This domain pays two different books, and they must not be confused. Employment Insurance is a contributory programme: Alberta employers and employees pay about C$3,700M a year in premiums and Alberta claimants receive about C$2,754M a year in benefits, so the programme funds itself and runs a surplus once administration is met. The tax-delivered benefits are the opposite. The Child Benefit, the Groceries and Essentials Benefit, the Workers Benefit and the Disability Benefit are paid from general revenue with no dedicated source, and Alberta's share of them is about C$6,045M a year. On independence Canada stops paying them and Alberta must decide whether to replace them. This budget assumes it does, on the same principle applied to pensions and producer insurance: Albertans keep receiving what they receive today, and only the payer changes.
Three of the four figures rest on published Alberta evidence rather than on assumption. The Child Benefit is Alberta's own payments as published by province by the Canada Revenue Agency, C$4,311.643M for the benefit year ending 30 June 2026, indexed at the confirmed 2.0 per cent across the nine months of this fiscal year that fall after 1 July 2026. The Groceries and Essentials Benefit rests on the 10.72 per cent share of the credit it replaced and the Workers Benefit on the 12.23 per cent assessed on 2024 returns. Only the Disability Benefit is derived, because Canada publishes no provincial split and has said it will not create one. Alberta's overall 13.1 per cent share sits above its 12.21 per cent population share because the Child Benefit dominates and Alberta has proportionally more children.
What the domain builds is the machinery, not the policy. Claims intake and adjudication for Employment Insurance, benefit determination and payment operations for the four tax-delivered benefits, the registries behind both, and the employer reporting feed without which no Record of Employment can be filed. The determination of the tax-delivered benefits rides on the assessing system funded at Tax and Revenue and is not built a second time here. Whether any of these benefits should be more or less generous than Canada's is a question for the first legislature; this budget carries continuity and nothing else.
C$ millions, fiscal 2026-27 price base. A one-time cost, a recurring cost and a payment to a member of the public are different things and are never added together.
How the figure is built
C$382.4M a year of added running cost, C$8,799.3M a year of payouts and C$402.4M one-time of which C$100.0M is capital. The payouts are two different books. C$2,754.0M is Employment Insurance, fully met by premiums. C$6,045.3M is the benefits Albertans receive today through the tax system - the Child Benefit, the Groceries and Essentials Benefit, the Workers Benefit and the Disability Benefit - which Canada pays and which stop on independence. They are the largest single addition in this budget. Alberta employers and employees pay roughly C$3,700M a year in EI premiums, so the programme is self-funding and the budget should be read with that offset against it.
The lines
| C$M | ||
|---|---|---|
| Regular benefits | 1,605.6 | Alberta claimants 2024-25, EI Monitoring and Assessment Report 2024-25, Chapter 2, Table 7 |
| Special benefits | 1,148.4 | Maternity, parental, sickness, caregiving. Derived by subtraction: no province-level special-benefits total is published |
| Benefit principal | 2,754.0 | 11.921% of the national C$23,102.1M |
| Administration - payroll | 202.4 | 1,490 permanent posts at a C$135,859 loaded rate |
| Administration - operating | 135.0 | Systems, premises, contact centre, integrity, appeals |
| Employment Insurance administration, a year | 337.4 | 12.25% of the benefit principal |
| Child Benefit | 4,376.3 | Alberta payments of C$4,311.643M for the benefit year to 30 June 2026, published by province by the Canada Revenue Agency, indexed at 2.0% across the nine months of the fiscal year falling after 1 July 2026 |
| Groceries and Essentials Benefit | 881.1 | Published 10.72% share of the credit it replaced, with the 25% uplift that took effect in July 2026 |
| Workers Benefit | 637.8 | 12.23% share assessed on 2024 returns, on the national C$5,215M for 2026 |
| Disability Benefit | 150.1 | Derived at the Groceries and Essentials share, because it is income-tested the same way. Canada publishes no provincial split and has said it will not create one |
| Tax-delivered benefit principal | 6,045.3 | The four benefits Canada pays Albertans through the tax system and stops paying on independence. No dedicated revenue stands against them |
| ADDED RUNNING COST, a year | 382.4 | Employment Insurance administration C$337.4M plus tax-delivered benefit delivery C$45.0M |
| PAYOUTS TO THE PUBLIC, a year | 8,799.3 | Employment Insurance C$2,754.0M, met in full by premiums, and the tax-delivered benefits C$6,045.3M, which have no dedicated source |
