Latest news with #BusinessCouncilOfAlberta
CTV News
25-06-2025
- Politics
- CTV News
Alberta panel member says ask Premier Smith about idea to cut aid to some newcomers
A key member of Alberta's new panel fighting federal overreach says Canada's immigration system needs fixing, but couldn't comment on the panel considering an idea to cut supports for some newcomers. Business Council of Alberta president Adam Legge says questions about potentially excluding certain immigrants from services like health care should be addressed to Premier Danielle Smith. Barring services to some newcomers is a solution being put forward on immigration on the panel's website. It claims recent immigration levels are to blame for high housing costs, high unemployment and some social unrest, and says one solution might be for Alberta to issue its own immigration permits to preferred newcomers. Legge says all of the ideas on the panel's website come from Smith's government, including proposals to create a provincial pension plan, police force and tax collection agency. But he says the panel won't be limited to the government's ideas, and he hopes Albertans attend planned town halls over the summer to share their thoughts. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 25, 2025. Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press
CBC
24-06-2025
- Business
- CBC
Alberta government to launch sovereignty panel tour amid talk of new pipeline
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says a new panel will hit the road this summer with an eye on devising new measures for Alberta to assert autonomy and shield its economy from what she calls federal overreach. The "Alberta Next" panel, which was announced in May, will hold a series of in-person town halls over the summer, with exact locations to be announced in the coming weeks. It will also collect feedback through online surveys. Proposals that come out of those discussions could be put to a vote in a referendum next year. "The Alberta Next panel will put Albertans in the drivers' seat," Smith told reporters at a news conference in Heritage Park in Calgary on Tuesday. "It will give them the rightful opportunity to decide how Alberta can become stronger and more sovereign within a united Canada." Smith previously said she would chair the panel. In addition to Smith, the panel will include Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz, economist Trevor Tombe, and Adam Legge of the Business Council of Alberta, among others, with some still to be announced. The government said the panel would consult Albertans on subjects like the possibility of establishing an Alberta pension plan, switching to an Alberta provincial police service from the RCMP and considering potential immigration reform, among other issues. Some of the subjects echo the UCP's former Fair Deal Panel, which produced 25 recommendations, including developing a plan to withdraw from the Canada Pension Plan and creating a provincial police force. Asked by reporters Tuesday about how this effort would be different, Smith said that sometimes conversations that emerge out of the panel discussions lead to a "national dialogue." "We identified six issues that we know have come up in the previous round of the Fair Deal Panel that we think Albertans now may want to put to a referendum so that we can take some action on them," Smith said. "But there may be others, and that's what we want to be able to explore." Talk of new pipeline On Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported that Smith told the news agency in an interview that she expected a private company would bring forward a proposal to build a new oil pipeline to the British Columbia coast within weeks. Smith has not named the company and no firm has yet publicly committed to the idea. Asked by reporters at Tuesday's news conference about that report, Smith said she had been talking with all of the pipeline companies since she was elected. "I feel like we're pretty close to having, either one or a consortium come forward," she said. "I would hope that that would happen very soon, because we need to send a signal to Albertans very soon and test the new process the prime minister is putting forward." Last week, the Liberal government's major projects legislation passed in the House of Commons. It aims to reduce interprovincial trade barriers and speed up approvals for major projects in the national interest. Specific projects haven't yet been identified, however Prime Minister Mark Carney has said decarbonized oil pipelines are "absolutely" in the national interest and would support both trade diversification and new industry development. MPs push through Carney's major projects bill before summer break 4 days ago Duration 1:52 Liberal and Conservative MPs teamed up to ram through Prime Minister Mark Carney's contentious Bill C-5 before Parliament rose for the summer. The legislation allows the fast-tracking of major economic projects but limits the consultation process. Currently, the federally-owned Trans Mountain pipeline carries crude oil from Alberta to the West Coast. But Smith has been vocal about potentially revisiting a plan to ship oilsands crude to the northern B.C. coast, telling reporters at the Global Energy Show earlier this month that the province was working to entice a private-sector pipeline builder. Smith has suggested that Prince Rupert, B.C., could work as a potential end point for the pipeline. Plans for the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to export crude oil near Kitimat, B.C., were scrapped in 2016 following a court ruling that determined Ottawa failed to properly consult First Nations affected by the pipeline. With talk of a revival of such plans on the radar, B.C. Premier David Eby said earlier this week that he opposed public funding for an oil pipeline to the north coast, but added he wasn't against a privately-backed option. "What I don't support is tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidy going to build this new pipeline when we already own a pipeline [Trans Mountain] that empties into British Columbia and has significant additional capacity — 200,000 barrels," Eby said on Sunday.
