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- The Alberta government is considering new legislation and two new Crown corporations to expand natural gas pipeline capacity, according to a 46-page cabinet report leaked to CTV News by a government adviser and first reported by The Narwhal. The report, prepared by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals, warns that the province's gas transmission network is constrained, suppressing gas prices, limiting provincial royalties, and driving investment away, particularly from AI data centres. It says the main line, NOVA Gas Transmission, owned and operated by TC Energy, will be full by 2029 with no expansion planned as of 2030, and that TC Energy's future expansion plans are "misaligned" with the province's projected demand growth. The Province is also exploring roughly $6 billion of new capacity at taxpayer expense, funding a pipeline carrying 1 billion cubic feet per day, which the ministry estimates would generate an additional $100 million in royalties by 2034. Premier Danielle Smith, who said on her weekly radio show that the issue is the monopoly TC Energy holds, argued there is enough private sector interest that Alberta would not have to follow the approach used in other provinces. TC Energy counters that it has spent $15 billion on expansion over the past decade with another $1 billion planned, and the report flags potential court challenges from TC Energy and ATCO Gas and Pipelines as legal considerations. Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean's office says internal materials do not represent government decisions.
- Premier Danielle Smith said on Wednesday that her government will announce a revised oil and gas royalty framework in November, which Bloomberg reports will resemble the preferential royalty terms Alberta has used in the past. Smith argued the change is needed because the industry spent the past decade being told it would be winding down production rather than ramping it up. The announcement follows Prime Minister Mark Carney's "productivity mega deduction", unveiled at the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto, a measure that would cut taxes on capital investment and extend to the oil industry. Ottawa says the deduction will lower Canada's marginal effective tax rate on new business investment from about 13% to 6.4%, and presents it as central to Carney's plan to attract $1 trillion in investment over five years. Alberta's current royalty framework is covered by a government commitment not to change the rules during the 10-year period that began in 2019, and Smith did not say whether the new framework would take effect before that commitment expires or how much revenue the Province could forgo. Energy and Minerals Minister Brian Jean says Alberta, Ottawa, and the five Oil Sands Alliance producers are working toward final agreements by mid-November.
- Alberta NDP candidate Kyle Campbell won the by-election in Calgary-Shaw, taking 7,461 of the 16,002 votes counted, about 47%, and finishing 582 votes ahead of UCP candidate Mike Derry. It is the first time the NDP has held the riding since the party's 2015 sweep into government, with the UCP winning the seat in both 2019 and 2023. The seat had been vacant since UCP MLA and former cabinet minister Rebecca Schulz resigned earlier this year, and one political scientist described the vote as a test of the government's popularity just over a month before the October 19th referendum. Kyle Joseph of the Progressive Tory Party of Alberta finished third with 978 votes, Alberta Liberal Party Leader John Roggeveen received 602, and Independent candidate Rolly Ashdown took 82. Official results will be confirmed on September 24th.
- The Government of Alberta has temporarily changed the rules governing the province's official voter list, so that copies given to political parties will now show only the number of voters in each voting area and municipality. The list previously carried each registered voter's first and last name, home address and postal code, phone number, and a unique identifier, and Elections Alberta distributes it to parties, legislators, candidates, and constituency associations for campaigning and fundraising. The policy was published on Thursday, expires at the end of the year, and follows the publication in the spring of a database by a separatist group called the Centurion Project that elections officials say contained the private information of nearly three million Albertans. Investigators traced that database to a copy of the list given to the pro-independence Republican Party of Alberta, which has denied any wrongdoing, and a judge ordered the website taken down in April. Justice Minister Mickey Amery's office says the policy is meant to protect Albertans' private information and that permanent changes will be introduced in legislation in the fall. Elections Alberta says it will still use the full list to administer the referendum to ensure the vote's security.
- The Treasury Board and Finance Ministry spent the summer meeting personal injury lawyers about restoring some right to sue under Alberta's new care-first auto insurance model, which takes effect in January 2027. Under the model as it stands, Albertans hurt in collisions can sue an at-fault driver for pain and suffering only where that driver is convicted of a Criminal Code offence or one of a handful of major offences under the Traffic Safety Act, or for costs beyond the maximum benefits they receive. Mark McCourt, one of the personal injury lawyers who met officials, says the discussions covered extending the right to sue to people who suffer life-changing injuries caused by reckless drivers, and that doing so would be an improvement on what is currently proposed. Ministry press secretary Juliana Rodriguez says the Province has heard from Albertans about the importance of court access in life-changing injury cases, but that no decision has been made. The Alberta Auto Insurance Rate Board estimates drivers will save an average of $297 per vehicle under the new model. Aaron Sutherland, vice-president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, warns that what the lawyers are proposing would substantially erode those savings and could push rates up for drivers.