As far as wages go, Alberta workers now face a significant “Alberta Disadvantage,” says a report published yesterday on the continuing suppression of wages and salaries in the Western Canadian province.
Not long ago the highest-wage province in Canada, with wages 17 per cent above the national average, payroll data for hourly employees shows Alberta fell behind British Columbia in 2023 and Quebec last year, with wages here continuing to tumble, said economist Jim Stanford in his update to a 2024 analysis of the province’s wage declines.
Alberta’s wages have shrivelled to just 1.7 per cent above the national average – an edge more than offset by the province’s high cost of living. Alberta is the only province where average real weekly earnings were lower in 2024 than in 2019, the report says.
“This is partly the result of economic challenges and disruptions beyond anyone’s control – like the pandemic, fluctuations in global energy prices, and inflation (which gripped all industrial countries after 2021),” Dr. Stanford wrote, noting that last year inflation was worse in Alberta than in any other province despite the fact the place also had the weakest wage growth.
“However, much of Alberta’s wage disadvantage is self-inflicted,” his report continued. It is “the intended outcome of deliberate policies to suppress wages, and shift income to corporations and investors, away from workers.”
This portion of the Vancouver-based economist’s analysis not exactly news, of course. It’s been widely understood since before the election of the United Conservative Party in 2019 that a key part of the UCP’s policy was the intentional suppression of wages – although this was spoken sotto voce by then-candidate Jason Kenney to the then-new party’s corporate backers.
All that the rest of us heard about was “jobs, economy, pipelines …”
Only on the issue of minimum wages was the former federal Harper Government cabinet minister and soon-to-be Alberta premier completely open in public about his intentions, bragging in June 2018 that upon winning power he would freeze minimum wages. This was soon after they had been raised to $15 by the NDP government of Rachel Notley, to the fury of the fast-food industry. Mr. Kenney also vowed he would restructure the minimum wage to introduce pay cuts for some classes of workers.
This duly became policy after the UCP’s election on April 16, 2019, and the minimum wage has remained frozen ever since through six years of skyrocketing inflation, with cuts in pay for young workers thrown in for bad measure. It is now tied with Saskatchewan, that other Western Canadian bastion of wage suppression, for the lowest minimum wage in Canada.
“The resulting 17-per-cent decline in real earnings for the lowest-paid workers in the province is economically destructive and morally bankrupt,” Dr. Stanford wrote.
But credit where credit is due, when Mr. Kenney buttered up his corporate backers after turning up in Alberta to save the province from the NDP, insiders all understood that this was part of the deal. So you can safely repeat after me, as Mr. Kenney used to frequently say, “promise made, promise kept!”
Other factors making a major contribution to the UCP wage-suppression strategy are the most restrictive limits on collective bargaining in Canada, and the “uniquely austere” public sector wage settlements in 2020 and 2021, which resulted in severe declines in real wages in health care and education.
Last year was the fourth consecutive year, and the ninth in the past 11, that average hourly real wages declined in Alberta. By contrast, in the rest of Canada, real wages (a measure that accounts for the impact of inflation) rebounded briskly in 2023 and last year.
Since the UCP came to power in 2019, real hourly wages have fallen by a cumulative total of 4.5 per cent, Dr. Stanford noted by far the worst performance of any Canadian province.
“The UCP has killed the Alberta wage advantage,” said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, which released Dr. Stanford’s report.
“UCP wage-suppression policies include freezing the minimum wage for over six years, making it easier for employers to avoid paying overtime, making it harder for workers to join unions, and secret government bargaining mandates to keep wage increases for hundreds of thousands of public sector workers well below inflation,” Mr. McGowan said.
Dr. Stanford is the director of the Centre for Future Work, which is based in Vancouver. The PhD economist, who was born in Alberta, is also the Harold Innis Industry Professor in Economics at McMaster University in Hamilton and an Honorary Professor in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney is Australia.
AIMCo dumps diversity, equity and inclusion program … of course it did!
Right on schedule, one might say, the Alberta Investment Management Corp. has dumped its diversity, equity and inclusion program and canned 19 employees including the program lead.
The Crown pension investment corporation, better known as AIMCo, is the entity the United Conservative Government would most likely ask to manage Canada Pension Plan funds in the event it can get its paws on Albertans’ and former Albertans’ retirement savings.
So yesterday’s development strongly suggests that the offices of Premier Danielle Smith and Finance Minister Nate Horner are as predicted effectively running AIMCo now, setting politically motivated policy, and they in turn are getting their big policy ideas from the new Trump Administration in Washington.
In November, Mr. Horner fired AIMCo’s board and appointed former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper as board chair. With Mr. Harper in that role, it was obvious AIMCo’s previous arm’s-length relationship with the government had ended.
