Tag: Nate Horner

Alberta cabinet shuffle rumoured soon – Nate Horner to be replaced by Jason Nixon

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date May 19, 2026

With the Legislative spring session ended, there is plenty of speculation that a major cabinet shuffle could happen this week. The changes in this shuffle are expected to reflect which ministers are planning to run for re-election in 2027, with retiring ministers leaving cabinet or moving to more junior positions and MLAs running for re-election appointed to more senior roles.

One of the biggest rumours that has been circulating for weeks is that Nate Horner will step down as Minister of Finance and be replaced by Jason Nixon, who currently serves as Minister of Assisted Living and Social Services.

Calgary-Shaw by-election race heats up as Rebecca Schulz expected to resign any day now

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date May 19, 2026

Calgary City Councillor Dan McLean announces his candidacy for the UCP nomination in Calgary-Shaw (source: Dan McLean / Facebook)

City Councillor Dan McLean, Mike Derry, and Stewart Jeanes running for UCP nomination

It was one of the worst kept secrets in Calgary political circles that City Councillor Dan McLean was planning to jump into provincial politics and he is now running for United Conservative Party nomination in Calgary-Shaw.

The southwest Calgary riding is expected to become vacant when UCP MLA Rebecca Schulz, who resigned from cabinet last December, steps down as an MLA. Schulz delivered a farewell statement in the Legislature last week and shared a video on social media thanking voters in the riding for choosing her to represent them for the past seven years.

Will Mark Carney push back against Alberta’s health care privatization agenda?

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date April 29, 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney (source: Mark Carney / Facebook)

Alberta separatism, referendums, library book bans, and gerrymandering are catching a lot of the headlines these days but a law passed by Alberta’s United Conservative Party government that allows for more private-for-profit health care is becoming harder for the federal government in Ottawa to ignore.

Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2025 (No. 2), known as Bill 11 when it was passed through the Legislature last December, would allow physicians working in Alberta to practice medicine in both the public system and in private-for-profit businesses, something that isn’t allowed anywhere else in Canada.

Premier Danielle Smith’s push toward privatization of the public health care system, which UCP defends as “European style” health care, is almost certainly more American-inspired. But wherever the inspiration comes from, it will almost certainly mean more out of pocket expenses for Albertans — something Smith has long advocated for — and more public funds subsidizing private companies.

In Session: Jeromy Farkas pushes back against Danielle Smith’s provincial property tax hikes — compares it to equalization

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 9, 2026

Premier Danielle Smith and Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas in December 2025 (source: Danielle Smith / Facebook)

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The Daveberta Podcast is back In Session

You’ve probably noticed I haven’t recorded an episode of the Daveberta Podcast in a while — so if you were missing listening to it, please know that I was missing recording it.

Starting today and over the next few weeks I’m going to record a series of short episodes in which I will share a few key things that I’m watching in Alberta politics in the week ahead and some other things that have caught my attention.

I decided to test this podcast series — which I’m calling Daveberta In Session — during the spring session of the Alberta Legislature. I’m planning to do this for eight or nine weeks until mid May when the Assembly breaks for the summer months — and then we’ll see where we go from there.

In this week’s episode, I discuss:

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas’ threat to hold a municipal referendum on provincial property tax increases that he compared to equalization.
NDP MLA Heather Sweet’s private members’ bill to improve whistleblower laws for health care workers.
the storm of misinformation and disinformation that is barrelling towards us as Albertans are faced with ten or eleven referendum questions on October 19, 2026.

Listen to this episode of the podcast on the Daveberta Substack.

Alberta Politics

NDP MLAs Sarah Hoffman and Samir Kayande first candidates nominated for 2027 election

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date March 6, 2026

MLA Sarah Hoffman (left) and MLA David Eggen at the Edmonton-Glenora NDP nomination meeting on March 3, 2026. Hoffman was acclaimed for the nomination. (source: Sarah Hoffman / Facebook)

Candidate nomination season kicks off in Alberta

It could be 18 months before Albertans line up to mark their ballots in the next provincial election but that isn’t stopping Alberta’s main opposition party from starting to nominate candidates ahead of the vote.

The Alberta NDP started nominating candidates this week, far ahead of the scheduled October 2027 vote. A much earlier election was rumoured but appears increasingly unlikely as we move further into 2026.

NDP MLA Sarah Hoffman became the first candidate nominated ahead of the next election when she was acclaimed in Edmonton-Glenora on March 3. Hoffman has represented the riding since 2015 and served as Deputy Premier and Minister of Health in the NDP government led by Premier Rachel Notley from 2015 to 2019.