CBC
16-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Alberta separation movement knocked by business groups, analyst
Deborah Yedlin gets that some folks in Alberta are not thrilled with yet another federal Liberal government, but she says the separation movement the premier is flirting with could seriously hurt the province and the country. "When there is uncertainty, money sits on the sidelines or companies leave or labour leaves," Yedlin, the Calgary Chamber president and CEO, told the Calgary Eyeopener in a Thursday interview. "What does that do? Your tax base shrinks. You don't have that corporate tax base or personal income taxes. It's not where anybody wants to go." Yedlin is in Ottawa making Alberta's economic case to a new federal cabinet. She likes what she sees so far. "This is a different government, a different cabinet with a different focus," she said. "Individuals who were not supportive of the energy sector are not going to have the same voice that they may have had in previous iterations in government. That view is going to be directed differently and pragmatically." But the anger of some Albertans is understandable, says the president of the Business Council of Alberta. "I think it's important not to dismiss the concerns and frustrations of Alberta," Adam Legge told CBC News in an interview. He said his members, on balance, don't support leaving Canada. "Obviously, the separatist option is the nuclear one, on the very end of the scale, that I hope we never achieve because we believe Alberta's place is in the federation, is in Canada." A political scientist says, however, sometimes Alberta can make that hard. "Some of the demands [Alberta Premier] Danielle Smith has made of the federal government are beyond the federal government's capacity to provide," said Lori Williams of Mount Royal University. "If you want to build pipelines, you need the support of not just leaders but of the people they represent. Taking a demanding, entitled approach to negotiations is less likely to generate the support needed for Alberta to get things like pipelines built. We have to work with other parts of Canada as well as the federal government." And then there are those thorny conversations around equalization, and all the confusion that percolates around that. "There's an assumption that Alberta is giving more to Canada than it's getting back," Williams said. "When you put all the federal transfers together, not just equalization, things like fiscal stabilization, health transfers, social service transfers, education transfers — the numbers don't look as even as they otherwise would. The per capita money coming into Alberta is on par with the per capita money going into other provinces." That would change, however, if Alberta were to chart its own path. "It would have to assume a share of the national debt and pay the full cost of all of the services being supported by federal money." Yedlin, meanwhile, is focusing on sunny days ahead. "We have tremendous opportunity now," she said. "We have, from what I am hearing, a government, and the messages are pretty clear, a government that really wants to harness the economic potential of this country. What's the downside of doing that? There is no downside." Legge isn't mincing words about secession. "The consequences will be significant, the costs will be significant. It doesn't solve a lot of the problems and concerns we have. Separating from Canada doesn't make a pipeline any easier, faster, or cheaper. Let's find ways to know how we can defend our interests," he said. "I absolutely believe there are companies reconsidering investment in Alberta in this time of separatist conversation." But for Williams, it's a matter of looking at the bigger picture. "I think many Albertans would be less supportive of separation once they started looking at those sorts of things," she said. "I think there are people who are angry and that's being fuelled online and by some leaders. They assume that talk of separation will yield some kind of concessions from others, and I just don't know if that's a safe assumption."
