Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley reaffirmed her party’s vision for the province’s economic recovery in a Zoom presentation at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
She said she would work with Calgarians to reinvigorate the city’s downtown core and finally get the Green Line LRT built.
The Official Opposition has an initiative called Alberta’s Future that encourages Albertans to submit suggestions and ideas on its website for rebuilding the economy.
The site is also where the party’s proposals for rebuilding the economy are published, and include strategies for affordable child care and renewable energy.
Speaking in Calgary, Notley reiterated the NDP’s proposals for economic recovery and development, and stressed the importance of planning for when the pandemic is over.
“We need to start planning for what comes next, we need a vision for after the vaccine,” Notley said.
“When the pandemic is over, we will need a longer-term strategy to grow small businesses — they are the backbone of our economy, after all — and we also need to look at new supports to assist their workers.”
Downtown core, Green Line priorities, Notley says
Notley said the NDP hopes to work with Calgarians in order to “breathe new life” into the city’s downtown core, which struggled with a vacancy rate near 30 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020.
According to Notley, the NDP wants to consult with business owners, executives, tech startups, post-secondary leaders, community groups and “every single Calgarian that wants a say” in the future of the city’s unused office space.
She also pledged that the NDP would work to get the long-embattled Green Line built, citing its importance to the 20,000 Calgarians its construction would employ and the 60,000 who would use it.
The project is the largest in Calgary’s history, with a potential price tag of $5.5 billion and plenty of ongoing controversy.
Since October, the city has been working with the province in order to deal with concerns raised in a consultant’s report the province still hasn’t shared with the city.
“This project should not be a political football,” Notley said. “It should be a governance field goal.”
Child care and renewables
Notley also stressed the importance of the NDP’s proposal for implementing provincewide, universal $25-a-day early learning and child care.
“Child care is the next medicare, and it will make a fundamental difference in both the lives of parents and our ability to recover the economy faster, and more equitably,” Notley said.
“It boosts household income and reduces poverty, it improves educational outcomes for children and their earning potential later in life … there is no economic recovery without affordable child care. Period.”
Proposals for the exploration of hydrogen and geothermal resources to diversify the energy industry have also been drafted by the NDP, and were underscored by Notley at the presentation.
“This is where the world is going,” Notley said. “According to Goldman Sachs, global investment in the suite of renewable energy as a whole is set to surpass oil and gas for the first time ever this year.”
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
