Election Information Session Overview Prepared by: Aileen Burke Contact: [email protected] Alberta Independence Party - Would like to separate from the rest of Canada - Would like to end provincial carbon tax - Would like to create an Alberta wide police force - Would like to decrease business taxes - Decrease personal taxes - Will remove all subsidies, tax credits, and personal claims on taxes - 100% funding for all schools that meet the Oath of Rights and Freedoms - Will implement a life management course, not taught by teachers - Will not require schools to have a GSA and will inform parents if students join a GSA - End the GST if separation from Canada is successful - Would create an Alberta Pension Plan and an Alberta Employment Insurance Alberta Party - Introduce a voucher program for low and middle-income families to be used at licensed child care businesses; if people choose not to use the voucher, a tax credit will be created to use on income taxes - Would create a Ministry of Early Childhood - Would work with Francophone and Chinese communities to enhance their role in community and enhance existing immigration services - Would require all children who attend public school to have up-to-date vaccinations - Would double the amount of EA’s in K-12 classrooms - Would add basic dental coverage for children 12 and under - Would create a Film in Alberta Program to encourage business to come to Alberta 1 - Would give tax breaks to companies who move their head quarters to Alberta - Would allow homes, businesses, farms, and non-profits to not pay carbon tax - Would cut the business tax rate - Would increase the total Alberta Innovates budget by 30% - Would create more long-term care beds, more options for rehab, and more flexibility for treatment at home - Work with Indigenous communities to fulfill the United Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - Address the education funding gap - Increase access to healthcare Alberta Liberal Party - Lower business taxes - Introduce an HST (harmonized sales tax) of 8% - Hire 2000+ more teachers - Ban junk food from schools - Expand trades and professional training - Increase funding by 50% for students with extra needs - Immediately ban the use of seclusion rooms - Phase out school fees - Provide funding for Indigenous language school immersion programs - Fund the start-up of new regional Indigenous child protection offices - Increase supports for urban Indigenous youth - End the practice of “carding” - Make training mandatory for all civil/public servants in consultation with Indigenous people - Create a pay equity law (equal pay for equal work) - Boost funding for women’s shelters in Alberta - Ensure full access to abortion and increase accessibility in rural communities - Fund necessary medical procedures for transgender Albertans 2 - Work with professional organizations and immigrant communities to make it easier for new Canadians to upgrade their foreign credentials to Alberta standards - Implement proportional representation - Create a fixed election date - Get the pipelines built - Demand an improvement to the equalization payment process - Support the creation of a basic income - Support making AISH payment increases in line with inflation - Increase funding to mental health and addictions - Create 2200 new long-term care spaces - Work towards universal dental care - Increase number of supervised consumption sites - Decrease business tax breaks - Create mental health and drug courts - Ban clear-cutting in forests - Ban conversion therapy - Support mandatory GSAs in all schools where requested and opposed to informing parents without the child’s consent - Mandatory seatbelts on buses - Support fair fees for providing mandatory post-secondary students services - Expand agricultural market access - Improve the residential tenancy dispute resolution service (RTDRS) - Shorten the 10-day pay delay period to 5 days - Keep the $15 minimum wage - Create a Ministry for Seniors Services - Support adding a tax credit system to the existing grant-based art and culture system United Conservative Party (UCP) - Remove the carbon tax and sue the federal government if it tries to impose a carbon tax - Fight for pipelines - Hold a referendum on equalization payments - Keep the small business tax at 2% 3 - Create a Youth Job Creation Wage of $13.00 for those who are 17 or younger - Allow banked over time to be paid at regular time instead of time and a half - Appoint a Minister for Red Tape Reduction - Create a new Farm Freedom and Safety Act, removing Bill 6 - Consult on whether Alberta should return to an energy-only market - Appoint a Minister for Natural Gas - Work to double tourism spending by 2030 - Create a Rural Entrepreneur Immigrant Program that will encourage