Province Législature Session Type de discours Date du discours Locuteur Fonction du locuteur Parti politique Alberta 24e 2e Discours du trône 27 janvier 1998 Horace Andrew “Bud” Olson Lieutenant-gouverneur Alberta Progressive Conservative Party Fellow Albertans, it is my privilege and my pleasure to welcome you to the Second Session of the 24th Alberta Legislature. Preparing for the future is very important to Albertans. Our greatest obligation is to leave our children and our grandchildren a province that is even better than the one which was left to us. This is the mission to which my government rededicates itself as we approach a new millennium. Our young people must be our top priority. Over the past five years Albertans have built a solid foundation for the next generation. Thanks to their hard work there is renewed and more balanced prosperity throughout our house. Alberta enjoys the highest employment rate in Canada [Source: Statistics Canada, December 1997] and the highest forecasted economic growth in the country [Source: Conference Board of Canada, October 21, 1997]. This year's budget surplus is projected at $2 billion. The net provincial debt should be gone by 2000 or 2001 if oil and gas prices remain stable. But there is more work to do. After eliminating the net debt, Albertans will still face their first mortgage, a total accumulated debt of $14 billion. Although this debt is offset by assets like the Alberta heritage savings trust fund, it still costs the province more than $1 billion in interest payments each year. At the same time, Alberta's strong economic growth is generating more activity and attracting more people, boosting demand for government services such as schools, hospitals, and roads. At the Alberta Growth Summit, Albertans told their government to respond to the pressures of growth and to develop the heart of our Alberta advantage, our people, while remaining fiscally responsible. Our government must strike a balance between paying down the mortgage and expanding the house to meet the needs of a growing household. Accordingly, for the next three years the government will direct the first $1 billion of any annual surplus to pay down the provincial debt, the next $250 million to onetime initiatives in Albertans' priority areas, and any remaining surplus to further payments on the mortgage. Reinvesting in Albertans is a pillar of our government's agenda for opportunity, but it will never return to simply throwing money at problems. It will keep searching for new and better ways to deliver responsive and responsible programs and services. At the Alberta Growth Summit the private sector committed to being an energetic and responsible partner with government in efforts like work experience, apprenticeship, and mentor programs. Albertans' priority on developing people reflects an understanding that they are the driving force in our society and our economy and that all Albertans must have the opportunities they need to develop their full potential and to contribute actively to their families, their workplaces, and their communities. The primary foundation for this is education. Our goal is to have the best educated young people in Canada with our students posting the highest achievement results in the country by 2001. Albertans want an education system that instills in our children the values that made our province strong, the values of self-reliance, self-discipline, respect for others, honesty, and industriousness. Our government will increase funding for kindergarten to grade 12 by 13 percent, or $380 million, over the next three years. The grant for basic instruction will increase to give school boards more flexibility to meet their students' needs. The government will ensure that this flexibility remains by planning for and funding annual increases in enrollment. It will continue both to ensure public quality education through public, separate, and charter schools and to support parents who choose private or home schooling. The government will continue its commitment to help students learn through the use of technology. For the first time it will outline a standard of knowledge and technical skills which students are expected to acquire. It will make funding for technology more flexible by eliminating the requirement for school boards to match government funding for that purpose, and it will provide further funding to address the costs of transporting students and also revise its formula for funding transportation to and from rural schools to encourage greater safety and efficiency. Our government will launch a program to catch and correct reading problems as soon as they appear, even as early as kindergarten. It will enable school boards to hire intern teachers to help teachers assess and further support students who show early signs of falling behind. It will extend funding for English as a Second Language programs to give Canadian-born children from families in which English is the second language the same chance and support to learn English as immigrant students. It will increase funding for students with special physical and mental difficulties. It will keep working with local service providers to find ways to better co-ordinate services for children to help them overcome social, economic, and family-related barriers to learning. Albertans stressed the importance of ensuring that our young people have every opportunity to learn a marketable skill and to improve their skills as they progress through life. The government's reinvestment plan for Advanced Education and Career Development calls for an increase of about 7.5 percent, or $95 million, between now and 2001. The government will create more places for the rising number of high school graduates entering our postsecondary institutions. It will expand its apprenticeship programs, particularly in areas required by Alberta's thriving economy. It will work with institutions and the private sector to create a $30 million tuition bursary for students with the greatest financial need and to identify requirements for knowledge and skills. Our government will communicate these requirements through efforts like the Alberta learning information system, which gives young people details on opportunities for learning and careers. It will modernize research infrastructure and help to attract quality researchers, and it will consider with students and others the merits of legislating a freeze on the tuition cap at 30 percent of expenditures related to credit programs. The government maintains its commitment to help all Albertans maintain or regain their independence and to support the truly needy. Over the next three years it will increase funding for Family and Social Services by more than 5 percent, or about $70 million, to handle growing caseloads in child welfare and handicapped children's services and to fund women's shelters and family and community support services. Our government will aim to keep children physically, mentally, and emotionally safe through a Forever Homes initiative that serves them until their original home is healed or an adoptive home is found to nurture them for the long term. The move towards more community-based services will continue with the transfer of responsibilities to the child and family services regional authorities and the persons with developmental disabilities boards. This will ensure the delivery of comprehensive, integrated programs to meet the developmental needs of children and families. The government will take new steps to combat teenaged prostitution and to address the needs of children affected by fetal alcohol syndrome and find ways to prevent it. Children in low-income families will receive further support under the national child benefit, for which our government will complement increases in federal child tax benefits, and reflecting the government's commitment to easing Albertans' tax burden, low- and middle-income working families will receive two payments for 1998 totaling up to $1,000 under the Alberta family employment tax credit. High-quality, accessible, and sustainable health care remains an important part of our government's agenda for opportunity. It will increase funding for health to meet the changing needs of a growing and aging