Alberta
Local golfers head to national championship

Grant Lee, Ken Griffith, Peter Innes (Club President and Senior Championship competitor)
News release from the Red Deer Golf & Country Club
The 2022 Canadian Men’s Senior Championship hosted by Red Deer Golf & Country Club
Five members of the Red Deer Golf & Country Club have qualified to play in the 2022 Canadian Men’s Senior Championship, presented by BDO, September 5-9, 2022, at the Red Deer Golf & Country Club. These players will be among the one hundred fifty-six male amateur golfers aged 55 and over who qualified for this national championship. The field will include the finest Canadian Senior Golfers from across the country and international players from the United States. The champion will earn a coveted exemption into the 2023 U.S. Senior Amateur Championship.
Ken Griffith, Grant Lee and Peter Innes competed and qualified for the championship at the Alberta Golf Provincial qualifier in Medicine Hat and Tom Skinner and Joe Gascon earned their way by qualifying through an exemption competition at the RDGCC Club Championship in August. “This is a
major accomplishment for our Club,” says Head Professional, Dean Manz. “To have five players from our Club participate in this national championship is recording setting for our Club (for us), and it speaks to the high caliber of golf played at our Club.”

Joe Gascon, Tom Skinner
Other notable central Alberta golfers who qualified for this championship include, Frank Van Dornick, Camrose Golf Club, Keith Newton, Olds Golf Club.
The attached Backgrounder provides a summary of the accomplishments for RDGCC golfers.
A complete list of all Player’s competing can be viewed:
https://gc-2022canadianmensseniorchampionshippre.golfgenius.com/pages/8185216125898901540
The Canadian Men’s Senior Championship has been held since 1962 and has become one of Canada’s most popular amateur golf events. The Senior Championship is played over 72 holes with a cut after 36 holes. The Super Senior Championship is contested concurrently during the championship. The Senior Inter-Provincial Team Championship, established in 1977, runs concurrently with the first 36 holes of the tournament.
Over 100 volunteers from both the Red Deer Golf & Country Club and the community will be on hand to host the National and International competitors and their families.
We thank our local sponsors, the City of Red Deer, ATB, Kipp Scott, Red Deer Golf & Country Club, NOVA Chemicals, Apex Oilfield Services, Roll’n Oilfield Services, Copies Now, Heck Petroleum, IFR Workwear, Phone Experts, Reid & Wright Advertising, Red Deer Bottling for support of this national
championship.
Ken Griffith
2022 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Men’s Championship – (Champion)
2022 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)
2022 Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (3rd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2022 Alberta Mid Master Championship – (5th place)
2022 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (18 place)
2021 Central Alberta Senior Open Championship – (Champion)
2021 Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (2nd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2021 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (18 place)
2021 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)
2021 Olds Senior Amateur Open Championship – (Champion)
2020 Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (T 4th place)
2020 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (3rd place)
2020 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (18th place)
2020 Alberta Mid Master Amateur Championship – (3rd place)
2020 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)
2019 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – (9th place)
2019 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – Interprovincial Team Championship – (Champion)
2019 Alberta Senior Amateur Provincial Championship – (Champion)
2019 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (Champion, Interprovincial Team Member)
2019 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (17 place)
2019 Alberta Mid Master Amateur Championship – (3rd place)
2019 Red Deer Golf and Country Club Senior Club Championship – (Champion)
2018 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – (5th place)
2018 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – Interprovincial Team Championship – (2nd place)
2018 Canadian Mid Amateur Championship – (28th place)
2018 Alberta Senior Amateur Provincial Championship – (3rd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2018 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (Champion)
2018 Alberta Mid Amateur Championship – (8th place)
2018 Alberta Mid Master Championship – (2nd place)
2018 New Zealand Senior Amateur Championship – (5th place)
2017 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – (15th place)
2017 Canadian Senior Amateur Championship – Interprovincial Team Championship – (Champion)
2017 Alberta Senior Amateur Provincial Championship (3rd place, Interprovincial Team Member)
2017 Central Alberta Senior Amateur Championship – (Champion)
2017 Alberta Springs Golf Course Club Championship – (Champion)
Alberta
Federal taxes increasing for Albertans in 2025: Report

