Budget 2025 makes another record health care investment of $28 billion for a refocused health care system that ensures every Albertan has access to high-quality, reliable services close to home. The budget supports the government’s plan to provide targeted, specialized care in the four areas of acute care, primary care, mental health care and continuing care.

With the highest-ever operating budget of $9.9 billion for education from kindergarten to Grade 12, Budget 2025 will help hire thousands more teachers and support staff, lower class sizes and provide enhanced educational support to students with complex needs.

The budget invests $2.6 billion in capital dollars over three years, an increase of 23.9 per cent from the last budget. This includes $225 million to advance the planning and design of 30 new schools, five replacement schools, three modernization school projects, three public charter school projects and modular classrooms. These schools are in addition to the 22 that have been advanced to the next construction phase under the School Construction Accelerator Program, launched in fall 2024. Another 28 projects are in other stages of construction. Alberta’s government is committed to building much needed schools across the province and aims to deliver more than 100 new and updated schools – or about 200,000 student spaces – over the next seven years.

“All Albertans deserve access to the best our health care and education systems have to offer. Alberta is growing as many families choose us as home. Budget 2025 will help meet the growing demands of the province while continuing to provide the services Albertans have come to trust and rely on.”

Budget 2025: Strengthening health care

Budget 2025 supports the government’s plan to build a refocused health care system that will provide Albertans with the necessary care when and where they need it.

Health investments across the refocused health care system in Budget 2025 include:

• $644 million for primary care to attach every Albertan with a primary care team and improve access to family doctors and frontline health-care professionals. This includes $20 million to support the work of nurse practitioners.
• $4.6 billion for acute care, to support increases to services to meet volume and costs, and to improve the acute care system in hospitals, urgent care centres, chartered surgical and other health facilities.
• $45 million for Indigenous health initiatives over three years, to help address health inequities and promote health, wellness and increased choice.
• $7 billion for physician compensation and development, including $15 million for recruitment and retention.
• $1.9 million for drugs and supplemental health benefits including the seniors drug program, which is the largest component that supports more than 700,000 seniors.
• $1.7 billion to support addiction and mental health services to increase access to the supports Albertans require to pursue recovery and personal wellness. This includes implementation of the compassionate intervention framework, support for Recovery Alberta services, new recovery communities, and to expand mental health classrooms for clinical support to students with complex mental health needs.
• $3.8 billion for Assisted Living Alberta, the new provincial continuing care health agency, which will provide wraparound medical and non-medical supports, home care, community care and social services.

A total of $3.6 billion in capital dollars over three years will support new urgent care and primary care centres, build capacity at existing hospitals, expand surgical capacity, enhance rural hospitals and health facilities, and replace aging equipment to support improved health outcomes. This includes:

• $769 million to support transformational changes in continuing care, increase the number of assisted living spaces and modernize existing assisted living homes in Alberta.
• $265 million for the Alberta Surgical Initiative capital program to expand, renovate and build more operating rooms to boost surgical capacity.
• $207 million for the development of specialized compassionate intervention facilities to provide care for patients.
• $168 million in new funding to enhance diagnostic capabilities across the province.
• $148 million to continue building Recovery Communities. A total of 11 recovery communities, including five in Indigenous communities, have been approved, with the Calgary Recovery Community scheduled to open in 2025. So far, 200 new addiction treatment beds are operational in Red Deer, Lethbridge and Gunn.
• $60 million over three years to purchase new EMS vehicles and ambulances, upgrade the existing fleet and buy more equipment.

“Budget 2025 builds on our commitment to refocusing Alberta’s health care system, improving access for Albertans, and supporting frontline workers. With significant investments in primary care, capital projects, Indigenous health, and acute services, we are ensuring Albertans receive the care they need, when and where they need it.”

“Alberta is an international leader in addiction treatment and recovery, driven by the Alberta Recovery Model. We remain committed to investing in the wellness of Albertans and providing those struggling with mental illness or addiction with the services they need to rebuild their lives. We are also committed to expanding access to treatment services by building new facilities across the province.”

Budget 2025: Investing in kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) education

Albertans deserve world-class education for their families now and in the future. Budget 2025 provides an operating expense budget of $9.9 billion in 2025-26, a 4.5 per cent increase from the 2024-25 third-quarter forecast.

