Finance Minister Nate Horner responds to questions following the announcement of Bill 17 Tuesday.--Image courtesy YourAlberta YouTube
zmason@medicinehatnews.com
An omnibus bill was tabled Tuesday to update several laws related to Alberta Budget 2026, including consolidating caregiver supports and levying a new fee for the tourism sector.
Budget 2026 proposes a deficit of $9.4 billion for the coming fiscal year, more than double the current deficit.
“These uncertain economic times require cautious and practical decisions,” Finance Minister Nate Horner told reporters at a press conference Tuesday.
Bill 17 would make amendments to seven pieces of legislation.
If passed, the Fiscal Measures Statutes Amendment Act will replace existing caregiver and infirm dependant credits, creating one credit with updated eligibility.
Horner says caregivers supporting elderly but not infirm parents or grandparents who were previously receiving the benefit will lose eligibility. Caregivers supporting an infirm spouse will still receive the benefit.
“There’s no shortage of defensible ideas that come across out desk,” he said. “But right now, we’re looking at what the other provinces are doing around us and having to make some tough decisions.”
The bill also proposes an increase to the tourism levy rate from four to six per cent. The increase is expected to generate an additional $66 million in revenue.
The tax affects temporary accommodations including hotels. If passed, the new rates would take effect Apr. 1.
Horner says early responses to the levy have not been positive.
“I would say largely they’re unhappy with it, which is not unexpected,” he said. “I think that’s what you see when you see an increase for any specific industry.”
Horner said his government is not considering the addition of a provincial sales tax. He says backlash to the tourism levy is evidence that attitudes in the province would not be favourable toward the addition of a new tax.
“It’s a conversation that I think is good for Albertans to have – do they want to give up some of that advantage, as volatile as [resource revenue] is, with more permanent tax increases,” he said. “I’m not sure that the province has an appetite for that right now.”
This legislation also undoes a house amendment to the structure of the levy framework for data centres, reverting to the initial formula, which calculated levy rates based on the consumption of power from the provincial grid.
The data centre levy follows a tiered framework that charges consumers a two per cent levy if they rely on the provincial grid for power, a reduced rate of one per cent if they produce their own power and a zero per cent rate for fully off-grid clients.
Bill 17 will allow for a data centre to connect to the provincial grid for safety or regulatory reasons and maintain the zero per cent levy so long as they generate their own power. Under its previous iteration, consumers would fall into the one per cent category if their facility was connected in any way to the provincial grid.
Minister of Technology and Innovation Nate Glubish says the change is designed to reflect the intention of the policy, which looked to incentivize data centres to bring their own power.
“This is not a new policy. This is not a tax break. This is a return to the policy that was always intended. The grid is protected by the existing rules that were already in place,” he told reporters Tuesday.
The legislation also removes the provision enabling financial assistance through the Child and Youth Support Program after its discontinuation in September.
Eligible families can still receive the Alberta Child and Family Benefit, the Alberta Child Health Benefit and the Canada Child Benefit.
“This legislative change will allow us to focus our efforts on programs that have the most impact on the wellbeing and safety of children and youth right across the province,” said Minister of Children and Family Services Searle Turton in a statement Tuesday.
Other changes in the legislation include amendments to the Employment Pension Plans Act that harmonize Alberta’s pension legislation with other provinces and technical amendments that modernize regulatory frameworks for credit unions.