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Kris Sims
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation released its annual New Year’s Tax Changes report today to highlight major tax changes in 2025.
The key provincial tax change expected for Alberta is a reduction in the income tax rate.
“The Alberta government promised to reduce our lowest income tax bracket from 10 down to eight per cent and we expect the government to keep that promise in the new year,” said Kris Sims, CTF Alberta Director. “The United Conservatives said this provincial income tax cut would save families about $1,500 each and Alberta families need that kind of tax relief right now.
“Premier Danielle Smith promised to cut taxes and Albertans expect her to deliver.”
Albertans will see several federal tax hikes coming from Ottawa in 2025.
Payroll taxes: The federal government is raising the mandatory Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance contributions in 2025. These payroll tax increases will cost a worker up to an additional $403 next year.
Federal payroll taxes (CPP and EI tax) will cost a worker making $81,200 or more $5,507 in 2025. Their employer will also be forced to pay $5,938.
Carbon tax: The federal carbon tax is increasing to about 21 cents per litre of gasoline, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic metre of natural gas on April 1. The carbon tax will cost the average household between $133 and $477 in 2025-26, even after the rebates, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Alcohol taxes: Federal alcohol taxes will increase by two per cent on April 1. This alcohol tax hike will cost taxpayers $40.9 million in 2025-26, according to Beer Canada.
Following Budget 2024, the federal government also increased capital gains taxes and imposed a digital services tax and an online streaming tax.
Temporary Sales Tax Holiday: The federal government announced a two month sales tax holiday on certain items like pre-made groceries, children’s clothing, drinks and snacks. The holiday will last until Feb. 15, 2025, and could save taxpayers $2.7 billion.
“In 2025, the Trudeau government will yet again take more money out of Canadians’ pockets with payroll tax hikes and will make life more expensive by raising carbon taxes and alcohol taxes,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should drop his plans to take more money out of Canadians’ pockets and deliver serious tax relief.”
You can find the CTF’s New Year’s Tax Changes report HERE.
Alberta
Fraser Institute: Time to fix health care in Alberta

From the Fraser Institute
By Bacchus Barua and Tegan Hill
Shortly after Danielle Smith was sworn in as premier, she warned Albertans that it would “be a bit bumpy for the next 90 days” on the road to health-care reform. Now, more than two years into her premiership, the province’s health-care system remains in shambles.
According to a new report, this year patients in Alberta faced a median wait of 38.4 weeks between seeing a general practitioner and receiving medically necessary treatment. That’s more than eight weeks longer than the Canadian average (30.0 weeks) and more than triple the 10.5 weeks Albertans waited in 1993 when the Fraser Institute first published nationwide estimates.
In fact, since Premier Smith took office in 2022, wait times have actually increased 15.3 per cent.
To be fair, Premier Smith has made good on her commitment to expand collaboration with the private sector for the delivery of some public surgeries, and focused spending in critical areas such as emergency services and increased staffing. She also divided Alberta Health Services, arguing it currently operates as a monopoly and monopolies don’t face the consequences when delivering poor service.
While the impact of these reforms remain largely unknown, one thing is clear: the province requires immediate and bold health-care reforms based on proven lessons from other countries (e.g. Australia and the Netherlands) and other provinces (e.g. Saskatchewan and Quebec).
These reforms include a rapid expansion of contracts with private clinics to deliver more publicly funded services. The premier should also consider a central referral system to connect patients to physicians with the shortest wait time in their area in public or private clinics (while patients retain the right to wait longer for the physician of their choice). This could be integrated into the province’s Connect Care system for electronic patient records.
Saskatchewan did just this in the early 2010s and moved from the longest wait times in Canada to the second shortest in just four years. (Since then, wait times have crept back up with little to no expansion in the contracts with private clinics, which was so successful in the past. This highlights a key lesson for Alberta—these reforms are only a first step.)
Premier Smith should also change the way hospitals are paid to encourage more care and a more patient-focused approach. Why?
Because Alberta still generally follows an outdated approach to hospital funding where hospitals receive a pre-set budget annually. As a result, patients are seen as “costs” that eat into the hospital budget, and hospitals are not financially incentivized to treat more patients or provide more rapid access to care (in fact, doing so drains the budget more rapidly). By contrast, more successful universal health-care countries around the world pay hospitals for the services they provide. In other words, by making treatment the source of hospital revenue, hospitals provide more care more rapidly to patients and improve the quality of services overall. Quebec is already moving in this direction, with other provinces also experimenting.
The promise of a “new day” for health care in Alberta is increasingly looking like a pipe dream, but there’s still time to meaningfully improve health care for Albertans. To finally provide relief for patients and their families, Premier Smith should increase private-sector collaboration, create a central referral system, and change the way hospitals are funded.
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