What's Happening in Alberta is a weekly summary of everything you need to know to anticipate, interpret, and mitigate political risk in Alberta and Canada.

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What's happening?

It was a busy week in Canadian politics. Here's what you need to know:

Alberta

🏛️ Session–break week. Nothing to report this week regarding new legislation; MLAs were on a break. They return on Monday and will sit until mid-December.

🍊 New NDP on the block. Alberta's NDP is making some adjustments to its advertising and key leaders in an attempt to be campaign-ready. The next election is not scheduled until October 2027, but you can never be too prepared.

📃 UCP AGM Proposals are out. The 2025 United Conservative Party (UCP) Annual General Meeting will take place on November 28 to 30 in Edmonton. Governance and Policy Resolutions to be discussed and voted on by members were released this week. 

🏘️ Municipal matters. A couple of Better Edmonton candidates are now sitting as Independents, and municipalities might want the Government of Alberta to start billing homeowners for the education property tax portion of property tax bills.

Canada

🏛️ Session–break week. Nothing to report this week regarding new legislation; MPs were on a break. They return on Monday and will sit until mid-December.

📋 More Major Projects. Prime Minister Carney announced the next round of nation-building projects, which were referred to the Major Projects Office, but notably, no pipelines.

🤝 COF Meetup. Prime Minister Carney will meet with provincial and territorial leaders on Monday.

💰 Budget 2025: On Tuesday, November 4, 2025, Canada’s Minister of Finance and National Revenue, Hon. François-Philippe Champagne, tabled Canada Strong: Budget 2025.

• A $78.3 billion deficit in 2025-26, mainly driven by an increase in $44 billion in expenses, revenue stagnation (weak nominal growth, cooling corporate profits and flat consumption), and higher debt-servicing costs.
• Public debt climbs to $1.35 trillion in 2025-26, up from $1.27 trillion.
• Slower real GDP growth of 1.2 per cent in 2025, with a strong recovery not expected until after 2026. 
• Unemployment rate of 7.0 per cent in 2025 and 6.8 per cent in 2026.
• $126 billion in new spending commitments over five years.
• A goal to cut costs by identifying $60 billion over five years through a Comprehensive Expenditure Review.
• A balanced operational budget by 2028-29–if assumptions on growth and interest rates hold–with capital investments as a share of the deficit growing from 58 per cent in 2025-26 to 100 per cent in 2028-29:
  • 2025-26: $78 billion deficit
  • 2026-27: $65 billion deficit
  • 2027-28: $64 billion deficit
  • 2028-29: $58 billion deficit
  • 2029-30: $57 billion deficit