This past spring, the UCP government released their 2021–2022 budget. In it, they projected gaming and lottery revenue of nearly $1.25 billion.
They also outlined how they planned to spend that money. So I thought I’d go through it all.
More than a third of it is allocated to the health ministry. Specifically, they plan to spend $527.2 million on continuing care.
The next largest chunk would go to the education ministry, which would get $300 million. Half it will go to operations, and the other half to transportation.
The Indigenous relations ministry plans to spend $123 million on the First Nations Development Fund and $200,000 on First Nations and Métis relations.
In fourth place is the culture ministry, with a combined projected spend of $113.8 million in the following areas:
| Alberta Foundation for Arts | $25.6 million |
| Community Initiatives Program | $22.1 million |
| Alberta Media Fund | $19.8 million |
| Community Facility Enhancement Program | $18.5 million |
| Sport, physical activity, and recreation | $14.6 million |
| Major Fairs Program | $6.8 million |
| Glenbow Museum | $2.3 million |
| Provincial heritage organisations | $1.7 million |
| Heritage Preservation Partnership | $1.5 million |
| Other | $1 million |
Just over $70 million will end up with the Community and Social Services ministry: $52 million for family and community support services, $12 million for FASD initiatives, and $6.5 million for family and community safety.
The province plans to spend $40 million of the gaming revenue on highway maintenance
The finance ministry hopes to inject $38.8 million back into gaming, with $37.2 million going to the horse racing and breeding renewal programme and the rest for gaming research.
The second lowest amount will be just shy of $20 million for Agriculture and Forestry, $11.5 million to agricultural societies and exhibitions and $8.5 for agricultural service boards.
Finally, in last place, the environment and parks ministry has allocated $10 million toward operations and $500,000 to resource management.
5 replies on “UCP to use $800M in gambling money to fund health & education”
Should amount of projected revenue in 1sr paragraph be $1.25 billion, not million?
You’re right! I forget that the figures on that page were in thousands of dollars. Thanks for the catch!
Just curious. Is that $800 million going to pay for private Healthcare
As indicated in the article, $527.2 million of that $800 million will be spent on continuing care. It’s possible that some of that continuing care is provided by private corporations.
Let the good times roll! Gambling is the new oil and gas.
I can’t wait to see what our MLA for Lacombe-Ponoka/Minister of Culture has in store for us. Rodeo is Alberta’s district culture, and Alberta’s culture is distinctly rodeo, is it not? And yet rodeo is not mentioned once on this list. Never mind. I’m sure that rodeo can be worked into each and all of these categories. Yahoo! By the way, is our Minister of Culture, responsible for la Francophonie, also brushing up on his high school French this summer?
Also, syphilis is not specifically mentioned here, but isn’t it the top health priority in Alberta? Syphilis is the new Covid, or so I heard.
Good times, not a long time. That’s Alberta in a nutshell: gambling, rodeo and syphilis.