Good morning,

Welcome to the Alberta Party's weekly digest, a round-up of news and information for Alberta Party members.

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Update from Acting Leader Jacquie Fenske

Jacquie was busy this week, holding calls with policy experts, stakeholders, and a meeting (via Zoom, of course) discussing potential rail opportunities with international partners.

Upcoming Events

March 23 at 7 pm, Lethbridge-East, Lethbridge-West and Taber-Warner CA Meeting

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March 25 at 7 pm, Camrose and Area Alberta Party 101

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Upcoming Engagement Session Save the Date

March 24, Shaping the Future of Education - details to be announced soon

All Alberta Party events are listed on the events page.

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This Week in Alberta

The Rural Municipalities of Alberta recently released new statistics indicating that oil and gas companies now owe more than $245 million in property taxes to rural municipalities.

This has increased from $173 million in 2020 and $81 million in 2019. The negative effects of unpaid municipal taxes from oil and gas companies are not new, but as tax season approaches, more stories are emerging.

The Alberta Party is calling on the UCP to reverse the provincial legislation that prohibits municipalities from collecting owed taxes from oil and gas companies. No company or industry should be able to skirt their commitments at the expense of Albertans.

This week we learned that Kenney knew that his chief of staff planned to ignore provincial travel recommendations by going to the U.K. for the holidays.

At the time it seemed unbelievable that Kenney would not know where his chief of staff was for the holidays. That's because it was. Everyday, Albertans continue to lose trust in the UCP because of incidents like this.

Health Minister Shandro revealed this week that the backlog of surgeries caused by COVID-19 restrictions would not be cleared until 2023.

He also announced that the backlog would be cleared with the help of more private clinics.

While those waiting for surgery need to be taken care of, the Alberta Party does not agree with creating an American-style health care system as a solution to the UCP’s poor handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

The UCP government has requested $30 billion from the federal government to pursue carbon capture technologies as a way to mitigate the effects of climate change.

The federal Natural Resources Minister is open to the idea, and has said that carbon capture would play a key role in reducing greenhouse gases in the energy sector and developing a hydrogen economy.

Ongoing initiatives such as the war room (Canadian Energy Centre) actively erodes trust that the UCP is serious on climate issues and economic diversification.

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Looking to volunteer? Tristan Patterson is our Volunteer Engagement Chair. Reach out to Tristan at [email protected].

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See you next week,

Alberta Party Team