The Highwood NDP constituency association celebrated many of its recent successes — including a membership increase of over 600 per cent last year and its largest-ever share of the vote during the 2023 provincial election — at its annual general meeting on March 1.
Also in attendance at the Crystal Shores Beach House in Okotoks were MLAs Court Ellingson and Janis Irwin, official opposition critics for finance and housing, respectively, who commended the community for its rapidly-growing progressive movement while discussing issues impacting the province as a whole.
Ellingson's portfolio as finance critic gave him plenty of talking points as he took aim at Budget 2025, unveiled by the UCP government on Feb. 27.
"This budget doesn't give consideration of where Albertans are going to find jobs, or the uncertainty that Albertans are going to be feeling if they think they might be losing their job and what protection is there for them," he said, citing the government's own acknowledgement that Alberta's unemployment rate is expected to average above seven per cent in 2025 and 2026, as written in the budget's fiscal plan.
"There isn't money for hiring for what we need: nurses, doctors, everybody else who works in health care, teachers, educational assistants," he continued. "The funding is not there. They're just not stepping up for Albertans and what Albertans need... despite all of that, they still have a $5-billion deficit."
The budget projects deficits of $5.2 billion in 2025-26, $2.4 billion in 2026-27 and $2 billion in 2027-28.
Ellingson also took issue with the handling of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threat — the budget pegs tariffs on Canadian goods at 15 per cent, rather than Trump's oft-repeated rate of 25 per cent, based in part on the hypothetical scenario that tariffs are put in place at 25 per cent for a few months and then come back to zero, essentially making the budget's proposed tariff rate an average of the entire fiscal year.
"We have an impending uncertainty from these tariffs that we have never seen or felt before in our history, where businesses across this province are really wondering what their future is going to look like, and we have a provincial government that introduced a budget that didn't do anything for them," said Ellingson.
Ellingson, who was formerly Calgary Economic Development's vice-president of strategy, stressed the need for Alberta to present itself as a viable alternative to the United States when it comes to attracting investment and top talent.
"We do, in many industries, need to be prepared with packages for companies that are thinking of investing or expanding here," he said. "If they're thinking of it as an alternative of growing their business or investing in the United States, we do need to have something here to get them here or help them grow here."
He said Alberta doesn't necessarily need to match what the United States offers, but should instead invest in promoting Alberta as a place where people and companies can see themselves succeeding.
"If we're going to be really good at attracting these businesses, there are other things that we need to keep doing really well: health care, education, strong social services," he said. "Companies who are coming here, they want to know that their people want to move here, that their people are going to stay here, that their people, their spouses and children are going to have a great life here."
"They want to know that they can get the skills that they need to grow their company. So we need to be really good at investing in skills development and developing our people, which is an area this government doesn't seem to be horribly focused on."
The government's recent announcement of accelerated construction funding for new schools in the Calgary and Edmonton areas, which was included in the 2024 budget as part of a $2.1 billion school capital investment, was dismissed by Ellingson, who said there has yet to be any actual funding put into the projects.
"There is not one dollar, not one, for those 11 schools that they announced two weeks ago," he said. "None of them are budgeted for construction. They have not budgeted to put a shovel in the ground for one single school in this entire province."
No concrete timelines, contracting agreements or total project costs have been announced for the construction of the new schools, which the government says will kick-start the creation of up to 90 new schools and as many as 24 modernized renovations or replacements over the next three budget cycles, with the goal of creating over 200,000 student spaces across the province in the next seven years.
Irwin, a former teacher, addressed the ongoing strike by education support workers across Alberta, which has been fuelled by what is widely considered to be the provincial government influencing wage negotiations through a "secret mandate" behind closed doors.
"It's a pretty sad state of affairs that we're at this place, that this government is choosing not to pay fairly some of the most important people in our economy and in our schools," she said.
Irwin, who has pushed for the implementation of a temporary cap on rent increases, discussed Alberta's alarming homelessness rates and housing insecurity. She represents the riding of Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood, located in an area with what she called among the highest poverty rates in the entire province.
"Governing is about priorities, and we continue to see this UCP government that's not investing in affordable housing and in supports for folks experiencing homelessness," she said.
She added that the province's increasing of the education property tax, which is now up to 31.6 per cent from the last fiscal year's 29.5 rate, is "a smart move from the UCP," suggesting that many Edmontonians and Calgarians upset with the increased rate are likely to cast blame on their municipalities rather than the Province.
"We know that the UCP has targeted what they view as progressive city councils, right? I think about my city council colleagues in Edmonton that are already having to deal with so much hate and anger on the doors, and now the UCP can kind of wash their hands clean of it," she said.
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