• $54 million in 2025-26, along with $348 million more over the following two years will support additional enrolment growth.
• an increase of $55 million in 2025-26, and another $94 million in each of the following two years, to adjust the funding formula for school authorities to provide increased sustainable funding for growth within the funding model.
• In total, almost $1.1 billion will be provided over the next three years to address growth and hire more than 4,000 new teachers and classroom support staff.
• More than $1.6 billion in 2025-26 will support students with specialized learning needs or groups of students who need additional help.
• An investment of $55 million in 2025-26, a 20 per cent increase from last year, will allow school authorities to add staff and supports to complex classrooms so students receive the focus and attention they need.
• $389 million over three years will provide increases to funding rates to cover the rising costs of maintaining educational facilities, unavoidable expenses like insurance and utilities, and providing programs and services to students.

“Budget 2025 offers solutions to many of the challenges our education system is experiencing. We’re making new investments to hire more teachers, build more schools and give our youngest learners the strongest possible start. I’m excited to present this strong education budget to Albertans and am confident it will help keep our education system world-class.”

As Alberta continues to attract families, workers, and businesses, strategic investments in health care and education will address current demands and lay the groundwork for long-term prosperity.

Budget 2025 is meeting the challenge faced by Alberta with continued investments in education and health, lower taxes for families and a focus on the economy.

Related information

• Budget 2025
• Alberta Recovery Model

From the Fraser Institute

By Michael Zwaagstra

It appears that Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees have too much time on their hands. That’s the only logical explanation for their bizarre plan to rename three TDSB schools, which bear the names of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, British politician Henry Dundas and Egerton Ryerson, founder of public education in Ontario.

According to a new TDSB report, the schools must be renamed because of the “potential impact that these names may have on students and staff based on colonial history, anti-indigenous racism, and their connection to systems of oppression.”

Now, it’s true that each of these men did things that fall short of 21st century standards (as did most 19th century politicians). However, they also made many positive contributions. Canada probably wouldn’t exist if John A. Macdonald hadn’t been involved in the constitutional conferences that led to Confederation. More than anyone else, he skillfully bridged the divide between British Protestants and French Catholics. But for a variety of assigned sins typical to a politician of his era, he must be cancelled.

Henry Dundas supported William Wilberforce’s efforts to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire, but believed a more moderate approach had a higher chance of success. As a result, he added the word “gradual” to Wilberforce’s abolition motion—an unforgivable offense according to today’s critics—even though the motion passed with a vote of 230-85 in the British House of Commons.

Egerton Ryerson played a key role in the founding of Ontario’s public education system and strongly pushed for free schools. He recognized the importance of providing an education to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, something that was unlikely to happen if parents couldn’t afford to send their children to school. And while Ryerson was not directly involved in creating Canada’s residential school system, his advocacy for a school system for Indigenous students has drawn the wrath of critics today.

Knowing these facts from centuries ago, it strains credulity that these three names would so traumatize students and staff that they must be scrubbed from school buildings. Despite their flaws, Macdonald, Dundas and Ryerson have achievements worth remembering. Instead of trying to erase Canadian history, the TDSB should educate students about it.

Unfortunately, that’s hard to do when Ontario teachers are given vague and confusing curriculum guides with limited Canadian history content. Instead of a content-rich approach that builds knowledge sequentially from year-to-year, Ontario’s curriculum guides focus on broad themes such as “cooperation and conflict” and jump from one historical era to another. No wonder there is such widespread ignorance about Canadian history.

On a more practical level, renaming schools costs money. Officials with the nearby Thames Valley District School Board, which is undergoing its own renaming process, estimate it costs at least $30,000 to $40,000 to rename a school. This is money that could be spent better on buying textbooks and providing other academic resources to students. And this price tag excludes the huge opportunity cost of the renaming process. It takes considerable staff time to create naming committees, conduct historical research, survey public opinion and write reports. Time spent on the school renaming process is time not being spent on more important educational initiatives.

Interestingly, the TDSB report that recommends renaming these three schools has six authors (all TDSB employees) with job titles ranging from “Associate Director, Learning Transformation and Equity” to “Associate Director, Modernization and Strategic Resource Alignment.” The word salad in these job titles tells us everything we need to know about the make-work nature of these positions. One wonders how many “Learning Transformation and Equity” directors the TDSB would need if it dropped its obsession with woke ideology and focused instead on academic basics. Given the significant decline in Ontario’s reading and math scores over the last 20 years, TDSB trustees—and trustees in other Ontario school boards—would do well to reexamine their priorities.

Egerton Ryerson probably never dreamed that the public school system he helped create would veer so far from its original course. Before rushing to scrub the names of Ryerson and his colleagues from school buildings, TDSB trustees should take a close look at what’s happening inside those buildings.

In the end, the quality of education students receive inside a school is much more important than the name on the building. Too bad TDSB trustees don’t realize that.