Mr. Harper is the originator and first advocate of the dangerous idea Alberta should pull out of the CPP and establish an Alberta pension to subsidize the sunsetting fossil fuel industry. Whatever you may have heard – or not heard – that scheme is still very much alive.
But don’t worry, The Canadian Press quoted an AIMCo spokesperson, “all AIMCo colleagues will continue to share the responsibility and accountability for ensuring AIMCo remains diverse, inclusive, innovative and motivating, in keeping with our corporate objectives and core values.”
Right. Good to know.
Oh look what just turned up in my mailbox!
I’m told ads like this are due to start running in Washington, and perhaps elsewhere in the United States. Wonder if they’ll dissuade President Donald Trump from slapping big tariffs on Canada? Probably not. I wonder if Canada’s other provinces were consulted about this big idea? Same answer.
Yes, the UCP and Smith does not talk about the Alberta Advantage much any more, that’s so 2004. Or as some might say, our fathers’ conservative party. Smith instead aspires to be our grandfathers’ conservative party. Every day it seems more and more like they really are Social Credit in drag.
They are also not doing so well on jobs either, as unemployment in Alberta has risen a lot in the last year while oil prices have languished and they put a moratorium on renewable energy projects that would have added jobs. Maybe its not a such good idea to put all your eggs in one basket after all.
I doubt the UCP will be in any hurry to raise the minimum wage, so it wouldn’t be surprising if we soon fell behind the national average. Smith and her communications people are slick, but they are going to have trouble spinning that one. All while Alberta still has above average electricity and insurance costs and while housing costs are going up quickly too.
Not surprising that AIMCo got rid of its DEI staff. Horner probably didn’t even have to tell Harper to do it, just hint slightly. No doubt this will make it harder to attract some the best and the brightest, especially to work in a place that already has a bit of a redneck reputation. Despite the UCPs aspirations I feel this makes it even less likely AIMCo will supplant the CPP. Sometimes these guys shoot themselves in the foot or elsewhere, not even realizing it.
Aw, Dave, really? “Social Credit in drag.” Ugh! Couldn’t close my mind’s eye fast enough.
lets see, trump eliminated DEI in the U.S.A. smith goes for a visit and party, returns to Canada and viola DEI positions are eliminated. Today, well technically yesterday it turned out the maga billionaires turned off the money tap. Read about it the night before, but they pretended they didn’t know it would prevent Veterans from receiving funds, day care, rent assistance, etc. So the governors got a tad upset and started working. Of course the W.H said they didn’t know all these programs would not be funded if the money stopped going to the various organizations. (we know some of them are stupid, but really that excuse takes the cake or perhaps they think the governors and citizens are that stupid). Now I wonder given Smith seems so enamoured by maga if she will try the not sending cheques out. Well she has started with the lower wages in Alberta, then the elimination of the DEI, it makes sense she’ll try to stop the flow of money to organizations she doesn’t like Wonder what it will take for Albertans who voted for her to figure it out. it may be interesting to watch what happens next in Alberta and if smith follows trump’s lead. which still leaves me wondering what those two UPC types were doing in Texas. I know immigration is a federal responsibility and we don’t have the death penalty and it again is a federal matter. Perhaps the women of Alberta will be informed they no longer have the right to control their own bodies, but again, that is a federal thing. WE shall see what happens.
If people don’t have money to purchase things, how will businesses make money???? Perhaps small businesses don’t count, just look at Jasper. Smith may be simply be preparing for what she hopes is an American take over of Canada.
Mr. Horner’s cousin did it first, by cancelling DEI, or EDI, at the University of Alberta. Obviously the board of governors approves of this sort of thing (and his treatment of student protestors on the public campus) because they reappointed him for a second term.
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/far-right-attacks-on-edi-goals-go-unanswered-by-albertas-post-secondary-education-leaders
Oh, those Horners. Once a political dynasty, always a political dynasty.
Alberta’s commoners, like their counterparts south of the border, probably think letting the rich and powerful exploit them for ever-decreasing wages is a good thing. Who knows better than billionaires what it is like to be at the bottom of the shark tank?
Never mind. None of this will matter when Danielle Smith sells us out to her orange god and we become his subjects, cleared from our land, les canadiens errants.
Wait Bill Flanagan is Nate Horners cousin ? That explains a LOT.
I am continuously amazed and appalled to find out how eager conservative voters are to vote against their own interests. The biggest danger to any country is the laziness and stupidity of those voters. They hear words from their ‘heroes’ and refuse to double check what’s being said. Easy to sell them lies which they then spread with a stupid confidence that is setting us all up for great pain.
