Promises, promises: Track what Alberta's political parties are vowing to deliver
With Albertans heading to the polls this spring, the biggest political players in the province are already vying for your vote.
The campaign trail is marked with plenty of promises
With Albertans heading to the polls on April 16, the biggest political players in the province are already vying for votes.
Through the course of the 28-day campaign, CBC News will track some of the most noteworthy promises made by Rachel Notley, Jason Kenney, Stephen Mandel, David Khan and Derek Fildebrandt leading up to election night.
From pipelines to public policy, the list below will give you an overview of the promises being made by each campaign.
- Vote Compass: Compare your views to party platforms for the 2019 Alberta election
- 10 ridings to watch in Alberta's election campaign
- 'Them's fighting words': The Alberta election campaign begins
Alberta Party promises
Agriculture
- Establish new $100 million Alberta Agriculture Innovation Fund to provide research and seed funding
- Fund agri-tourism development and enhance the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation
Energy and Economy
- Establish Indigenous-led, Alberta Government supported consortium to build Alaska rail corridor to transport oil resources
- Change province's current cannabis revenue sharing model
- Create an Alberta Pension Plan and bring Alberta's portion of CPP under provincial control
- Stop sending personal taxes to Ottawa by terminating current agreement with federal government
- Continue building the Springbank Off-Stream Reservoir Project
- Review oil curtailment plan
- Advocate moratorium on federal tanker ban in B.C.
- Exempt homes, businesses, farms and non-profits from the carbon tax
- Double allowable tax deduction for small- and medium-sized businesses from $500,000 to $1 million
- Expediate approval for bitumen pucks (CanaPux) facility; provide $16.7 million for the pilot project
- Increase Alberta Innovates budget by 30 per cent to $375 million by 2021
- Expand refining capacity
- Establish a Gas Royalty in Kind program that takes a similar approach to the Bitumen Royalty in Kind program
- Establish a technology development fund focused on forestry resources
- Cancel the NDP carbon tax for families, small business, farms, non-profit organizations and municipal governments
Health
- Reconstitute the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research
- Build more non-acute care beds and non-acute care clinics
- Create a new Alberta Caregiver Tax Credit to support caregivers
- Create 3,500 long term care beds similar to the Alberta Supportive Living Initiative
- Mandatory vaccinations for children in public school
- Wellness strategy focused on mental health, long-term care and chronic conditions
- Allow health-care professionals, such as EMS or nurse practitioners, more discretion in directing medical care
- Reform EMS dispatch and practices so paramedics are able to spend more time in communities, less time in the hospital
- Conduct a review to eliminate duplication and redundancies between AHS and Alberta Health
- Identify under-utilized real estate owned by AHS and divest properties with no planned use
- Create more long-term care beds, more options for rehabilitation
- Expand health-care coverage to include annual dental check-ups for children under 12
- Push for water fluoridation
Infrastructure
- Build new lanes on QE2 highway, upgrade existing highway network, and create Canada's first corridor for self-driving vehicles
- Increase the provincial highway rehabilitation budget by 40% from $360 million per year to $504 million per year
- Secure the right-of-way and approvals for an Alberta-to-Alaska railway and pipeline corridor
Governance and Bureaucracy
- End Alberta's status as the only province in Canada to not have an Extended Producer Responsibility program
- Replace health care, drivers' licence and other ID cards with a single Alberta card
Education and Child Care
- Expand the STEP program
- Retain the current cap on tuition at Alberta post-secondary institutions
- Create 45,000 new spaces in post-secondary institutions by 2024 including universities, colleges and technical institutes
- Double the number of education assistants in K-12 classrooms
- Introduce 'ambitious' $1B child-care program
Indigenous Rights and Environment
- Require proponents of major projects to prioritize social and financial sustainability of Alberta's FNMI communities
- Critically examine justice system to eliminate embedded racism
