EDMONTON—Happy fall session, Alberta.

MLAs headed straight into a busy week on Tuesday with a packed agenda, from new bills tabled on Indigenous relations and real estate, to heated exchanges between Premier Jason Kenney and the NDP opposition.

And with the United Conservative’s first budget on the horizon, many eyes are on the public service sector, health care and education, which are anticipated to suffer the brunt of significant cuts as the province tries to pave a path to balanced books.

If the politics cycle was hard to keep track of this week, we’ve got you covered. Here’s what you may have missed:

BILLS

The Alberta government tabled two bills this week: Bill 14, which saw the establishment of the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation (AIOC), and Bill 15, which amended the Real Estate Act and dismissed the entire board of the Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA).

Those two moves mean significant changes for the way the real estate market is going to be governed in the province, and a new chapter in the economic partnership between Alberta and Indigenous communities in Canada.

With Bill 15, Alberta’s real estate regulatory body will receive a complete overhaul. The changes will begin with the dismissal of the board due to allegations of misconduct that date back to 2016. The board will then be replaced by a single administrator, appointed by Service Alberta minister Nate Glubish, The administrator will carry out the duties of RECA until a new council is chosen.

As for the Indigenous Opportunities Corporation, the new crown entity is meant to provide funding and facilitate Indigenous ownership in the province’s medium and large energy projects. It will be run by a board of nine people, which has yet to be selected by Indigenous affairs minister Rick Wilson.

Lisa Young, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, said the government’s first bills seem to be tying up loose ends that they weren’t able to get to in the last session.

The bills are “things they need to get out of the way before the big conversation, which is going to be the budget,” Young said.

ANNOUNCEMENTS & OTHER BUSINESS

But official bills weren’t the only thing on the United Conservative’s agenda this week. A considerable focus on the province’s oil and gas sector was a present theme in their work outside of the house.

First, energy minister Sonya Savage revealed new details about the province’s $30-million energy war room, which was created with a focus on confronting misinformation the government says is rampant on Alberta’s oil and gas sector and is ultimately hurting the industry from growing.

Savage said the government has officially dubbed the war room The Canadian Energy Centre. She also announced Tom Olsen, a former journalist for the Calgary Herald, as its managing director. More controversially, Savage said this private entity, owned by the government, is not subject to Freedom of Information laws, meaning public citizens will not be able to request internal information about the war room’s bidding.

Also on the pro-oil front, the government announced their support for people who wear “pro-oil and gas apparel” during visits to their legislature, through a motion by environment minister Jason Nixon.

Young said these announcements are par for the course for the United Conservatives. The T-shirt motion, as well as the AIOC through Bill 14, remind Albertans about this government’s strong emphasis on oil and gas and supporting the industry, both symbolically and substantively.

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Elsewhere in the legislature, the opposition tried to bring attention to the plight of 53 laid-off healthcare aid workers in the town of Vegreville, Alta., just east of Edmonton. The workers were employed at a seniors’ home, operated by a private company contracted by Alberta Health Services.

NDP MLA David Shephard called on health minister Tyler Shandro to talk with the private company, Vancouver-based Optima Living, to come up with a solution that wouldn’t include the dismissal of these workers in favour of hiring others at a lower wage. Shandro, however, said he will not interfere in a private company’s business.

BUDGET TALKS

The big issue in the house, however, was finances. The fall session’s first week was not short of heated exchanges between Premier Jason Kenney and NDP Leader Rachel Notley, where the premier accused the former government of economic incompetence, while Notley urged him to stop throwing tantrums and take control.

Kenney has long promised spending restraint in the upcoming Oct. 24 budget, but he told the house this week that the cuts his United Conservative government will make are a result of high-deficit, high-debt bungling of the NDP.

“The reality is this, it’s going to take us a long time to undo the damage of the NDP,” Kenney said.

Notley said that jobs have not been created since the UCP came into power, especially in the oil field. She added that Kenney’s decision to cut the corporate tax rate to 11 per cent from 12 per cent, lowering it to eight per cent by 2022, will ultimately cost the government $4.5 billion that will have to be made up elsewhere.

The opposition has also made several announcements about the financial uncertainty this upcoming budget will bring the education and healthcare sector.

For Young, these heated exchanges are just a warm-up.

“The government has given us reason to believe that this is going to be a pivotal budget,” Young said. “There’s a lot of speculation and a lot of anxiety out there.”

Young said she anticipates the conflict between the government and the opposition will only ramp up in the legislature all through the budget debate.

With files from the Canadian Press

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