population. Reflecting the broad view of health taken at the Alberta Growth Summit and elsewhere, there will be more emphasis on monitoring the state of Albertans' health and on protecting and promoting good health and continued emphasis on treating illness, especially in the area of mental health. The government will frame standards and measures for our health system. It will continue to develop a modern system to use and share information on health. After consulting extensively with Albertans, it will develop new legislation to protect the privacy of information on their personal health. Our government will address the needs of Alberta's seniors through a review of long-term care services in the province. It will assess the effectiveness of its new legislation to protect persons in care, and it will review the impact of an aging population on public programs such as social housing to respond to the changing needs of our seniors. Our government will provide more protection within the legal system to victims of family violence. It will act on the pending report of the MLA committee set up to recommend improvements to the province's maintenance enforcement program and access to children. It will act on the report of the task force on the appointment of Provincial Court judges. It will better protect vulnerable consumers under new, consolidated legislation governing fair trading, it will explore issues relating to aboriginal justice, and it will keep pressing to make our roads safer and to reduce the incidence of traffic collisions. Our government will join with Albertans to strengthen our communities even further. It will complete regional library systems and a province wide electronic library network. It will help problem gamblers through non residential treatment, a site on the Internet for young people, and training programs, and in keeping with the government's commitment to return more lottery revenues directly to communities, volunteer local boards will allocate some $50 million to worthy community projects. The government will encourage local governments to plan for their future by finding new ways to manage resources and to structure collaborative systems of delivering services. It will provide targeted financial support to communities which need help to establish and sustain essential services. Another priority identified by Albertans is managing the increasing demands and wear on the roads, buildings, and technology required to meet the challenges of economic growth in our province. The government will reinvest in Alberta's infrastructure starting with accelerating the development of the north/south trade corridor, extending from Alberta's border west of Grande Prairie down to the American border at Coutts. When this is substantially finished by 2007, it will allow for escalating traffic by industry and tourists. Although financial indicators suggest that our province's economy will continue to thrive, Albertans recognize the danger of complacency. Our government's goal is to have this province acknowledged as the centre of economic growth and prosperity in Canada by the turn of the century. It will continue to create the climate for prosperity for all Albertans and to build on the Alberta advantage that attracts business, investment, and jobs to our province. Through its unique partnership with the Alberta Economic Development Authority our government will improve the climate for expanded manufacturing and processing and advanced and emerging technologies. It will pursue international trade through efforts like Team Canada's recent visit to Latin America and Team Alberta's mission to Asia last fall. It will continue to improve the province's tax climate by phasing out provincial taxes on machinery and equipment, and it will look at reforming Alberta's personal income tax system. In energy our government will produce legislation to complete the deregulation of the electricity industry to provide consumers with more choice in a competitive market. It will act on industry-led consultations on royalty and related information systems. It will work with industry to resolve outstanding issues around pipeline tolls and to encourage more construction of pipelines. It will contract out its rural electrification loan portfolio to give farmers more flexibility and to reduce administration, and responding to requests from rural gas co-operatives, it will allow customers to control gas brokerage services through an elected board of directors. In agriculture the government will design plans to allow the cattle industry to inspect brands on its own, and it will discuss with interested parties and develop a new approach to locating intensive livestock operations. Environmental issues are a pressing concern for all Albertans. The government will streamline and clarify decision-making structures and processes regarding natural resources. It will include a strategy to protect Alberta's water in its new framework to manage the province's water resources when the Water Act comes into force, and it will improve its program to build a network of protected areas of wilderness and to manage a growing system of parks for people to enjoy long into the future. In science and research our government will introduce legislation to bring a cohesive and efficient approach to encouraging innovation. It will foster investment by the private sector and other partners. As proud Canadians, Albertans will continue to play a leading part in renewing a strong and effective federation including Quebec. Following the Alberta Legislature's unanimous approval of the Calgary declaration, Albertans will continue to take the lead in negotiating intergovernmental issues like roles and responsibilities in various sectors of social policy and federal spending powers. Our government will help to complete a Canada-wide agreement to harmonize environmental management. It will work to meet the reductions for emissions of greenhouse gases agreed to by the provinces and the federal government while ensuring the continued development and growth of Alberta's energy industry. It will seek to include the nation's municipalities, academic institutions, schools, and hospitals in the Canadian agreement on internal trade. Our government will work with the federal government to address outstanding land claims by Alberta's aboriginal peoples. It will clarify its approach to land claims obligations, intergovernmental relations, and aboriginal self-reliance, and it will improve the governance of Alberta's Métis settlements. Our government will continue to listen to Albertans and to respond to their concerns. This year an all-party committee of this Legislature will seek people's views on the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. After more than three years of discussions with the public and with health professionals, the government will table legislation relating to the governance, registration, and continuing competence and conduct of professionals in the field of health care. The government will continue to provide responsive and responsible programs through a public service recognized as among the most focused, creative, and productive in Canada. It will strive to retain, attract, and develop the talented, skilled, and versatile employees required to serve Albertans' developing needs into the next century. Shortly our government will provide a detailed response to each of the recommendations made at the Alberta Growth Summit. In mid-February the Provincial Treasurer will present a budget outlining the fiscal blueprints for the government's agenda for opportunity. Fellow Albertans, our government's mission and its commitment are clear. Responding to your wishes, it will stay its course of fiscal responsibility with balanced budgets and diminishing debt. It will reinvest wisely in Albertans' priorities, and as the Premier has declared, children will come first in the house we call Alberta. Now I leave you to the business of this session confident that as elected representatives you will in every way fulfill your responsibilities to Albertans. Mr. Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly, I pray that the blessing of God may rest on your deliberations. God bless Alberta. God bless Canada. God save the Queen.