- Work with First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities to develop a culturally appropriate strategy for health care
- Develop a plan to recognize the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the 94 recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women Inquiry
- Improve First Nations, Métis and Inuit education and create a plan to address the on-reserve and on-settlement gap in education funding
- Update the Animal Protection Act
Freedom Conservative Party of Alberta promises
Taxation and Economy
- Balance budget and post $1.9 billion surplus by 2022-23
- Eliminate small business tax
- Reduce income tax and corporate tax to a flat rate of 10 per cent
- Eliminate beer tax
- Demand an end to equalization and wealth transfers out of Alberta
- Withdraw from Canada Revenue Agency to collect Alberta's own tax
Governance and Electioneering
- Abolish party whips
- Allow citizens to initiate referendums and vetoes over legislation
- Demand more autonomy over immigration, tax collection, employment insurance, Canada pension plan and justice
- Hold referendum on independence if demands are not met
Municipal Affairs
- Cancel NDP's plan to allow municipalities to run budget deficits
- Replace federal infrastructure transfers with a tax-point transfer
- Restore the right to appeal in the Municipal Government Act
Education
- Equal funding for public, private and independent schools; guaranteed funding for home-schooling
- Cancel Alberta's new school curriculum
- Revoke funding for post-secondary institutions that do not protect free speech or freedom of assembly
- Allow post-secondary institutions to partner with K-12 schools to specialize in vocational training
Read the full Freedom Conservative Party platform here
Liberal Party promises
Energy and Economy
- Launch $80 million Back to Work Grant Fund
- Support the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion
- Advocate for Energy East Pipeline
- Demand amendments to Bill C69
- Cancel oil-by-rail plan
- Make carbon tax revenue-neutral
- Eliminate income tax, replace revenue with more corporate tax and 8 per cent HST
- Alberta Liberal plan towards a Basic Income
- Exempt new small businesses from paying small business corporate income tax for the first three taxation years after incorporation
Municipal Affairs
- Grant new revenue-generating powers to Edmonton and Calgary
- Create equitable cannabis revenue-sharing model
- Give urban municipalities the power to veto oil and gas drilling within their boundaries
Environment
- Create more wildlife crossings, enhance protections for at-risk species and ban clear cutting
- Eliminate the use of single-use plastics in Alberta by 2030
Education
- Introduce class size caps to deal with large classrooms
- Support education by advocating for reduced class sizes, inclusive education and an immediate end to seclusion rooms
- Increase special needs education funding and support by 50 per cent
Indigenous Rights and Social Issues
- Create regional Indigenous child protection offices, language immersion programs and curriculum
- Mandate provincial courts to apply Indigenous-based sentencing principles
- Improve access to foreign credential upgrades and invest in adult ESL education
- Ban conversion therapy
- Introduce gender-based analysis plus (GBA+) budgeting
- Institute mandatory sexual assault, harassment and consent training for police and judges
Health
- Opioid crisis would be declared a public health emergency
- Increase funding for mental health and addictions treatment by 50 per cent
- Make dental care more affordable and accessible for all Albertans
- Build 2,200 new long-term beds over the next four years
- Improve public health care, including a commitment to reduce wait times and improve mental health resources
- Sustainable Healthcare Strategy
Governance and Electioneering
- Replace first-past-the-post voting system with mixed member proportional representation
- Add six new legislature seats for Indigenous MLAs
- Replace 'first-past-the-post' electoral system with mixed-member proportional representation
- Cap PAC donations to $4,000 a year per person; ban union, corporate and foreign donations to PACs
The Liberal Party released its 49-page platform on April 8, 2019. You can read it here
NDP promises:
Energy and Economy
- Balance the budget by 2023 while rolling out new funding initiatives
- Resolve regulatory challenges, construct the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion
- Help Alberta producers ship oil by rail by leasing up to 4,400 rail cars, moving an additional 120,000 barrels a day, starting in July 2019
