We must move past our turbulent economy based on fossil fuels to create sustainable and secure job opportunities for Albertans.

The Green Party of Alberta would introduce guaranteed job programs to wipe out unemployment, tackle climate change and address environmental degradation.

If you are willing and able to work, there should always be a job for you. The government has the means to create jobs where they are needed when the private sector cannot, even guarantee employment for those who lose their job and cannot find another one.

• Collaborate with unions to create good public sector jobs
  • Protect and expand the right to form a union
  • Improve working conditions and stimulate job growth
  • Advance social and economic justice

• Treat climate action as job action
  • Make green jobs the future of Alberta's economy by transitioning away from fossil fuels
  • Retrain workers leaving the oil ans gas industry while protecting pensions, benefits, and wages

• Launch the reclamation job boom
  • Reclaim the over 300,000 orphaned wells in Alberta, creating an estimated 10,000 jobs per year
  • Sharply increase mandatory payments by polluters into the Orphan Well Fund
  • Mitigate the environmental damage caused by abandoned wells

• Cut taxes for small business in half to 1%
  
  • Raise the small business threshold from $500,000 to $700,000
  • Help small businesses compete with large corporations
  • Help small businesses with operational and startup costs, and support this vital backbone of Alberta's economy

• Found the Alberta Resilience Corps (ARC) to end unemployment
  • Institute a new government-funded program modeled after the American Civilian Conservation Corps
  • Hire Albertans to work in disaster, conservation, and reclamation management
  • Providing meaningful employment across Alberta, particularly for Indigenous people, those leaving the fossil fuel industry, and rural Albertans
  • Address a backlog of work the private sector is unable to solve and promote community well-being

• Raise taxes on large corporations from 8% to 12%
  • Ensure large corporations pay their fair share to the people of Alberta
  • Build a more level playing field between small and medium businesses, entrepreneurs, and larger corporations
  • Diversify the economy and promote innovation

Strong public healthcare, education, emergency, transportation and social services are the backbone of a healthy and thriving society.

The Green Party of Alberta would not only defend our public services but also strengthen them to provide all Albertans with the services they need.

Close gaps in our public system by covering mental healthcare, physiotherapy, prescription drugs, dentistry, vision, and other essential medical care.

Albertans across the political spectrum understand that our public healthcare system, while imperfect, is stronger than private systems. The evidence is clear that public systems deliver better outcomes while saving money and resources. Yet our system remains partially private. Albertans or their employers continue to buy medical insurance and make out-of-pocket payments for various essential medical treatments. Many Albertans forego necessary care because they are uninsured and can’t afford it. The Green Party would introduce comprehensive public healthcare by covering mental healthcare, physiotherapy, prescription drugs, dentistry, vision, and other essential medical care under the Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan.

We don’t need to tell you that glasses aren’t optional, teeth aren’t optional, and mental health is not optional so let’s include all these things and more under our public system. This change would make our system more equitable for women, minorities, Indigenous people and those with low incomes, who are especially likely to fall through the cracks, while improving overall public health and conserving resources and funds spent on emergency and acute care.

• Work with unions to support healthcare workers
  • Ensure healthcare workers are are properly compensated, treated, and supported for their hard work
  • Establish a comprehensive treatment program prioritizing the mental health of first responders and hospital staff

• Hire more staff to deliver better care on time
  • Launch a hiring blitz for qualified healthcare workers and mandate minimum staffing ratios
  • Hire more triage nurses and physicians to free up paramedics and end the emergency care backlog
  • Increase staffing in rural areas, including incentives to relocate and remain in underserved areas

• Cover mental healthcare for Albertans
  • End paying out-of-pocket for essential mental healthcare by covering it under AHCIP
  • Move on from cost-inflating private delivery

Alberta is an immensely wealthy province, but the majority of Albertans are not receiving their fair share.

The Green Party of Alberta is committed to eliminating poverty and strengthening our economy by holding profiteers accountable and providing unconditional financial support for all Albertans, including students, families, seniors, and small business owners.

• Eradicate poverty through a Universal Basic Income (UBI)
  • Use our many resources as a wealth province to lift Albertans out of poverty through a basic income sufficient to cover basic needs
  • Reduce the major expense of poverty, estimated $9.5-billion annual before factoring in government-funded payments and services
  • Alleviate a major factor in crime by alleviating poverty, following the example of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) which contributed to a reduction in crime during its period of payment
  • Give Albertans freedom to start a business, make art, and pursue a different career without worrying about their income
  • Head off cycles of boom and bust and technological changes like artificial intelligence, and external shocks like climate change or COVID-19

• Protect our pensions
  • Oppose the UCP's plans to pull out of the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP)
  • Supplement low CPP and AISH payments and create financial stability for Albertans with our UBI program

