FIF 637 - Everything You Need to Know About Alberta Politics

Course Description

Alberta politics is strange. Or is it? We’ve only changed provincial governments four times since becoming a province in 1905, we’ve been the birthplace of many parties (like Social Credit) and our voting habits don’t often seem to have much of a relationship to what’s going on in the rest of the country. The course will cover everything you need to know to easily follow provincial politics in Alberta. What powers do provincial governments actually have? What is the relationship between Alberta's government, municipalities and the federal government? Why do Albertans vote the way they do? Other topics include, provincial sales tax, Daylight Saving Time, equalization, and energy policy.

Course Details

Course Learning Outcomes

By completion of this course, successful students will be able to:

• Identify the most important issues in Alberta provincial politics, some historical and more background in nature, some more topical.
• Discuss Alberta provincial politics.

Paul Fairie has been a sessional instructor at the University of Calgary in political science since 2010. Paul is also a data scientist at Centrality Data Science in Calgary, and a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail where he tries to make political science research accessible to the general public.