We have compiled the areas we know the UCP have wasted money, but there may be some underestimates, overestimates and I am sure we have missed some! If we are wrong by even 10% -that is still a lot of money that has been wasted that could have gone to funding public services - like healthcare, education, and social services. This does not include funding their trips out of country. I don’t think we have overestimated by that much. What do you think?
2020 – 2021 (Ongoing): Energy War Room (Canadian Energy Centre) – Initial funding of $30 million dropped to $2.84 million, then allegedly $12 million/year since 2021. Alberta Shuts Down Its Energy War Room
Cost: $56,840,000.00
2021: Alberta Railroad Contract (to move oil to Texas)
Cost: $2,100,000,000.00
2021: Keystone XL Pipeline (Sunk investment costs) it was never built.
Cost: $1,300,000,000.00
2021: Sturgeon Refinery Bailout (Operations and financing restructuring) Alberta government authorizes up to $2.9B for Edmonton-area refinery operations, financing | CBC News
Cost: $825,000,000.00
2023: UCP Ad Campaign (Blaming the Federal Government for high electricity prices) Cost: $8,000,000.00 UCP Ad Campaign
2023: COP28 Dubai Trip (Hotel rooms: $46,429.46 + additional expenses: $170,000.00) Dubai Trip
Cost: $216,429.46
2023: Land Tribunal Payments to farmers for pipelines, oil, and gas wells on their lands. ~$30.4 million (6,434 claims) polinomics.ca
2024: Land Tribunal Payments to farmers for pipelines, oil, and gas wells on their lands. ~$29–30+ million (around 6,173 claims; Narwhal reported over $30M for 2024)
2024: UCP “Scrap the Cap” Ad Campaign (Targeting federal emissions cap) UCP Ad Campaign-What’s really behind Alberta’s ‘scrap the cap’ ads?
Cost: $7,000,000.00
2024: Cancelling Renewable Energy in Alberta $33,000,000,000. Renewable Energy Ban Economic Impact
2024: Returning $137,000,000 to the federal government for well clean-up not done.
2025: Land Tribunal Payments to farmers for pipelines, oil, and gas wells on their lands. (partial/full fiscal): ~$26M so far (ongoing; 5,477+ claims noted)
2025: $15 billion to settle coal mining in the Rockies. 2 companies settled in July 2025, and another 2 in November. Eastern Slopes Rockies Coal Mining Lawsuit Industry Settlement
2023-2025: Paying Municipal taxes for the oil and gas companies - The province paid approximately $9–12 million CAD (or less) in direct provincial support via the Provincial Education Requisition Credit (PERC) program for 2023–2025 tax years. This is the primary (and limited) way the Alberta provincial government has directly assisted municipalities with unpaid oil and gas property taxes. Municipalities must still collect (or write off) the municipal portion of taxes themselves, often leading to service cuts, higher taxes on other properties, or write-offs. 1
Note (Excluded from calculations): The Executive Council budget jumps (from $15B to $62.476B, and $64.7M to $95.72M) for contextual background and are excluded from the specific cost list summation. https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/647b0c7b-1aae-487e-ae85-c2eabf884950/resource/8e7d14d6-72f8-4e43-9b24-795dbaa4d72d/download/exc-business-plan-2026-29.pdf (cut and paste in your browser) 2021-22
Oil and Gas costs that are being covered by Alberta taxpayers.
Information on Land tribunal payments see polinomics.ca
1Taxes from Oil and Gas to municipalities: there is no broad provincial grant or bailout covering the full municipal tax portion (the larger share of arrears). Rural municipalities report ~$254 million in cumulative unpaid oil/gas taxes as of end-2024 (with ~$68M added in 2024 alone). Still, most of this burden falls on local taxpayers or results in write-offs. This is why you are paying higher municipal taxes.