• Support for families
  • Fully implement the federal $10-a-day child care program, and provide supplementary funding the eliminate extra fees, improve quality of care, and fairly compensate workers
  • Fund culturally appropriate, community-led child care with service in Indigenous languages in addition to English and French

• Assistance for seniors
  • Expand publicly-funded long-term care homes, creating a robust alternative to the private long-term care industry
  • Support at-home care programs, currently minimal and underfunded, so seniors have the freedom to choose their living situation and stay in their homes

• Empower Albertans with disabilities
  • Along with our UBI program, create a reformed, streamlined, and inflation-indexed Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) program

• Optimize the food system
  • Hold grocery corporations accountable with an excess profits cap
  • Implement legislation to eliminate preventable food waste, ending the travesty of approximately 40% of food produced in Alberta going to waste
  • Prohibit companies from throwing out perfectly good food, requiring them to sell at a reduced price or sell to local food banks

• Address rising energy costs
  • Follow recent US and EU examples to tax electricity and gas companies for excess profits, sending a portion to low income families struggling to pay energy bills
  • Additional profit can go into energy efficiency program to help home owners improve insulation, windows, and appliances, and lower their energy costs

Resource exploitation and the climate crisis is putting the health and wealth of all Albertans, especially those belonging to marginalized communities, at risk.

The Green Party of Alberta will ensure that corporate polluters are required to pay for the damage they cause to human life and our natural environment. We will also create and enforce a framework for a fair energy transition that prioritizes workers and Indigenous communities, in accordance with the guidelines set out in the IPCC Synthesis Report.

• Protect our drinking water
  • Guarantee water resources remain in public hands, rather than privatized for corporate gain
  • Strengthen regulation of the fossil fuel and agricultural industries to prevent contamination and hold polluters accountable
  • Prioritize remediation of contaminated sources, especially in Indigenous communities which are disproportionately affected

• Stop habitat loss and preserve biodiversity
  • Enforce and strengthen regulations protecting natural areas and wildlife corridors, and support restoration of degraded habitats
  • Promote urban density and sustainable land use
  • Encourage polyculture farming and sustainable forest harvesting
  • Restrict the use of pesticides and herbicides that harm pollinators, including bees and butterflies, which are essential to the reproduction of many plants
  • Identify, monitor, and act on expert recommendations to conserve the habitats of keystone species such as wolves and grizzlies

• Protect our parks
  • End immediately coal exploration in Alberta and particularly in the Eastern Slopes to protect our watershed from selenium contamination.
  • Make provincial parks accessible by removing user fees, such as the controversial park pass in Kananaskis County for day-use activities

• Respect Indigenous peoples and address environmental harms
  • Recognize that climate change and environmental degradation have disproportionately affected Indigenous peoples in Alberta
  • Include Indigenous people are included and influence government decision-making through affirming the sovereignty of Indigenous Nations, the government's duty to uphold treaty obligations, and the importance of traditional land practices
  • Require the full consent of impacted Indigenous communities in development and natural resource projects, and subject projects to revenue-sharing and co-management with these communities
  • Partner with Indigenous communities in preserving and protecting watersheds, natural environments, and prime agricultural lands

• Strengthen Alberta's wildfire response
  • Reinstate the Rapattack program, a rappelling program that was a proven effective tool for fighting wildfires
  • Reopen and expand lookout positions, essential for detecting fires early
  • Add to Alberta's fleet of air tankers, reversing the trend of aging and decreasing stock despite the increased wildfire risk
  • Restore funding to rural firefighters, including the provincial training grant and allocating additional funding to rural departments to acquire tools and equipment

• Shore up wildfire prevention practices
  • Stop spraying glyphosate, a harmful and counterproductive practice which kills fire-resistant aspens
  • Enhance prescribed burning, an effective way of reducing fuel loads and controlling wildfire spreads, using Indigenous traditional knowledge to guide and enhance our application of enhanced burning
  • Promote safer forest harvesting, regulating practices better to require removal of leftover debris

• Cut GHG Emissions to Net-Zero by 2040; peak emissions by 2025
  • In line with the recommendations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reach peak emissions by 2025 and reduce to 60% of 2019 levels by 2034
  • No new approvals for oil, gas, or coal projects across Alberta and institute a ban on hydraulic fracturing (fracking)
  • Launch a just transition away from an economy based high emitting industries, with a focus on ensuring energy workers receive assistance to retrain and reskill
  • Decarbonize electricity production by replacing coal ans gas power plants with low carbon sources like solar, wind, and green hydrogen
  • Promote active and public transportation alternatives while continuing the transition from internal combustion engines to electric equivalents
  • Mandate sustainable construction and fund retrofits to improve the energy efficiency of existing building stock
  • Expand Level 3 charging for electric vehicles (EVs) into rural Alberta, tourist destinations, and provincial parks