- Invest $3.5 billion to aid private-sector refining and upgrading projects, including royalty incentives and loan guarantees to encourage private-sector investment
- Build a $2-billion partial upgrading facility in the Edmonton area
- Increase incentives to $7 billion in new private-sector investment to boost oil and gas sector
- Fund 16 clean energy projects in the province, worth $600 million, through Emissions Reduction Alberta
- Balance the budget by 2023
Infrastructure
- No new toll roads
- Create more consistency around highway construction zones, eliminate traffic fines
- Invest $6 million for an affordable housing project in Stony Plain
- Accelerate and increase building of water infrastructure on Alberta First Nations to ensure access to clean, safe, reliable drinking water with a $100 million investment over six years
- Replace the Highway 3 bridge, eastbound, in Lethbridge
- Build a 120-bed homeless shelter in Red Deer, with funding of $7 million
- Replace the province's oldest senior's lodge in Red Deer, with $28 million
- Give $13.5 million over the next three years to help bring the X Games to Calgary
- Invest $478 million to ease congestion on Calgary's Deerfoot Trail
- Repair and build nearly 4,700 affordable homes for seniors and people in need
- Evaluate the proposed East Clearwater Highway near Fort McMurray
- Upgrade roads, bridges and utilities across the province
Health
- Ban conversion therapy
- Pledge to launch a lawsuit against manufacturers of opioid medication
- Edmonton and Calgary to get storefront medical health clinics to provide immediate care for people in crisis
- Introduce Bill 1, An Act to Protect Public Health Care, to prevent privatization in Alberta health care
- Expand the Red Deer Hospital, with an expanded emergency room, a new cardiac catheterization lab and expansion to other services
- Renovate the emergency room at Peter Lougheed Centre, including renovations to ease congestion
- Build a new children's mental health hospital in Edmonton to serve all northern populations
- Add 2,000 more long-term care beds
- Invest $90 million per year over three years to boost emergency care
Education and Child Care
- Create a K-12 Filipino language and culture program
- Create new provincial Filipino, Punjabi, Somali and Cantonese courses
- Increase funding for Classroom Improvement Fund from $77 million to $100 million per year, and make it permanent
- Continue with Alberta education curriculum redesign to update education for the internet age
- Expand $25-per-day child care across Alberta
- All new school projects will get new playgrounds. Another $5 million each year will help replace 100 aging and outdated playgrounds in mature neighbourhoods
Technology
- Spend $100 million over five years to grow the artificial intelligence sector in Alberta
- Invest $100 million in a technology diversification plan and continue with a five-year plan to create 3,000 new high-tech training seats in Alberta universities and colleges
- Expand the Agrivalue Processing Business Incubator
- Build, expand and modernize more schools, including a major new high school in north Calgary
Social Issues and Justice
Conservation and Disaster Mitigation
- Follow through with commitment to build Springbank Dam
- Create the Kitaskino Nuwenene Wildland, a preserve of 160,000 hectares south of Wood Buffalo National Park
The NDP unveiled its full 52-page platform on March 31, 2019. You can read it here
United Conservative Party promises:
Energy and Economy
- Introduce Bill 12, or the Turn off the Taps law, on the first day in office
- Reform the Alberta Energy Regulator
- Intervene at all National Energy Board hearings that affect Alberta oil and gas interests
- Create crown corporation to facilitate First Nations financial participation in major resource projects
- Produce a small surplus after four years
- Force large emitters to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 10 per cent each year
- Fight to kill Bill C-69
- Establish a war room to combat misinformation about the oilsands
- Fund lawsuits by pro-development Indigenous groups
- Explore new methods of moving oil to ocean ports
- Abolish the carbon tax and join other provinces suing federal government
- Amend the Taxpayer Protection Act to require a referendum before a carbon tax can be introduced in the future
- End wind and solar power subsidies
- Cancel Notley government's railcar lease with CN and CP
- Have a "practical plan" to control greenhouse gas emissions
- Fight for international market access by pressuring federal government and eliminating inter-provincial trade barriers