Orphan Well Association: Total orphan liability: OWA estimates ~$1.12 billion remaining closure costs as of early 2025 (up significantly due to large insolvency transfers like Sequoia). https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/bakx-owa-seqouia-alberta-orphan-wells-1.7620267
Court and regulatory documents estimate the total deemed closure liability (abandonment, decommissioning, and reclamation) for Long Run Exploration Ltd. at approximately $476–477 million CAD. https://thenarwhal.ca/alberta-long-run-exploration-liabilities/assets
This figure comes from a sworn affidavit by the Orphan Well Association (OWA) president (filed in February 2025) and was referenced in multiple reports around the April 2026 transfer. It covers Long Run’s full portfolio of licensed assets at the time, including:
4,031 wells (primarily gas-weighted with some light/medium oil)
383 facilities
2,121 pipeline segments and 38 pipeline installations
The AER officially designated these as orphans in April 2026 after the company’s receivership (filed March 2025) and failed sale attempts.
Pipelines form a smaller portion of spending and are often bundled with wells/facilities.
OWA 2024/25: Only $6.1 million on pipeline decommissioning.
THE TOTAL FOR OIL AND GAS RECLAMATION PROJECTS 2023 - 2026 THUS FAR: $1,603,100,000.00 (Potential costs to taxpayers) RStar oil and gas cleanup
Info on Executive Council Budget
2021-22 Final Results - Year-end Report Page - 7/24
2025 Ministry Business Plans (COMPLETE VOLUME) Page - 69/188 (it includes Invest Alberta, which has and creates all the Crown Corporations and intergovernmental relations.)
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2020: Volatility Trading Strategy Losses & Bad Bets
Cost: $4,300,000,000.00
2020: Heritage Savings Trust Fund Spring Contraction Losses
Cost: $4,000,000,000.00
2020: Secondary Market Investment Loss Execution Equity Clearance
Cost: $2,100,000,000.00
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2020: Telus Babylon Virtual Health App Contract
Cost: $1,500,000.00
2020: Unaccounted COVID-19 Operational Funding Response (Auditor General Report)
Cost: $4,000,000,000.00
2020: Substandard PPE & Medical Supplies Single-Source Contract (MHCare allocation)Poor Quality PPE in Sole Source Contract Group of Alberta doctors writes open letter about ‘substandard’, ‘inadequate’ PPE masks -
Cost: $228,000,000.00
2020: South Edmonton Hospital Project Cancellation Sunk Capital
Cost: $69,000,000.00
2020: Edmonton Medical Super Lab Project Cancellation Sunk Costs
Cost: $35,000,000.00
2022: AHS Board & Top Executive Terminations Severance Payouts
Cost: $3,620,000.00
2023: Preston Manning COVID-19 Review Committee Preston Manning and the Covid Committee
Cost: $2,000,000.00
2023: Contentment Care Social Services Hotel Medicine Emergency Invoice https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/alberta-investigation-contentment-social-services-motel-medicine
Cost: $25,000.00
2023 – 2024: Second Wave AHS Senior Executive Severance Obligations (33 employees terminated)
Cost: $9,500,000.00
2023 – 2026: Out-of-Province Healthcare Consulting Fees ($1 million per day calculated across 3 years) this is anecdotal, but it is probable based on the evidence.
Cost: $1,095,000,000.00
2024: Turkish Children’s Tylenol Importation (Procurement, holding fees, and Swan Hills destruction costs)
2024: Private Orthopedic Surgery Center Surcharges (Spending over baseline public AHS rates)
Cost: $400,000,000.00
2024: Dynalife Contract Reversion & Forced AHS Asset Transition ($31.5M return cost + $65.5M inherited liabilities)
Cost: $97,000,000.00
2024 – 2025: AHS Healthcare Delivery Decentralization Structure Restructure
Cost: $85,000,000.00, an additional $2.3 billion for creating the fifth healthcare agency, Health Shared Services Crown corporation.
2025: Wave 3 AHS Executive Wrongful Dismissal Liabilities ($9.05M estimated board severance + $1.7M Mentzalopoulos lawsuit)
Cost: $10,750,000.00
2025: Decentralized Healthcare Silo Deputy Minister Salaries (4 positions at $300k/year). This does not include the creation of four new health departments and the infrastructure for them.
