AB Pol Econ

21Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Education

Student Protest

On Thursday 17 February, I joined about 500-700 students, faculty, staff and labour supporters in a march from the University of Alberta campus to the steps of the Alberta Legislature. At the bottom of the post are two handouts received at the demonstration At the main quad, marchers gathered. The speakers included representatives from the Students' Union, the Association of Academic Staff University of Alberta (AASUA). and the Non-Academic Staff Association (NASA). Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) flags also blew in the air. The crowd began to march in lines of four or five across though campus towards the High Level Bridge. I chatted with two women from a Philippines association and a contract instructor. Contract instructors live from term to term contracts with no job secu...

20Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Investment, Uncategorized

Hyndman Papers- Budget 1982-83

In the following remarkable document from former Provincial Treasurer Lou Hyndman, he succinctly summarizes the quintessential fiscal policy questions his predecessors and successors have grappled with. These questions relate to: the Alberta public's "rising expectations;" use of Heritage Fund savings and investment income for general operating purposes; the scope for tax increases; how to cope with resource revenue uncertainty; and the sustainability of government expenditures. All these questions are pertinent today. Undated from Lou Hyndman- presumably to caucus or to Treasury Board/Cabinet Key questions The following are some of the key questions to consider in setting the 1982-83 target expenditure level. How should rising public expectations be reconciled with limited financial r...

20Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Government Finances, Opinion/Research

Budget 2022- Alberta’s Fiscal Dilemma

Updated 24 February Opinion Alberta’s budget context is favorable right now with oil prices at just over $90 U.S. a barrel. A budget surplus, based on resource revenue, is widely expected for fiscal 2022-23. Alberta employment is back to the pre-pandemic levels. (I may have given the GOA the benefit of the doubt here. The December 2021 Statistics Canada Payroll employment, earnings and hours, and job vacancies revealed Alberta payroll employment "had not yet reached pre-COVID levels in December 2021 (-34,400; -1.7%)," This survey can be a better gauge than the Labour Force Survey which is notoriously volatile. Kenney’s balanced budget approach to hold spending constant or reduce spending has been "rewarded" with the inevitable rebound of Alberta's oil and gas-dependent economy. I...

22Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

ATB, Banks, Energy, Environment, Financial Institutions

Central bank, OSFI take reins on climate change- Alberta’s oil and gas economy will be changed by federal regulators

Updated 7 February 2022 On Friday 14 January the Bank of Canada and Canada's Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) released a report on a pilot study respecting the potential impact of climate change on Canada's major financial institutions. Canada's central bank and OSFI are jointly responsible for the stability of Canada's financial system. As international organizations mobilize resources to understand the linkages between national and global climate change policy shifts, there is a growing unease among regulators on how prepared banks and insurers are in understanding and managing credit risk and market risk of clients who are especially exposed to climate change policies. Bank of Canada, Ottawa Source: Bank of Canada See my article in The Conversation...

21Jan

By Bob Ascah1 Comment

Energy, Energy, Politics

Gordon Laxer on Big Foreign Oil

Balancing perspectives: Why was foreign influence exercised in Alberta’s Oilpatch not investigated by the Allan Inquiry? Gordon Laxer is one of Canada’s foremost political economists. He was the founding director of The Parkland Institute at the University of Alberta and is the author of many books, articles, and opinion pieces on Canada’s oil and gas sector. Abpolecon.ca is pleased to share with our readership Dr. Laxer’s recent work on foreign influence and control in Canada’s oil and gas sector. In a report, co-published by the Council of Canadians and CPPA Saskatchewan and B.C., entitled “Posing as Canadian- How Big Foreign Oil captures Canadian energy and climate policy,” he counters the widely derided Allan Inquiry report into foreign funding. Laxer finds it hypocritical of UCP polic...

16Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Demographics, Economic Data, Energy, Society

Some charts

Below are several charts which yield a number of economic insights about the Alberta economy. Interprovincial migration The first chart illustrates the impact of interprovincial migration - people coming to and leaving Alberta since 1961.The chart shows five distinct periods associated with boom and bust conditions in the oil and gas industry. Periods where blue is dominant are boom periods where Alberta was attracting thousands more in-migrants than those leaving the province. These are periods of growing employment and occasional labour shortages. Where the brown colour is dominant, these are quarters when outflow of people exceeded inflows. Employment The chart below shows total employment, all occupations, for the province of Alberta since 2006. Alberta employment grows steadily unti...

9Jan

By Bob Ascah2 Comments

Budget, Energy, Government Finances, Politics

Alberta’s Revenue Options: Presentation to Association of Retired University Professors, U of A

Presentation On Thursday, 6 January I was invited to make a presentation on what the province's revenue options were going into the next budget. Provincial budgets by law must be presented before the end of each February. The presentation generated a great deal of discussion which will be touched on below. The PDF of presentation can be found at the foot of this article. The purpose of the discussion was to stimulate an exchange of ideas concerning what future Alberta governments might do to raise more revenue. I began by defining what I saw as the problem. The first problem is the Alberta government's over-reliance on resource royalties to fund its spending. The second issue is that Alberta has not achieved a budgetary surplus without resource revenue since at least 1965. The first ch...

3Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Uncategorized

New Year’s Limerick

This Limerick comes courtesy of my colleague David Swann .... Enjoy ‘New Day's Lyric’ by Amanda Gorman May this be the day We come together. Mourning, we come to mend, Withered, we come to weather, Torn, we come to tend, Battered, we come to better. Tethered by this year of yearning, We are learning That though we weren't ready for this, We have been readied by it. Steadily we vow that no matter How we are weighed down, We must always pave a way forward. This hope is our door, our portal. Even if we never get back to normal, Someday we can venture beyond it, To leave the known and take the first steps. So let us not return to what was normal, But reach toward what is next. What was cursed, we will cure. What was plagued, we will prove pure. Where we tend to argue, we will try to agre...

31Dec

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Environment, Government Finances, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research, Politics, Rural

2021 Top Stories

Politics During 2021 Alberta’s political oxygen was consumed almost entirely with COVID-19- a topic Abpolecon.ca kept in the background. The third, fourth (Delta) and fifth (Omicron) waves rolled over the province and Kenney’s government was consistently found wanting. Not only was 2021 defined by the premier’s mishandling of COVID - the “best summer ever” but the NDP consistently out fund-raised the UCP. On top of these failures was a sexual harassment suit, an ill-timed UCP Christmas reception, and 22 constituency associations demanding the leadership review be bumped up to March (the effort was denied by the party Executive). By September Kenney was regarded as a “dead man walking.” In December, former Wildrose leader and UCP leadership contestant Brian Jean resurfaced as UCP candidat...

24Dec

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Employment, Energy, Opinion/Research

The Allan Inquiry

Alberta’s Energy Minister Sonya Savage. had the privilege, on behalf of Mr. Kenney’s government, to release the much delayed and controversial report of the public inquiry into anti-energy campaigns (Allan Report). As readers are aware this much maligned inquiry run by J. Stephens Allan was $1-million over budget and delayed several times. Besides the political controversies it stirred, its mandate was assailed by Amnesty International Canada as it “feeds into a worsening climate of hostility towards human rights defenders — particularly Indigenous, women and environmental human rights defenders — exposing them to intimidation and threats, including threats of violence,” This stirred a condescending and lengthy response from Jason Kenney (published in its entirety in the National Post) wh...