Close to 800,000 have applied for $100 rebate, payments coming: Alberta’s Smith

EDMONTON — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says close to 800,000 people have applied for her government’s $100 energy rebate.

Smith told reporters Thursday she thinks the uptake so far is higher than it was the last time Alberta rolled out an affordability payment program in 2023. In that case, the province offered parents and seniors $100 per month, and per child, for up to six months if household income was below $180,000.

Smith’s new rebate program is for Albertans with a household income under $225,000, and applications opened on July 2. The government has estimated that 3.4 million people are eligible.

Smith said she thinks the first payments will start landing in Albertans’ bank accounts in the next few days.

A spokesperson for Finance Minister Jason Nixon said later Thursday that the province has processed nearly 450,000 payments so far.

Smith also said the government is looking at ways to streamline the application process after some reported having issues with the online portal, which will close at the end of September.

“There were some issues around validation because finance wanted to make sure that we had additional fraud protection measures on there,” Smith said.

“Some of it made it difficult for some people to access it, so we’re looking at some ways to be able to streamline that to make it easier for us to validate income without creating additional barriers.”

A spokesperson for Technology Minister Nate Glubish said about 35,000 applications were flagged in the first week for being potentially fraudulent.

Smith said it’s too soon to say whether the affordability payments will continue or if the government will revert to its previous relief program that cut gas taxes at the pump when oil prices were high, but she said the rebate system provides more direct help.

“The variation at gas stations can be as much as 26 cents, and so we wanted to make sure people knew that they were getting the rebate on the dollars that they’d spent,” she said.

“We’ll make a decision once we get through … this next quarter.”

Opposition NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi criticized Smith’s rebate program Thursday, saying it provided little cash for a lot of work applying for it.

“A one-time 100 bucks that you have to spend an hour (applying for) and get internet access and give all your banking information over is not the answer,” Nenshi said.

He added that the NDP, if in charge, would go back to cutting the gas tax when prices are high. Nenshi argued it would go further when it comes to affordability because it would also reduce costs beyond the price at the pumps, such as operating municipal services.

The premier made her comments at a pancake breakfast in Edmonton hosted by the government on the legislature grounds.

While most waited in line to get a pancake flipped by the premier, take a picture, or even get Smith’s autograph, a few used the opportunity to confront her about her government’s coal mining and data centre policies, as well her stance on separatism.

Security guards dragged one woman out of line and away from the legislature grounds after she argued with Smith about her government’s efforts to have major artificial intelligence data centres built in the province.

Last week Smith and tech giant Meta announced the company was building its first data centre campus in Canada just north of Edmonton. The $13-billion project is set to be one of Meta’s biggest data centres and be powered by a major natural gas-fired power plant.

The woman accused Smith of “selling out” Albertans in favour of artificial intelligence, to which the premier replied by asking whether the woman used Meta’s major social media platforms, Facebook or Instagram.

As security was intervening, the woman swore off Smith’s “fascist pancakes.”

Smith was surrounded by at least four or five security guards while she kept dishing out flapjacks.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 16, 2026.

Jack Farrell, The Canadian Press