Tags A Better Calgary Party, Alberta Budget 2026, Alberta Election Candidate Nominations, Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission, Alberta Federation of Labour, Alberta NDP, Alberta Politics Substack, Anthony Ascue, Avi Lewis, Banff-Kananaskis, Calgary-Confederation, Calgary-Edgemont, Calgary-Elbow, Calgary-Foothills, Calgary-Shaw, Calgary-Shaw by-election, Calgary-Varsity, Canada Election Substack, Canadian Strategy Group, Corey Hogan, Court Ellingson, Craig Chandler, Dan Arnold, Danielle Smith, Daveberta Substack, Edmonton-Beverly-Clareview, Edmonton-Glenora, Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood, Edmonton-South, Edmonton-South West, Elan Harper, Federal NDP leadership race 2026, Gil McGowan, Green Party of Alberta, Heather McPherson, James Anderson, Janis Irwin, Jason Copping, Jeremy Nixon, Jeromy Farkas, Julia Hayter, Justin Brattinga, Kelly Hooper, Lizette Tejada, Mike Derry, Naheed Nenshi, Nate Horner, Nathan Ip, Peggy Wright, Rebecca Schulz, Rhiannon Hoyle, Rob Ashton, Samir Kayande, Sarah Elmeligi, Sarah Hoffman, Tanille Johnston, Tony McQuail, United Conservative Party

Alberta Politics

Darren Hedley appointed Deputy Minister of Finance ahead of Nate Horner’s budget speech

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date February 28, 2026

Orders-in-Council released on Wednesday afternoon show that Darren Hedley has been appointed as the Deputy Minister of Finance and Treasury Board. Hedley previously filled the position in an acting role under Deputy Minister of Executive Council Dale McFee and worked as Associate Deputy Minister in the department before that.

Hedley replaces Katherine White, who was late last year appointed as the Deputy Minister of the Department of Finance in the Yukon territorial government. She previously worked as Deputy Minister of Jobs, Economy, and Innovation and Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Tourism, and Trade, and also worked as the Chief Economist for the Alberta government.

Nate Horner’s big deficit budget — another year, another Alberta budget at the whim of oil and gas royalties

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date February 27, 2026

Alberta Minister of Finance Nate Horner in his pre-budget promotional video (source: Government of Alberta / YouTube)

There’s a baked-in analysis in every Alberta provincial budget that is impossible to ignore: Alberta relies too much on revenues from oil and gas royalties to fund the daily operations of government.

The other baked-in part of the analysis is what Albertans want: well-funded public services without having to pay more taxes for them.

From a first glance, it sure looks like that’s what Albertans got in Minister of Finance Nate Horner’s budget tabled today in the Legislature.

The budget doesn’t appear to include any big spending cuts, but it does include something Conservatives in this province used to like saying they wouldn’t do: run a deficit. This budget runs a big deficit of $9.4 billion and projects deficits for the next two budgets.

Read all about it on the Daveberta Substack

Tags Alberta Anti-Immigration Referendum, Alberta Budget 2026, Alberta NDP, Alberta Politics Substack, Alberta School Board Association, Alberta Teachers' Association, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Canada Election Substack, Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Chris Gallaway, Coal Mining Referendum, Corb Lund, Court Ellingson, Dale McFee, Danielle Smith, Darren Hedley, Daveberta Substack, Deborah Yedlin, Deficit in Alberta, Edmonton Police Service, Enyinnah Okere, Friends of Medicare, Jan Gorski, Jason Schilling, Jeromy Farkas, Jim Prentice, Justin Krikler, Justin Trudeau, Katherine White, Kris Sims, Montreal Economic Institute, Naheed Nenshi, Nate Horner, Natural Resource Royalty Rates, No New Coal Mining in the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains, Paul de Jong, Pembina Institute, Pierre Poilievre, Progressive Contractors Association, Rachel Notley, Raj Uppal, Rakhi Pancholi, Ron Anderson, Sandra Azocar, Shali Baziuk, Taylor MacPherson, United Conservative Party, United Nurses of Alberta

Alberta Politics

Lower international price of oil will hit Alberta’s 2026 budget hard

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date January 25, 2026

Oil production in our province is at a record high but, as Albertans have learned time and time again, we have absolutely no control over the international price of oil that makes or breaks our local economy.

Forecasts for oil prices are not encouraging for 2026. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has projected that the price of West Texas Intermediate oil could average around $50 to $52 per barrel and, with a glut of oil on the international market, Goldman Sachs expects WTI to average $53 per barrel in 2026.

This is trouble for the Government of Alberta, which relies heavily on revenues from oil and gas royalties to fund the daily operations of public services like heath care and education. The Alberta government’s 2025 budget projected WTI at $68 per barrel but as of the second quarter update in November the average price was $61.50 per barrel. Each $1 change in the price of WTI has an estimated $750-million impact on provincial government revenue.

Evasive maneuvers! Alberta politics on a collision course!

