’s Danielle Smith standing up to and challenging Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh showing that Alberta once again has hope and promise in the land! Southern Albertan, check out BC where business and residents are escaping to where? ALBERTA! (Regular gas in Vancouver today is an average of $1.90 per litre, rent for a single room dwelling, not an apartment, just a room (if you can find it) $1,500.00 per month! Enough said.
“Housing, food, and utilities are basic necessities, not luxury goods. That’s why our government continues to focus on lowering Albertans’ bills.”
and, yet, the gouging goes unmitigated, save for maybe taking from the public purse to rebate us a few copper coins, whilst the oligopoly sleazes us to the max with numerous inventive fixed fees that account for the the brunt of our rip-off utility costs. hmm, one can still talk to the deflection commission….
but, i guess so long as it is a cons named govt overseeing the sleaze, it is not so bad.
While all this is happening Albertans are losing billions of dollars in lost Corporate Taxes and Oil Royalties , our roads are falling farther and father in the state of disrepair, more and more oil wells are closing down dumping the cost of cleanup onto the backs of our children, municipalities are underfunded pushing our property taxes skyward , doctors and nurses are leaving Alberta putting lives at risk, classrooms are forced to house more and more students, more and more former Reformers are having their pockets filled with taxpayers money, and the rich are getting richer while more and more Albertans are needing support from our Food Banks, and the fools who support this government aren’t smart enough to understand it, while they hurl their sarcastic comments at anyone not as ignorant as them. If wasn’t so disgusting it might be hilarious.
OMG…. your words are shallow as you attempt to be deceptive! Take a short drive to Taber my friend….what do you see??? A massive road construction which will benefit all Southern Albertans greatly, I guess you missed that one Fedup Conservative huh? Agreed, reliance on “food banks” is a national/internation crisis. In Alberta/Canada risen food costs are directly related to the brainchild of Carbon Taxation (Trudeau), that is why we need to “Axe the Tax, cut the crime and you know where this is going!” Wake up and smell your Starbucks latte there Fedup Conservative, you not in Kansas anymore!
I am certain that Fedup Conservative’s remark regarding “roads are falling farther and farther in the state of disrepair” is correctly interpreted in reference to existing roadways not the Hwy#3 lane twinning project (which has been on again/off again historically for 50 years of provincial and federal wranglings). Fedup is dead on noting that road maintenance has suffered for lack of funding for many years — sigh, pay no or not enough taxes = receive no services. Economic analysts have written that the rise in food costs cannot be entirely associated with the carbon tax; the rise is far more complex than that including corporate greed and politicking and has occurred in many global communities not subject to the fed’s carbon tax. Crime rates are higher across Canada, gotta give you that (complex topic period), but Lethbridge’s crime level was actually trending downwards as of 2023 (again complex; many factors at work, plus Calgary and Edmonton up, so no apparent credit to UCP can be immediately correlated to Lethbridge successes.). And yep… all sorts of folks moving to Alberta despite fewer and fewer reliable jobs with living wages and even less housing available are available in Alberta. I know of many local people who are seeking reasonable employment, steady employment, and enough of those are folks with excellent resumes and proven employment skills. Several recent grads working everything from yard cleaning to a few hours here and there that they can get at retail. We have numerous young grads in our circle who have moved to Europe for employment opportunities = brain drain from this land of opportunity-no-opportunity. One of your remarks to a comment was, “are you blind deaf and dumb?”, which made me think of a recent quote I read: “95% of what people see is behind the eyes.” I think it fits well in this discussion.
I agree with so many remarks of folks commenting below… Neudorf blames the carbon tax as a major contributor of rising costs while completely ignoring the UCP government’s deregulation processes and then has the gall to say, but heh, now that we caused that muckup, heh, we’ll be heroes and give you some support. Then he speaks about discounts for seniors for registry costs that the UCP have increased by far, far more than 25%. And, wowza, astoundingly he mentions the Kids Can Play Program that states on the site even tonight, “No longer taking applications for the Community-Level and Provincial Scope grants ” … (applications are now closed they have put so much into this effort !?!?) Moreover, this program and KidSport ask for donations on the websites if not at Walmart and Safeway cashier tills. !!!! No guff Fedup Conservative, “disgusting”and “hilarious” ring so true. Again, just more myth-information and indoctrination from these Cons. Too bad they didn’t cancel their War Room fiasco entirely and put that money into these so-called “Affordability Programs” instead of continuing their nepotism and employing their buddies, while ensuring they keep a steady campaign of propaganda rolling. Repeat: Disgusting.