• Promote drought resilience and water conservation
  • Work with farmers to introduce and spread sustainable agriculture practices and tools, such as regenerative farming and water-saving technologies
  • Support and provide emergency funding to farmers impacted by drought

• Support local food production
  • Increase support to smallholder farmers, including through government institutions like schools and hospital making purchasing commitments and mandating a larger portion of the price of a food item goes to farmers
  • Foster urban agriculture such as community gardens and protect agricultural land from development

The cost of housing has skyrocketed in recent years. As a result, thousands of Albertans are forced to live on the streets, while many more are one missed paycheck or unexpected expense away from homelessness. The Green Party of Alberta will ensure that all Albertans have a place to call home.

• Implement a Housing First program to end homelessness
  • Focus on a goal of ending homelessness and ensuring all Albertans have permanent housing through a Housing First program, providing long-term housing for people experiencing homelessness
  • Follow the model piloted by Finland, which keeps over 80% of participants housed permanently and saves the government $21,000 per housed person by reducing expenditures on emergency services, hospitals, and prisons
  • Aim to prevent homelessness before it occurs by delivering early intervention services, financial assistance for housing, and outreach services to forge a path to stable housing

• Cap rent increases and build affordable housing
  • Recognize housing as a necessity of life rather than primarily an asset to profit from
  • Limit rent increases to 1.5% annually, allowing landlords to cover expenses and make a modest profit, successful in British Columbia
  • Enhance protection of tenants' rights by making eviction data publicly available
  • Implement a massive scale construction program of publicly-owned and operated, net-zero social housing, while supporting non-profit and non-market housing options like co-ops

• Save lives by addressing the drug poisoning crisis
  • Dramatically expand access to evidence-based measures for minimizing harm and treating addiction, such as supervised consumption sites, medication-assisted therapy, and safe supply.
  • Treat addiction as a health problem, not a criminal justice problem, and decriminalize drug possession for personal use

Proportional representation will create a more representative, diverse, and accountable government that reflects the will of Albertans. The Green Party is committed to making this change. We promise to work with other parties to build a stronger democracy.

The current majoritarian first-past-the-post electoral system encourages the ugly and divisive partisan politics we see today. This colonial system prevents politicians from working collaboratively in the Legislature, to the detriment of all Albertans.

• Reintroduce proportional representation in Alberta
  • Ensure fairer elections by implementing proportional representation in Alberta, a system we used for 30 years prior that ensured the number of seats a party wins is proportional to the percentage of votes they receive
    

Students are the future of our province, and investing in them means investing in Alberta’s economy. Due to gross underfunding and inefficiencies in K-12 and post-secondary education, our students are not reaching their full potential.

The Green Party of Alberta will tear down barriers and ensure a strong economy for many generations to come by improving the public education system and providing tuition-free post-secondary education.

• Eliminate tuition fees at public colleges and universities
  • Eliminate a significant barrier for students to pursue higher education by eliminating tuition fees
  • Make a sound investment in Albertans by supporting retraining, research and innovation, and addressing skilled labour shortages

• Introduce a Basic Income for students and their families
  • Address the disparity in access for low-income families or those belonging to oppressed communities by providing a basic income benefit to students and their families

• Reduce class sizes
  • Mandate no more then twenty students per teacher and educational assistant, allowing students to receive more individual attention and support
  • Reduce the workload of teachers, educational assistants, and teachers, leading to improved job satisfaction and better retention of staff

• Cooperate with unions in the education sector to improve working conditions
  • End the hostile approach of the UCP towards teachers and educational staff
  • Work with unions to improve the safety and satisfaction workers have within the education sector

• Scrap the UCP curriculum and replace it with an evidenced-based, inclusive curriculum
  • End the failed experiment of the UCP's curriculum, near universally panned by educators and experts for its potential to permanently impair the education and development of Alberta students
  • Develop a new curriculum based on the input of subject-matter experts and stakeholders, free from influence of those with biased agendas
  • Integrate, in accordance with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action, perspectives and history of Indigenous peoples in Alberta
  • Focus on an iterative process, repeatedly collecting feedback to revise and improve the curriculum

• End funding for private schools
  • Phase out funding for private schools over 5 years, returning savings eventually exceeding $200-million to the public school system
  • Private schools will be permitted to operate without public funding

• Merge school boards into one system
  • Enact policy to merge all Catholic and public school boards together to create one inclusive and diverse public school system
  • Eliminate duplication of services and reduce administrative costs, saving up to $600-million annually, which can be reinvested into the public education system
  • Catholic schools can continue to operate outside the public system without public funding, in line with other provinces such as Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador

A strong and efficient transportation system is necessary to connect the urban and rural population of our province. Public transit is also a climate solution.