business start-ups in rural communities - Work with trade and professional licensing bodies to simplify foreign credential recognition - Maintain or increase health spending - Reduce surgical wait times - Appoint an Associate Minister for Health and Addictions - Create an Opioid Response Strategy - Expand drug treatment courts - Increase access to addiction and mental health services - Pause the curriculum review - Bring back the grade 3 Provincial Achievement Test - Make the Grade 12 Diploma exam worth 50% again (up from 30%) - Lift the cap on the number of charter schools - Remove the GSA Act and allow schools to tell parents when children join a GSA - Encourage universities and colleges to attract more qualified foreign students - Require all universities and colleges to develop post, and follow free speech policies - Increase support for trades - Invite applications for job-focused charter schools - Hire 50 new prosecutors and support staff - Create a Rural Alberta Crime Strategy - Develop a Repeat Offender Policy - Launch a nine-point Alberta Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking 4 - Increase funding to combat sexual assault and provide services to survivors of sexual assault - Create a Premier’s Charities Council to advise the government on how best to work with charities - Make sure faith-based and non-profits have equal access to government funding - Create more long-term care beds - Create a Heroes Fund to provide a top up to families who have lost a family member due their job as a police officer, firefighter, or paramedic - Increase funding for PTSD services - Update the 2004 Standards for Special Education - Restore PDD program to its pre-2009 eligibility criteria - Ensure long-term funding for municipalities for infrastructure - Allow municipalities to permit responsible adults to drink alcohol in parks, street festivals, etc. - Expand the use of mixed-income housing - Continue funding arts and culture - Support legal action for pro-resource Indigenous groups - Review the Alberta Environment & Parks Legislation - Propose to amend the Constitution to include property rights in Alberta - Create a Property and Farmer’s Rights Advocate Office - Allow voters to remove their elected officials from their position - Create a fixed election date - Balance the budget by 2022/23 New Democratic Party (NDP) - Create a Small Business Investment Office to streamline regulation and support new and growing businesses - Invest in tax credits, innovation grants, and strategic investment programs to encourage growth in new and expanding industries - Balance the budget by 2023/24 - Work with the film and TV industry to create a policy that increases opportunity 5 - Expand the $25/day child care program and add 13,000 new spaces - Make it easier for Albertans to buy their first home - Build 4,000 affordable housing units - Remove all co-payments for seniors who make less than $75,000/year - Increase support for FCSS - Ban conversion therapy - Create a provincial Hate Crimes Unit to investigate hate crimes - Negotiate long-term, stable funding agreements with small and medium- sized municipalities, on par with the larger cities - Create Hometown Alberta to help smaller communities renovate hockey arenas, swimming pools, and recreation centres - Increase financial support to Native Friendship Centres - Prioritize building Indigenous affordable housing - Review and update grants to community groups and non-profits, and look at multi-year funding arrangements - Continue to implement the provincial anti-racism strategy - Create a Ministry of Multiculturalism - Reduce wait times in emergency rooms and for surgeries - Build/improve 70 schools - Build 200 long-term/dementia beds - Expand access to addiction treatment programs - Create new language programs in Alberta schools - Provide stable, consistent funding to post-secondary schools Green Party of Alberta - Adopt the Environmental Bill of Rights to later be added to Alberta’s Constitution - Create a guaranteed annual income and remove all current social welfare interventions - Stop any new oilsands projects from starting until a new development policy is created - Support the transition from depending on non-renewable energy to renewable energy - 6 Alberta Advantage Party - Remove the GSA Act and allow parents to be notified if a student does join a GSA - Would like to have an anti-bullying club or inclusive club, at the decision of the school - AISH recipients will receive a cost of living allowance, retroactive to 2013 - Return to flat tax rates - Eliminate the carbon tax - Demand a change for equalization payments - Encourage self-reliance in food production - Alberta will create its own quota system - Remove Alberta from the CRA and create an Alberta Revenue