Cost: $1,200,000.00
2026: Alberta Paramedic Services Ambulance System Rebranding & Signage
Cost: $2,000,000.00
Alberta ministries didn’t provide a clear picture of how $4B was spent on COVID-19, audit reveals | CBC News - $4 Billion from COVID funding is not accounted for in Alberta.
Alberta Sunshine list shows taxpayers paid millions to fire top AHS brass in 2022, $3.62 million
Severance for AHS Executives 2019-2024 - $1,169,222.07
https://www.alberta.ca/salary-and-severance-disclosure-table
Fired AHS Board - $3.62 million
AHS employment contracts for senior leaders typically guarantee **up to 24 months’ salary** upon termination without cause.
For example: - Mauro Chies’s 2023 salary was $583,443, making his severance package worth approximately **$1.4 million**
- Mentzalopoulos’s lawsuit seeks $1.7 million, reflecting the remaining value of her four-year contract.
These contractual terms, combined with Smith’s rapid leadership changes, have turned severance into a recurring budget line item.
Private Orthopedic Surgery Centers are approximately $400 million over what they would pay through AHS, due to the refusal to fund the Royal Alex Surgical Center to do complicated surgeries. MH Care’s Sam Mraiche is a shareholder in some of the Orthopedic Centers. So, single-source contracts over $1 billion.
AHS has been broken into four different organizations - now make it site-based management. If you think that rural hospital closures were bad before. Buckle up, it’s going to get worse!
When the Alberta government announced the transition to move away from the centralized AHS model into four distinct pillars (Primary Care, Acute Care, Continuing Care, and Mental Health and Addiction), they initially estimated the direct transition would cost $85 million over two years.
The Transition Budget: The province allocated $81 million to restructure and modernize the system. https://www.thealbertan.com/local-news/budget-2024-health-spending-climbs-to-26-billion-a-44-per-cent-increase-8379679
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/alberta-health-care-cost-restructure-ahs $85 million to transition. Total so far is $9.85 billion, an increase. (We think it costs more than the $85 million.)
July. Critics and independent analysts have argued the actual administrative costs of fracturing the system—and subsequently creating new oversight structures, like the $2.3 billion Health Shared Services crown corporation—will far exceed that initial $85 million estimate.
Appointed the former Deputy Minister of Health as CEO, and appointed two deputy ministers of health. There is no separation between the government and health care; they are directly responsible for where health care is today. (March 2025)
Fired CEO Athana Menthalopous and the Board in January of 2025.
A wrongful dismissal suit was filed with the courts. The UCP has more than 3 investigations into the matter and has them all reporting back to Smith. The only hope to find out what is going on is to support the court case for Athana.
The separation of Health Care into four silos - Primary Care, Acute Care, Assisted Living, and Mental Health and Addictions. Costing Albertans four times the cost of administration - (Each Deputy Minister makes over $300,000/year), so add $1.2 million.
Note that as this government moves towards outsourcing surgeries. The data indicates that the average cost of private surgeries is rising at an unprecedented rate. According to an extensive analysis by the Parkland Institute:
A 52% Price Spike: Between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years, the average cost of an outsourced procedure to a private facility increased by 52%. Economists point out that this spike cannot be explained by standard inflation or input costs and is primarily driven by highly lucrative negotiated contract prices. For example, a knee done in a private facility will cost
Funding Shifting Away From Public ORs: Since the inception of the Alberta Surgical Initiative, public funding flowing to private for-profit facilities increased by 225%, whereas public hospital operating room spending decreased.
Knee Replacements: Documents revealed that one private facility in Edmonton charged the government $8,510 for a knee replacement procedure, whereas the public cost within an AHS hospital for the exact same surgery was just over $4,000.
Other Orthopedic Surgeries: Hip, knee, and shoulder replacements performed by specific private providers under the Alberta Surgical Initiative (ASI) were found to cost up to twice as much as those performed in public hospitals.
