Premier announces Fair Deal Panel with a $650,000 price tag

By Deirdre Mitchell-MacLean Times Contributor

On Nov. 9, during a speech at the Manning Centre’s What’s Next? conference, Premier Jason Kenney announced the creation of its fifth panel this year: the Fair Deal Panel.
Panel members include former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, former Progressive Conservative MLA Donna Kennedy-Glans, former Alberta Innovates CEO Stephen Lougheed, Oryssia Lennie, former Alberta Regional Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Jason Goodstriker, University of Alberta Associate Law Professor Dr. Moin Yahya, and current UCP MLAs Drew Barnes (Cypress-Medicine Hat), Miranda Rosin (Banff-Kananaskis) and Tany Yao (Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo).
“Alberta has been by far the biggest contributing province to Canada in recent decades, and a huge engine for jobs and growth,” Kenney said.
Similar to Wheatland County Councillor Jason Wilson’s proposal of Alberta First policies, the Fair Deal Panel will consider the benefits, and hopefully the costs, of Alberta collecting and distributing its own federal taxes, changing to an Alberta Pension Plan, creating a provincial police force, and requiring municipalities to have provincial approval before entering into contracts with the federal government.
“I want to thank Jason Kenney for moving to assert itself in Confederation,” said Wilson, “but there still needs to be action on provincial immigration and senate reform. I will continue to push for a referendum on equalization reform sooner than Oct. 18, 2021.”
Alberta, whose median personal income is the highest in the country at $70,300 (2017), is a larger contributor through personal income tax, but has fallen recently in exports, which are a large portion of the province’s contribution to Canada’s GDP. Ontario is the largest net contributor of exports with Quebec surpassing Alberta in 2017. Alberta’s exports (all industries) were highest in 2014.
“Albertans aren’t asking for a special deal,” the Premier claimed, “we’re just asking for a fair deal.”
Kenney said the government of Alberta will open provincial offices in British Columbia, Ottawa and Quebec “to defend the province’s interests.” Cost projections have not yet been released.
Under Premier Ralph Klein, the Strengthening Alberta’s Role in Confederation committee was struck on Nov. 15, 2003. That committee investigated “the establishment of a provincial pension plan, the creation of a provincial police force, and the collection by the province of its own personal income taxes.”
That committee found, according to its final report, that an Alberta pension plan was not in the best interests of Albertans. It found the cost to collect personal taxes would require significant expense in the form of employment and administration. It requested additional review of policing expenses with input from municipalities that would share these costs, before the 2007 cost review. Further, it suggested the province work with other provinces to create consensus within other provinces to have a list of provincial appointees to the Senate.
The panel will be given a $650,000 budget and will receive administrative support from executive council and support from other government departments as needed.