• Establish a Public Transportation Agency
  • Develop and create a Public Transportation Agency to plan, build, and coordinate a comprehensive public transportation system in Alberta, including a publicly owned and operated rural and inter-urban rail and bus system

• Improve service, safety, and eliminate fares for municipal public transit
  • Prioritize funding municipal public transit with a view to increasing service frequency, extending service coverage, and improving transit infrastructure, with revenues from fares replaced by provincial funding
  • Promote public transit ridership to reduce emissions, air pollution, traffic congestion, and vehicle noise, as well as cost to individuals and government
  • Sharply increase provincial funding for de-escalation professionals to help with safety, especially in off-peak hours

• Connect Edmonton and Calgary with high speed rail
  • Invest in building a existing, proven technology which can move people and goods much faster than cars or trucks between Alberta's two largest cities

The wealth of Alberta belongs to all Albertans, not a select few. Corporations and the rich must pay their fair share in taxes and royalties. The Green Party of Alberta would make them, opening the door to paying down environmental liabilities, boosting employment, and filling the coffers of the Heritage Fund, not to mention reining in the high cost of living.

Mismanagement of public funds is preventing the government from serving Albertans effectively and hampering the prospects of Alberta. We would take back control of our resources to realize a modern vision of Peter Lougheed.

• Replace the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER)
  • Replace the privately incorporated and industry-captive AER with review boards that work in the public interest and are truly independent from the industries they're regulating
  • Enforce regulations to make polluters clean up the messes they create and pay sizable fines, and resolve the harm done to the health and safety of Albertans and the environment by the incapable AER

• Scrap the RStar giveway
  • End the UCP's $20-billion reward to oil companies for polluting Alberta's environment and remediating wells they're already legally obliged to remediate

• Raise royalties
  • Follow the example of Peter Lougheed and increase royalties in resource development, restoring rates to their prior level, thereby increasing available revenues and creating a surplus for savings and investments

• Tax the Rich
  • Implement a steeply progressive income tax rate, lowering taxes for low earners while increasing them for high earners, particularly the highest, such as taxing incomes over $1-million at a rate of 40%, compared to 15% currently

• Stop corporate profiteering
  • Introduce a cap on excess profits from resource development and distribute the benefits of oil and gas industry profits more evenly, fund mitigation of its harms, and ensure all Albertans enjoy a good standard of living

• Grow the Heritage Fund
  • In line with the original aims of the Heritage Fund, which would have grown to $1-trillion by 2039 but only sits at $19-billion at the end of 2022, resume regular deposits into the Fund, divest its holdings from fossil fuel industries, invest in green technology and other industries to diversify its holdings and improve its performance
  • Use excess funds exclusively for projects or purposes that will improve the lives of Albertans instead of sending it off to corporate executives and international shareholders

• Invest in workers
  • Invest in workers during boom times to prepare them for bust by creating government-funded programs to ensure workers in the energy sector have the necessary skills, pensions, and seniority transfer options to transition to other industries when the boom times end

• Treat cleanup as energy transition
  • Integrate fossil fuel industry cleanup as an important part of transition away from reliance and towards a sustainable energy future
  • Create government-funded programs to put unemployed riggers and idle equipment to work cleaning up the legacy infrastructure left behind by the energy industry

Agriculture is an important industry in Alberta, contributing significantly to the economy, providing jobs and creating food security. However, the province is facing a challenge of losing its next generation of farmers, as many young people are leaving rural areas in search of better opportunities elsewhere.

• Build agriculture training and tech centres of excellence across rural Alberta
  • Establish new training centres to teach and support new technology in farming, provide hands-on training, mentorship, and access to the latest equipment to help young farmers and entrepreneurs
  • Support universities and technical schools so they can offer courses on agriculture and related fields, apprenticeship programs and mentoring opportunities

• Support farmers as land stewards
  • Provide support and recognition for the crucial role farmers play as stewards of the land, promoting farming careers and sustainable agricultural practices benefiting both farmers and the environment
  • Provide subsidies for methane reduction feed, eco-agriculture, organic farming, and other environmentally friendly stewardship practices

• Access to land for young farmers
  • Create a land trust program to overcome the barrier of access to land for new and young farmers, where government and non-profit organizations purchase land and lease it to farmers at affordable rates

• Access to capital for new farmers
  • Provide government loans and grants specifically targeted for young and new farmers, alongside tax incentives for investment in sustainable agricultural practices and equipment for growing operations

• Support for sustainable agriculture
  • Offer subsidies for sustainable farming practices, such as cover cropping or reduced tillage, as well as technical assistance and education