Alberta
The King’s University receives $20-million donation for new state-of-the-art Science Centre
Construction of a new 40,000 square foot Centre for Excellence in the Sciences at The King’s University will move forward thanks to a gift of $20-million from an anonymous donor. The landmark donation, the largest gift in King’s 42-year history, allows the institution to build on its strong academic reputation in the natural, health and social sciences.
The Centre will include beautiful common spaces, purpose-built teaching facilities, leading technology and laboratories that enable the university to further place student research at the heart of its academic programming.
“I have always been proud of our legacy of research and education,” King’s President Dr. Melanie Humphreys says. “It’s really quite impressive—especially for a university of our size. This incredible, humbling gift is going to propel these programs forward in a significant way and provide new opportunities to branch out into the health sciences.”
Student-faculty research teams at The King’s University are currently involved in projects such as antibiotic resistance, animal-assisted therapy in mental health, endangered trees in Canada’s mountains and foothills, and diseases that devastate honeybee populations. King’s Community Engaged Research program collaborates with local non-profits to help provide data-driven solutions for their organizations.
The Centre for Excellence in the Sciences will be a hub for sustainability research. With a newly granted Transitions to Sustainability Canada Research Chair, the Centre will enhance support and coordination for sustainability work happening across disciplines and at King’s Centre for Visualization in Science (KCVS).
KCVS alone has partnered with more than 40 organizations worldwide, such as UNESCO, and has contributed important resources to three United Nations International Years: Chemistry (2011), Periodic Table (2019), and the upcoming International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (2022–23). Another KCVS resource contributed to the education and outreach work of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.
“Building a more humane, just and sustainable world is right there in our vision statement,” says Dr. Peter Mahaffy, professor of chemistry and co-founder of KCVS. “These words continue to move off the page of aspirational statements to shape and ground what happens here each day.”
ABOUT KING’S
The King’s University has been building a more humane, just and sustainable world for more than 40 years. King’s offers fully accredited programs in the humanities, sciences, business, and education, and ranks at the top of national surveys for quality of teaching, sense of belonging, and intellectual engagement. Award-winning faculty mentor students in their studies and publish leading research in their fields. As Edmonton’s Christian University, King’s empowers graduates to bring renewal to every walk of life.
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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