- Cut corporate tax rate from 12 to eight per cent over four years
- Use the prospect of a referendum on equalization as leverage for federal action on pipelines
- Ask Ottawa to increase the limit of the Fiscal Stabilization Fund, cut income tax rates and stop payroll increases for CPP
- Push for Albertans to be exempt from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation stress test
- Create pre-approved land corridors moving east-west and north in the Arctic to expedite resource project approvals
Labour
- Roll back many provisions in NDP labour bills on WCB
- $13-minimum-wage for youth, a panel to study the effects of minimum-wage increases
- Repeal Bill 6, the Farm Safety Act
- Reform immigration program to attract entrepreneurs
- Streamline recognition of foreign credentials and push for harmonized regulatory procedures across Canada
Education
- Replace Alberta's School Act with the former Education Act
- End discovery math
- End 'ideological' NDP rewrite of school curriculum and start own process
- Expand school choice
- Bring back standardized tests
- Review current funding formula to ensure that rural schools have adequate resources
- Maintain or increase education funding while seeking greater efficiency by reducing administrative overhead
- Expand apprenticeship programs and create new scholarship to promote skilled trades
- Reform education certification process to allow more tradespeople to teach
- Expand the Women Building Futures program
Social Issues and Justice
- New $4-million support fund for veterans, first responders
- Disclose domestic violence records to intimate partners
- Launch the Alberta Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking
- End Alberta's agreement with the Parole Board of Canada and pass legislation to create an Alberta Parole Board
- Call on federal government to restore mandatory sentencing for drug traffickers
Health
- Begin search for consultant to do performance review of AHS within 30 days of taking office
- Maintain or increase health-care spending, while looking for efficiencies
- Spend $2 million to expand the use of specialized electronic monitoring technology
- Privatize Alberta Health Services laundry service
- Review medical and forensic gathering standards in rural areas
- Cancel plans for a $590-million Alberta "superlab," which was planned to consolidate hospital lab services in Edmonton and northern Alberta
- Invite specialized private day surgical clinics to bid on providing government-insured day surgeries
- Allow nurse practitioners to bill directly to Alberta Health; expand the scope of practice of other health professionals, such as opticians and paramedics
- Appoint an Associate Minister for Mental Health and Addictions
- Expand support for opioid treatment centres, including more detox beds and mobile detox programs
- Expand Drug Treatment Courts, including new ones outside of Calgary and Edmonton
- More extensive consultations approving any new supervised consumption sites
- Shift from hospital to community-based home and hospice care
- Expand the medical home model of primary care
Conservation
- Create Big Island Provincial Park, a 770-hectare park in Edmonton's southwest river valley
- Launch a new conservation plan to protect trails, create a back-country land-use plan
- Set up a Caribou Range Task Force to review the NDP's Alberta Caribou Draft Plan
- Increase annual funding on efforts to fight mountain pine beetle from $25 to $30 million
Governance and Electioneering
- Establish a $30,000 limit on donor contributions to PACs
- Establish a fixed election date
- Introduce a law that would allow for recall of a sitting MLA if petitioned by voters
- Allow free votes for MLAs on everything not deemed a confidence vote
- Renew the Senatorial Selection Act and holding elections for senatorial nominees in 2021
- Ban floor crossing
- Cut MLA pay by five per cent and premier pay by 10 per cent
- Introduce the End Partisan Government Advertising Act, making it illegal for governments to advertise in the run-up to an election, or to ever use tax dollars for partisan ads
- Improve decorum at legislature
- Review elections rules and sanctions, after Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel was penalized for late filing
- End MLA expense claims for fuel and vehicle maintenance, but keep allowances for mileage
- Restore the mandatory secret ballot for union certification votes
- Appoint a minister in charge of eliminating 'red tape'
The UCP unveiled its full 117-page platform on March 30, 2019. You can read the it here