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 24, 2025

A large rally of around 30,000 striking teachers gathered outside the Legislature to welcome MLAs back for the fall session on October 23 (source: @atalocal8 / Instagram)

A loud crowd of 30,000 teachers and their supporters welcomed MLAs back to the Legislature

When MLAs returned to the Legislature yesterday for the Speech from the Throne and the start of the fall session they were welcomed back by a very large and very loud crowd of around 30,000 Alberta teachers.

More than 51,000 teachers from public, Catholic, and Francophone schools across the province have been on strike since October 6 with workload challenges being their biggest issue, namely class sizes and per-student funding.

Instead of getting back to the bargaining table to negotiate a deal that could satisfy both the government and teachers, Premier Danielle Smith has signalled her government’s plans to fasttrack back to work legislation — and there is wide speculation that it could use the constitutional sledgehammer known as the Notwithstanding Clause to block any court challenges of the law.

The Order Papers for next week shows that Minister of Finance Nate Horner will soon introduce Bill 2: Back to School Act along with motions to severely limit debate at all stages of reading. With a 6 vote majority in the Legislature, UCP MLAs should have no problem pushing it through swiftly, though the opposition NDP can be expected to try its best to delay the passage of the bill.

Breaking the ATA is in the official UCP policy book

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 12, 2025

Breaking up the ATA and making membership in the union optional for teachers are actual official UCP policies that were enthusiastically passed by delegates at the party’s convention last year in Red Deer.

In defending the policy to make membership optional, the UCP constituency association from Innisfail-Sylvan Lake wrote that the ATA is “supporting many controversial progressive ideologies that do not represent the values of many teachers who are forced to pay dues in order to maintain employment in this province.”

The policy was passed weeks after anti-sexual health education protests organized by UCP-connected activists were held outside the ATA’s offices in Edmonton. The political mood of those protests align with Nicolaides moral panic book ban fiasco and the government’s targeting of transgender and female students who want to play school sports.

But partisan conservatives didn’t always feel this way about teachers.

Posh private schools get public funding in Alberta

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 11, 2025

Looming large over the government’s labour dispute with teachers in public, Catholic, and Francophone schools is the lavish funding the province spends on private schools.

Private schools in Alberta get 70 per cent per-student funding from the provincial government, which is the highest of any province in Canada. That tops BC, which funds private schools between 35 and 50 per cent, Saskatchewan, which funds up to 50 per cent. Ontario and the Atlantic provinces do not fund private schools at all.

Although there is a wide spectrum of private schools that provide different types of education to different groups of students, some of the private institutions receiving generous public funding include elite schools tailored to Calgary’s wealthiest families and charge more than $20,000 in annual tuition.

UCP cries poverty on funding but promises to build more schools

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 11, 2025

While the government cries poverty when it comes to the per-student funding, classroom sizes, and salary increases teachers are asking for, Premier Danielle Smith frequently points to her big promises of capital investments in the education system.

Smith promised in a televised address last year that the UCP government would build 130 new schools by 2031, which is a lot, but with the student population of the province growing by more than 33,000 per year (Smith’s number), that’s just playing catch up.

UCP Government ads are slicker than it’s spokespeople

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 10, 2025

The UCP government launched a series of advertisements shortly after the ATA announced its plans to strike. The ads promote what the government describes as “a good plan” and are short, easy to understand, and are framed as a policy proposal rather than a bargaining position.

Where the paid advertising ends and the spokespeople start talking is when the government’s messaging starts going off the rails.

The government’s messaging was derailed last week when senior UCP staffer Bruce McAllister publicly berated a high school student for asking a question about the teachers’ strike and private school funding during the Alberta Next panel town hall in Calgary. McAllister, a former news anchor-turned-Wildrose Party MLA who now runs the Premier’s Office in Calgary, told the young man that his parents should spank him before he cut off his microphone.

Danielle Smith’s UCP digging in for a long teachers’ strike

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 10, 2025

Premier Danielle Smith, Minister of Finance Nate Horner, and Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides say they are disappointed with the strike but have given no indication they were eager to return to the bargaining table to, well, actually bargain.

Smith, Horner and Nicolaides have signalled that they are prepared for a long teachers strike, and, despite claiming the cupboards are bare, the government will pay parents $30 a day to do teachers’ jobs from home, sort of, during a strike.

Teachers on strike in Alberta!

Post author By Dave Cournoyer
Post date October 9, 2025

Teachers and supporters after their daily morning picket near the Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton (photo credit: Brad Lafortune)

More than 51,000 teachers launched the largest strike the history of their profession in Alberta

Schools are empty this week as more than 51,000 Alberta teachers in public, Catholic and Francophone schools launched the largest strike the history of their profession in Alberta.

The strike comes shortly after members of the Alberta Teachers’ Association overwhelmingly rejected a new contract for a second time in less than six months, with more than 90% voting against the proposal in the final days of September.