How Alberta stacks up when it comes to helping people cope with inflation

Inflation has hit Albertans hard — food bank use is rising, seniors are accruing more debt, and affordable rentals are in scarce supply. 

That's spurred the rollout of measures meant to help Albertans cope with high prices — including rebates on power and electricity bills, and hitting pause on the collection of the provincial fuel tax (although that will be partially reinstated this week). 

Every government has tried to provide support, and they've done it in different ways depending on their capacity to help, said Trevor Tombe, a professor of economics at the University of Calgary. 

"I think the priority was to get support out quickly, and so Alberta did do that," he said. 

But Alberta's programs and others, like top-ups to the Canada Housing Benefit programs or cheques for citizens in Saskatchewan and Quebec, have also come under scrutiny. In some cases, there are concerns about how they could aggravate the problem.

Moshe Lander, an economics professor with Concordia University in Edmonton, said most relief programs will fuel inflation (and higher prices) in the long-term. 

But in that vein, Lander feels the Alberta government is among the provinces taking the best approach — there aren't too many programs and some are already existing measures. 

In his opinion, when it comes to cooling inflation, less is more.

Earlier this year, the province announced it would introduce a rebate program meant to ease the sting of high energy prices. 

Starting Oct. 1, and until the end of March, any time the monthly natural gas default rate exceeds $6.50 per gigajoule, a rebate will be issued to cover those costs. 

However, since October's highest monthly default natural gas rate will be $5.632 per gigajoule, the program won't be activated before November. 

This is in addition to a six-month, $50-per-month electricity rebate (for a total of $300).

Other provinces have also tried to stem the pain of energy inflation.

For example, this fall, the Newfoundland and Labrador government issued a one-time payment to supplement the cost of furnace oil used for home heating.