| Claims intake and adjudication configuration | 26.0 | About 290,000 claims a year against a variable rule set |
| Claimant registry and payment configuration | 9.0 | About 106,000 concurrent claimants, on the channel shared with Pensions and Public Payments |
| Record of Employment data interface | 11.0 | Employer reporting feed; the largest integration in the domain |
| Biweekly reporting and continued-claim capability | 8.0 | Claimant self-service |
| Appeals, integrity, portals and contact centre technology | 16.0 | Configured workflow |
| Capital | 70.0 | |
| Claimant and claim-history data acquisition and validation | 62.0 | Live claims plus the entitlement history behind them |
| Employer record base establishment | 24.0 | Every Alberta employer must be able to file a Record of Employment from Day 1 |
| Payment and adjudication rehearsal | 22.0 | Parallel running against live federal decisions before Day 1 |
| Contact centre surge | 18.0 | Cutover period |
| Legal authority and regulation | 12.0 | Alberta employment insurance legislation |
| Programme management and assurance | 26.0 | 24-month stand-up |
| Benefit calculation engine and recipient registry | 30.0 | Capital. Four benefits, about 1.3 million recipient families, built on the payment channel already shared with pensions |
| Benefit recipient data acquisition and validation | 30.0 | Entitlement histories for four benefits, without which no first payment can be computed |
| Benefit payment rehearsal and parallel running | 15.0 | Against live federal determinations before Day 1 |
| Contingency at 15% | 41.4 | |
| One-time total | 402.4 | Employment Insurance at C$317.4M plus C$85.0M for the tax-delivered benefits, of which C$30.0M is capital |
The people
| Posts | C$M | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Tax-delivered benefit delivery | 300 | 45 | The determination itself rides on the assessing system already funded at Taxation and Revenue rather than being built twice |
| Recruitment and training | 1,490 | 42 | adjudication requires trained staff |
| Benefit recruitment, training and legal authority | 10 | 300 posts and the Alberta statute behind four benefits | |
| Permanent posts | 1,790 | ||
| Complement carried | 1,790 permanent / 0 temporary |
Comparators
| Figure | ||
|---|---|---|
| Federal EI administration, calendar 2024 | C$2,199M on C$22,919M of benefits, being 9.59% | 2026 Actuarial Report on the EI Premium Rate, expenditure table |
| Federal administration 2025 to 2032 | flat at about C$2,100M while benefits rise 24% | Same table. Administration is a fixed-capacity cost, not a volume cost |
| Alberta pro-rata at 11.921% | C$262.1M | What a share of the federal cost would buy if scale were free. It is not |
What these figures assume
- Administration is funded at 1.29 times the federal pro-rata share. A successor serving 11.9% of the national caseload cannot be run on 11.9% of the national cost, because the federal figure does not move with volume.
- This is transition scaffolding, not a permanent platform (the rule that transition builds only enough to work, not the end system). It funds enough capability to pay the right claimants the right amount, accurately and auditably. Whether Alberta later builds a single payments platform or leaves each function to its own is a decision for the first legislature and is not funded here.
- The payment channel is shared with the pension function at Pensions and Public Payments rather than duplicated.
Disclosed and not recognised
The Canada Social Transfer to Alberta, about C$2,198M a year in 2026-27, allocated on an equal per capita cash basis and growing three per cent a year by legislation. It supports post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, and early childhood development, and is largely unconditional. It is revenue that stops rather than a cost that starts: the programmes it supports are provincial and continue unchanged, so it is not recognised here in any amount. It is accounted for on the revenue side of the budget, where Alberta's own taxation must replace it.
How this connects to other domains
Employment Insurance premiums of about C$3,700M a year are collected at Taxation and Revenue and are shown against this domain as an offset. Part II employment supports and the Labour Market Development Agreement are a separate instrument and are not costed here. The payment channel is shared with the pension function at Pensions and Public Payments.
Sources
- ESDC, Employment Insurance benefits paid to Alberta claimants, 2024-25.
- OSFI, 2026 Actuarial Report on the Employment Insurance Premium Rate: expenditure table and EI Operating Account projections.
- Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Report 8, The Benefits Delivery Modernization Programme (2023); Budget 2024.
- Alberta Transition Council technical annex, workforce table for this domain.