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2021 – 2023: Provincial Sheriffs Expansion Initiatives ($45.3M base unit deployment + $29M border/drone initiatives)
Alberta Government unveils new Sheriffs unit - The Stettler Independent
Alberta police force would cost millions more but could see better service; report | Lethbridge News Now Kenney 2021
Cost: $74,300,000.00
2023: Uncollected Oil and Gas Municipal Taxes & Deficit Credits Unpaid Oil and Gas Municipal Taxes -
Cost: $252,000,000.00
2024: Calgary Green Line LRT Cancellation Sunk Infrastructure Claims
Cost: $2,200,000,000.00
2025: Interim Alberta Provincial Police Service (IAPS) Administrative Launch & Chief Placement
Cost: $20,000,000.00
2026: Entry-Point Highway Signage Upgrades
Cost: $3,000,000.00
2027 (Projected): Hand-Counted Referendum Balloting Logistics
Cost: $20,000,000.00
The provincial government told Edmonton and Calgary to raise their education portion of their municipal taxes - those taxes go to the Provincial government into their general funds coffers, not even to education.
2026 - banning books in public libraries
Banning cities from creating bike lanes.
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2016: K-12 Curriculum Review Launch (Original tracking benchmark)
Cost: $64,400,000.00
2019 – 2023: Post-Secondary Education Funding Cuts (Reported by Higher Education Strategy Associates)
Cost: $500,000,000.00
2021: UCP Curriculum Development over 4 years, $64 Million, no teachers involved
2022: Private Schools Funding Scaling-Up Privatization Private Schools Funding in Alberta: Alberta pays the most at 70% of what public schools get.
Cost: $314,000,000.00
2022: Charter School Expansion (Unprecedented multi-year budget allocation)
Cost: $171,000,000.00
2022: Foundations for the Future Charter Academy (FFCA) Hub Project
Cost: $118,000,000.00
2023: K-6 Learning Disruption / Testing Support Allocation
Cost: $10,000,000.00
2023: Pre-Election K-12 Shared Spending ($125M shared authorities increase + $90M for 100 modular portables)
Cost: $215,000,000.00
2023 – 2024: FFCA Charter School Operational Infrastructure ($37,352,914 operational funding + $43M building infrastructure)
Cost: $80,352,914.00
2024: UCP Public Relations Campaign targeting Alberta Teachers (Sept – Dec)
Cost: $2,000,000.00
2024: Alberta Distance Learning Centre (ADLC) Cancellation
Cost: $14,000,000.00
2024 – 2025: Private Schools & Accredited Childcare Funding
Cost: $832,000,000.00
2024 – 2026: Charter & Collegiate School Specialized Program Expansion Infrastructure ($80M upfront + $22M/year for 2025 and 2026)
Cost: $124,000,000.00
2024 – 2026: Overcapacity Modular Classroom Acquisitions (3-year scale-up from $50M to $103M) - they did not build enough schools to keep up with enrollment.
Cost: $103,000,000.00
2025: Edmonton Islamic School Expansion Government Grant
Cost: $60,000,000.00
2025 – 2026: Private Schools Funding Update (Current school year allocation)
Cost: $461,000,000.00
Staff cuts will affect hundreds of families of kids with disabilities, parents say - St. Albert News
Testing for learning loss K-6
It will start in Grade 1 in September and go to Grade 3. Retesting in January, when Kindergarten will join in Kindergarten is not a mandatory program in Alberta
Literacy testing - 10 mins per student, 2 test phonemes and sight words
Numeracy testing - 20- 30 mins per student (three tests administered one-on-one). The new testing regimen means first- and second-grade teachers will spend the whole month of September doing the individual tests mandated by the provincial government. A month of teaching as was lost.
