Alberta Economy: Why 'better than most' isn't good enough

[CALGARY, AB] — Alberta is, by one measure, one of the better-performing provinces in Canada right now. By almost every other measure, that's a deeply low bar.

The "Relatively" Is Doing All The Work

New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds the UCP government under Premier Danielle Smith outperforming most other provincial governments on resident satisfaction. But the numbers themselves are brutal: 67% of Albertans say Smith's government is doing a poor job handling health care. 66% say the same about cost of living. Those are majority-level failure grades on the two issues Albertans care about most.

The flip side? About 28-29% think the government is handling those issues well — which, grim as it sounds, is actually higher than what most Canadians give their own provincial governments. That's where the "better than average" story begins and ends.

Half the province — 52% — believes Alberta is on the wrong track. Only 38% say right direction. That still places Alberta third in the country on optimism, behind Saskatchewan and Manitoba (both at 45%). The bronze medal of provincial malaise.

The Debt Numbers Are the Real Story

The survey, conducted online March 11-17, 2026, among 434 Alberta residents, reveals a financial picture that goes well beyond political approval ratings.

40% of Albertans say they are financially worse off than a year ago. Another 41% say they're treading water. That's four out of five Albertans either sliding backward or holding still. Only 21% expect to be better off next year; 29% expect things to get worse.

And the war in Iran, according to the Angus Reid Institute, is piling onto an already stubborn cost-of-living crisis that no provincial government has cracked.

But Alberta's specific vulnerability is debt. 27% of Albertans describe their current debt levels as "a major source of stress" — not a background hum of anxiety, a major source. Albertans carry more personal non-mortgage debt than the average Canadian. And per Equifax data cited in the report, Alberta holds the highest household delinquency rate in the country. Slightly more Albertans — 26% — fall into the Angus Reid Financial Pressure Index's "high pressure" category than the national average.

What This Means Beyond the Poll Numbers

There's a gap here worth sitting with. Smith's government is, in relative terms, less unpopular than its counterparts across Canada. That's a real thing. But "less unpopular" doesn't pay a car loan or fix an ER wait time. And for working Calgarians carrying above-average debt loads into a globally unsettled economy, the provincial scorecard ranking third-out-of-ten doesn't move the needle on the monthly budget.

The Angus Reid survey carries a margin of error of +/- 5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 — standard for a sample of 434 respondents.

The question isn't whether Alberta is doing better than New Brunswick. It's whether "better than most" is good enough when 81% of your residents are either falling behind or standing still.