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Alberta's economic recovery plan being released right now. Finance Minister Toews says the energy sector was improving before the whole pandemic thing, as was ag. #ableg
But any improvements coming to the AB economy? Well, covid-19 changed all of that, Toews says. The impact of that and the oil price crash has really hurt the province, he says. #ableg
300,000 Albertans have lost their job, Toews says - that's the equivalent of all the jobs created over the last decade - and the unemployment rate is close to 20% today. #ableg
Plan includes $10b of infrastructure spending over the next year, including $500m+ of immediate summertime infra builds #ableg
Kenney up now. We've gone from a double-wammy to triple-threat here in Alberta: The pandemic, the oil crash, the global economic contraction #ableg
Kenney quotes a country music song (I'm sorry I missed which one, but something about tough people come through tough times) #ableg
"Albertans have risen to the challenge of the pandemic" Kenney says. Now we need to extend our toughness to the economic recovery. We are facing a real effective unemployment rate of 25%, he says. #ableg
Kenney calls this plan something that will help today "and provide hope for the future." He thanks the economic recovery council (Mintz, Harper etc) for their help with it. #ableg
Kenney says we *are* a diversified economy now... way more than 10 years ago. Like tech, he says, and agriculture (I'll add here the UCP cut a bunch of innovation and tech tax credits last year) #ableg
Kenney says the $10b in infra "the largest in Alberta's history" is 40% more than originally budgeted, and will include pipelines, gas lines, schools, hospitals, long-term care homes, drug treatment centres, highways (reckons it'll create 10,000 jobs) #ableg
The #ableg government is also going to "help Albertans first" by asking the feds to cut most of the Temporary Foreign Worker visa classifications for Alberta, and reduce the # of provincial nominee acceptances this year #cdnpoli
Kenney says Toews will table a "frank update" on Alberta's economic state later this summer #ableg
Kenney asked about visas. He says his gvt will ask Ottawa not to process applications for temp foreign workers across a range of categories. That's b/c AB has a high level of unemployment and he can't justify employers bringing in workers #ableg #cdnpoli
Kenney says his government will continue to move forward with the immigration changes the UCP proposed in its election platform (it was like four pages long, I think). That includes tech visas and start-ups for peeps with the relevant skills #ableg
Kenney/Toews asked how this $10b will help downtown offices, and what does this do to AB's finances? Kenney says the construction will create 50K jobs this year and create secondary jobs as well #ableg
"We're not just talking the talk, we're walking the walk" when it comes to lower taxes, Kenney says, regarding immediate job creation tax cut. Also a new investment promotion agency called Invest Alberta corporation, Kenney says he'll send them to Bay Street #ableg #cdnpoli
Kenney says he's going to go after fintech investors and companies, by telling them they don't have to fight Toronto traffic and pay Ontario-level taxes and should just come here to Alberta. Also wants to make the case companies are "irresponsible" if they don't #ableg #cdnpoli
There's good debt and bad debt, Toews says, and infrastructure spending is a good thing. This is like borrowing on a house or real property. #ableg
Kenney talks about a new Innovation Employment Grant targeted to smaller companies and encouraging technology and investment in Alberta. The tech sector had a lot of concerns after the UCP cancelled a bunch of innovation-focused tax credits, btw #ableg
Toews says the cost of this plan today is $2b, but says it's all investments. The Innovation Employment Grant, for example, will cost $60m or so. #ableg
Toews says this won't "Hit the fisc"...? I think? That sounds catchy, even though I have absolutely no idea what it means 
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Q: Yo who's even investing right now? There's a global fiscal crisis? A: Lots of people! Kenney names a company that recently moved from Idaho to Alberta. They make trailers. #ableg
"Covid is a huge crisis" says Kenney (crikey you can't argue with that
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