Alberta election promise tracker: What the parties have pledged on taxes, spending and the economy

Albertans are heading to the polls for a spring election on Tuesday, April 16.

As a way of helping you make an informed decision on election night, Global News is keeping track of all the promises made by the main parties vying for your vote.

Here is a closer look at what the parties have pledged on taxes, spending and the economy.

Alberta NDP

• Jan. 24: No implementation of a sales tax, payroll tax or health-care premiums
• March 20: Double oil and gas incentives from $3.6 billion up to $7 billion over the next decade
• March 31: Notley promised to balance the province’s budget by 2023-24

To see all of the promises made by the Alberta NDP, click here.

United Conservative Party

• Jan 30: Fight the housing stress test imposed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
• Jan. 30: Create ministry to identify “unnecessary dead-weight” regulations that hold back investment and job creation
• Feb. 1: Make changes to allow auditor general to prohibit government ads deemed to be partisan, and extend ban on non-essential advertising to include not only the campaign period, but the months leading up to it
• Feb. 12: Seriously consider reducing the minimum wage for youth and alcohol servers. Kenney said the UCP would roll back Alberta’s $15-an-hour minimum wage to $13 an hour for those 17 or younger.
• Feb. 20: Try to cancel Alberta’s $3.7-billion deal with Canada’s two largest railways to ship more oil by rail
• March 4: Cut Alberta’s corporate income tax rate from 12 per cent to eight per cent by 2022
• March 6: Cut “red tape” by one-third in order to create jobs and spur economic growth
• March 7: No changes to the personal income tax rates
• March 12: Repeal legislation that ensures workplace safety and employment standards for farms and injury coverage for farm workers. Kenney would bring in legislation that ensures basic safety standards while providing more flexibility for injury coverage.
• March 21: Launch a constitutional challenge against Bill C-69 if it becomes law and hold a referendum on equalization if there’s no major progress on market-opening pipelines. The matter would be put to voters on Oct. 18, 2021.
• March 22: Call an inquiry into foreign-funded anti-oilsands campaigns. Kenney said the inquiry would have the legal authority to compel witnesses to testify and would start with a $2.5-million budget
• March 30: Get books out of the red and into a $714 million surplus by 2023. The party plans to raise Alberta’s debt level to $86 billion over that time period. Kenney said he promises to cut the corporate tax by a third, to eight per cent
• April 2: Set up legislated targets to cut wait times on energy projects
• April 2: Guarantee in law that once a well was given a permit, royalties taken from it wouldn’t change for the life of the project
• April 8: Bring in a law to turn off the oil taps to British Columbia. Kenney added to the promise on April 12, saying he’d “turn off the taps” of gasoline “within an hour” of being sworn in as premier

To see all of the promises made by the UCP, click here.

Alberta Party

• March 26: Reduce Alberta’s general corporate tax from 12 per cent to 10 per cent
• March 26: Double Alberta Small Business Deduction from $500,000 to $1,000,000
• March 26: Establish a Business Certainty Guarantee on day one of taking office. Under the guarantee, the party said businesses and investors can have confidence that the overall costs of doing business in Alberta will either stay the same or go down during the four-year term of an Alberta Party government
• March 26: Leave minimum wage at $15
• March 27: Increase funding to Alberta Innovates by over $300 million
• March 27: Support Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the North West Redwater Sturgeon Refinery
• March 29: Amend the Alberta Building Code to allow for tall wood buildings and mandate that all municipalities allow for their construction, and encourage advanced wood products be used more often in provincially-funded projects like schools and municipal buildings
• March 29: Create Alberta Forestry Technology and Research Institute (AFTRI) with $50 million in funding from Alberta Innovates. The AFTRI’s mandate would be to perform research and provide seed funding to industry-led projects
• April 1: Push Ottawa to revisit equalization payment structure.
• April 2: Work with private industry to build a $15-million railway and pipeline corridor between Fort McMurray and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System at Delta Junction, where it would take oil to the Port of Valdez

To see all of the promises made by the Alberta Party, click here.

Alberta Liberal Party

• March 22: The defunct Energy East pipeline to New Brunswick should be restarted, a federal bill overhauling environmental reviews should be amended and the NDP’s plan to ship more oil by rail should be nixed
• March 26: Close the gender pay gap with the use of Gender-Based Analysis Plus (“GBA+”) budgeting
• March 27: Amend Municipal Government Act to formally recognize municipalities and their councils, to become a new order of government
• March 27: Create an equitable cannabis revenue-sharing model
• March 27: Give urban municipalities a veto over oil and gas drilling within their boundaries
• March 28: Increase the tax-free limit to $57,250 to eliminate personal income tax for most Albertans
• March 28: Lower the corporate income tax rate from 12 per cent to 10 per cent
• March 28: Implement a revenue-neutral eight per cent sales tax
• March 29: Consult with Albertans and experts before launching a basic income pilot project for low-income couples or individuals
• April 3: $80 million to help out-of-work Albertans train for new job opportunities
• April 3: Propose “concrete amendments” to Bill C-69
• April 3: Exempt small business startups from income tax for their first three years
• April 8: Capping class sizes
• April 8: Increase spending on mental health and addictions by $600 million annually over the next four years
• April 8: Implement a proportional representation voting system

To see all of the promises made by the Alberta Liberal Party, click here.

Promises will be tracked throughout the election campaign, so be sure to check back here for updated party platforms.