Here is the funding manual - Funding Manual for School Authorities 2023/24 School Year | Open Government
Charter schools receive 100% funding per student, as well as building allocations
Secondary Education. - According to data from Higher Education Strategy Associates, provincial funding cuts to postsecondary education totalled more than half a billion dollars between 2019 and 2023, a staggering 31 percent cut over the last five years. $500,000,000 UCP’s Latest Budget Continues Their War on Students
Budget 2024 Indirectly Cuts Post-Secondary, Leaves Student Talent on the Table – Students’ Union, UCalgary - On the whole, Alberta’s 2024 budget has cut per-capita spending on post-secondary funding by 7.3%
Bill 18 positions the Alberta government as the gatekeeper of federal research funding - University Affairs - Bill 18 positions the Alberta government as the gatekeeper of federal research funding — University Affairs
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2023: LifeWorks Alberta Pension Plan Report (Produced without contact/author details) LifeWorks Report
Cost: $1,800,000.00
2023 – 2024: APP Ad Campaign & Jim Dinning Public Engagement Panel Logistics APP Ad Campaign
Cost: $7,500,000.00
2022 - 2024 Alberta is Calling Campaign/$5,000 tax incentive to those who came to Alberta.
2022: “Alberta is Calling” Talent Attraction Campaign (Phase 1: $2.6M + Phase 2: $10M + Phase 3: $2.5M)
Kenney kicks off campaign to attract skilled workers to Alberta | CBC News Phase 1 - $2.6 million
Alberta is Calling - Campaign Summary - March 2023 Phase 2 - $10 million
3rd phase of ‘Alberta is Calling’ is underway, but is the province moving too fast? | Globalnews.ca. Phase 3 - $2.5 million
Cost: $20,000,000.00
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2026: Some critics and social media discussions project over $100 million when including all related expenses (e.g., voter information campaigns, government advertising, staff time, and indirect costs). However, the official incremental budget allocation highlighted publicly is the $20 million. Estimates are putting at over $50 million.
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2024: UCP Legislative Caucus Funding Increase Allocation
Cost: $1,160,000.00
2024: MLA Constituency Office Budget Inflation Increase ($6,000 base × 89 MLAs)
Cost: $534,000.00
2024: MLA Transition Payout Framework Obligations
Cost: $725,616.00
2025: Government Media Subscriptions Outreach Purchases (Counter Signal, Western Standard, JUNO)
Cost: $116,800.00
2025: Executive Ministry Internal Adjustments Expansion Budget
Cost: $4,600,000.00
2025: Legislative Facility Capital Upgrades (6,000 sq ft Office Carpeting)
Cost: $260,000.00
2025: Executive/Legislative Dining Service Dishware Replacements
Cost: $300,000.00
2025 Caucus increased $1,160,000
Wage increases approximately 2.2% per year
Constituency office increase $6,000 X 89 = $534,000 more per year
Transition costs 1 month’s salary for each year worked up to 6 months’ salary, 6 X $120,936 (2024 wage) = $725,616/MLA
Total: $1,694,000 immediately when passed
UCP committee members vote to increase Alberta MLA pay, government caucus funding
2026 Caucus increase
3.1% Increase in wages - UCP MLAs $180,433
Premier - $2070
Ministers with portfolios and the speaker - $1,761 x 28 = $49,308
Parliamentary secretaries to get a $6000 / $500 month salary - $48,000
Total: $279,811
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Cole Schulz, husband of Rebecca Schulz lobbying for Oil and Gas Co
Lawsuits launched against the feds/ (10)
Alberta suing feds over carbon tax exemption on home heating oil
Alberta taking Ottawa to court over updated federal impact assessment law | CBC News
Alberta taking feds to court for second time over environmental assessment law
Varcoe: ‘Stay in your lane’ — After victory against Bill C-69, Alberta emboldened in feud with feds
September 2025 - $711 million awarded from tobacco company settlement - put in Heritage Trust Fund. It’s not used for people.
This does not include travel outside of Canada by MLAs and their staff.
Golden Cat gifted by the Saudi Government.
Free airfare and accommodation to Saudi Arabia for Danielle Smith and her entourage - she on the night they were debating forcing the teachers back to work, before the Notwithstanding Clause was passed in the legislature.
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