Knowing what I know now in my senior years, if I was a young person at the beginning of my life, I’d be seriously considering leaving this country. The beauty of the internet is that it’s possible to see what other places are like outside of our western propaganda.
The infamous Alberta “advantage” was never for the little guy.
Before the NDP were elected in 2015, Alberta had the lowest minimum wage in the country, and the Progressive Conservatives in power at the time would freely acknowledge that the minimum wage needed to go up, but kept insisting that ‘now is not the time’.
When the NDP were elected, it was with a mandate to raise the minimum wage to $15/hour. In an acknowledgement to businesses’ concerns, they backed off of that promise a little bit, and increased the minimum wage to $15 in stages, rather than all at once.
Nevertheless, when I heard a representative of Restaurants Canada, the restaurant lobby group, speak, his point was that the minimum wage increase was ‘too much, too fast’. He freely ignoring the fact that a considerable chunk of the increase was just to get Alberta back to the national average.
I wonder what Restaurant Canada’s position is on Alberta’s current minimum wage. It is entirely plausible that the NDP will win the next election, and crank the minimum wage back up, like they did before. If the NDP’s last increase in the minimum wage was, in fact, too much, too fast, you would think that they would be lobbying the government for small increases on a regular basis, to prevent the shock that happened last time.
I bet that is not the case, though.
Bob: Restaurants Canada’s position on increasing the minimum wage is ALWAYS “now is not the right time.” Remember, this is the group (operating under a different name) that opposed caps on prices in restaurants during World War II – when we were fighting Hitler, for heaven’s sake! They didn’t think that was the right time either. DJC
The UCP sure are good at looking after themselves and their rich friends. If anyone recalls what the CPC did to income trusts, where $35 billion of people’s life savings went the way of the dodo bird, they’d see that Stephen Harper managing AIMCo, and the pensions of Albertans, is a lousy idea. A provincial pension plan is a very bad idea to begin with, but the UCP doesn’t care about that at all.
I have maintained a top secret security clearance. For many years! This chump change sell out of my country? So sorry! It’s on you! Oh the gal! https://youtu.be/a6irfBMm48g?t=3
Don’t worry! Be happy! Under the UCP bus? Yah! that’s gonna work! https://youtu.be/vlvA0sMvnqo?t=2
I am actually intense with my anger! Lashing out just won’t do! I need a win for us! The “great unwashed”! Am I deranged? A loon? Just a lonely? OK then! You need soothing? We have a song for that! https://youtu.be/UMVjToYOjbM
A couple of typos in an otherwise very good posting:
“…bragging in June 2018 that upon wining power…”
“…With Mr. Harper in that role, is was obvious…”
The mental image, however, of K-Boi wining power is evocative of his proclivity for sucking up and punching down.
Lars: Fixed. Thanks. DJC
I wonder…. Did our glorious leader of the vaccine-challenged, the great Queen of Q-berduh, Danielle Smith, ever think* that her “energy security is next door” ad might be construed as “the door’s open, guys, c’mon in! Make yourselves at home.”
Telling Trump that Alberta’s oil is essential is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Smith got slapped down when she tried to tell Trump the US “needs” Alberta’s oil. He’s already fantasizing about Manifest Destiny version 2.0. Why would the world’s biggest mob boss pay for something when he can take it?
* Did Smith ever think, about anything, at any time?
Mike: That was certainly the way I read it. DJC
Hey there Dani! This plasticine guy down south? Do you really want us to give it a win? Are you awake? Woke? Or in need of a brain scan?
Nothing will dissuade Drumpt.
Every commentator starts with “well he did say he was going to”
When he replied to a reporters question “Would you use military force to acquire Canada ?”
The answer was “no. Just economic force”
War has been declared.
Nothing we do will “dissuade” .
Smith is a Quisling, 100% anti-Canadian in her brazzen courtship of the orange predator and unabashedly proud of it. As we are already finding, the Bloats goalposts will keep moving and changing. The POTUS is beyond reason ; it’s the Maga Hatters Tea Party on steroids. And the war is lost because we will dance his tune til we collapse , then his security will have to occupy our collapsed insecure state to save us and protect American interests from ‘lil ol’ unstable Canada.
And commentators will say ” Well he did say ……”
It was always Jason Kenney’s wish to join Alabama at the bottom of the heap of everything.
Sure, everyone is poor and stupid, but Christ is King.
Sketchy confirmed bachelor leads the morons to their demise — what could possibly go wrong?
Yet more evidence that I have long thought they were the United Corporate Party.
The Alberta advantage was never anything but low corporate taxes, low royalties, the absence of sales tax, and a consequence of those three things of permanent crisis in public finances.