u/You_are_the_Castle

Previously, no us resident or business could donate to political parties. The UCP changed that.

Corporate and union contributions to Alberta political parties and candidates is now allowed, as long as you have a registered business in the province.

Not looking for a UCP vs NDP fight. I’m genuinely curious what could actually move voters.

Forget personalities and party loyalty for a minute. If Nenshi announced one major policy tomorrow that would noticeably improve your life, what would it have to be?

Lower home or car insurance? Better access to healthcare? Smaller classrooms and better funded schools? Lower utility bills? Something completely different?

And if your answer is “nothing,” what is the biggest thing stopping you from considering the NDP?

I think that discussion is more interesting than another thread about which party people already hate

The AB government recently changed the rules around eligibility for student loans with little warning and announcement. Total incomes of parents are now considered for dependent students.

For me, this is quite bad because my parents aren't able to provide tuition support. I know a lot of people in similar situations where their parents (validly imo) didn't anticipate that they would need to help because of how reliable student loans have been, and can't just bring up $12k on a whim to help out even if they wanted to.

For reference, this was previously only used for assessing the need for grants (parental/spousal income used to be an optional section).

It's causing some friends to consider taking leaves of absence for the upcoming year, or seriously consider dropping out. It would have been great if there were more announcements, or even notices on the student loan application that this would be the case to allow us to plan better. It's hard enough to plan 2 months in advance as a student when you suddenly realize student loans won't help you out, but its even worse when the announcement is so quiet that people are realizing it when they get their response in the days before school starts.

While I do know that this used to be the policy pre 2012, it's really hard to plan for this when they announce and deploy this policy with little warning (I think they quietly announced it a couple months ago).

Federal loans depend on eligibility that the provincial government determines, so that won't help us either.

I just feel really lost and wish they'd announced this at least a year in advance. Thanks for listening to my mix of an announcement/rant. Sorry if the flair is wrong, I don't know if it falls more into politics or a discussion.