Affordability measures, consumer protection legislation coming: Alberta government

Alberta’s government says it has a suite of legislation coming this fall to protect Albertans, their pocketbooks and their personal information.

Speaking to reporters Friday, government house leader Joseph Schow said the province will soon table new bills to lower the cost of auto insurance and give Albertans new protection when it comes to their utility bills.

New consumer protection rules around ticket resales and used vehicles are also in the works, Schow said, as are stronger rules around the development of artificial intelligence data centres.

Alberta’s politicians are set to return to the legislature Tuesday just as Premier Danielle Smith’s government enters the final calendar year of its mandate.

The next general election is set for Oct. 18, 2027.

Schow said helping Albertans, not the looming election, is driving the legislative agenda. “Each of these initiatives I’ve laid out are addressing some of the very real concerns that we have heard from Albertans,” he said.

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The legislature is also set to resume just over a week after Alberta’s historic referendum in which voters overwhelmingly supported keeping the province in Canada.

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Voters also approved of the government taking action on a number of immigration reforms, though by slim margins. Smith has said the government would be proceeding with caution. Schow confirmed Friday that no legislation was coming on that topic until at least the spring.

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said Smith’s government seems more concerned with “culture war” politics. He was referring to Schow saying the government had legislation coming that would ensure public sector hiring is “merit based.”

Schow said it was about boosting public confidence and trust in hiring decisions. Nenshi said it was a coded message against diversity hiring. “When they use ‘merit,’ that means don’t hire the ethnic people for these jobs (and) don’t hire women for these jobs,” Nenshi said.

The president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which represents about 22,000 government employees, also called out the proposal, saying it sounded like a “thinly veiled act of institutionalized racism” meant to divide Albertans against each other.

“The government already ensures that only the best candidates are hired,” Sandra Azocar said in a statement.

“The government is looking for a scapegoat for a problem that does not exist.”

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Nenshi also questioned why the government planned to bring in new rules for data centres after spending the last two years positioning Alberta as an ideal place for companies to build.

In July, Smith and tech giant Meta announced a $13-billion AI data centre project in Sturgeon County, just north of Edmonton. The project was quickly met by protests in the community. In a subsequent series of town hall meetings on data centres, hundreds of angry residents confronted Smith’s technology minister.

Nenshi said he thought the government was unprepared for the backlash and reiterated that the NDP has been calling for a pause on data centre development until a thorough policy framework is in place.

Schow said he couldn’t provide specifics but said the government had heard Albertans’ concerns about grid stability, power bills and water usage.

“We are not afraid of moving forward with new technologies, but we will do it in a reasonable, responsible manner,” he said.

Schow also confirmed the government will be taking action in other areas, such as: legislation around bike lanes; stiffer penalties for illegal dumping; new safeguards around voter information; standards for school report cards; and new rules on reporting incidents at daycare centres.