Alberta Premier Jim Prentice has warned Albertans that the current fiscal year’s projected surplus has turned into at least a $500 million deficit and that next year’s budget will sink deeper into red-ink territory.
alberta budget
January 24, 2015
9:00AM
After governments abandon fiscal prudence, they will soon search for any and all ways to tax people more. This is the reality playing out in Alberta where Premier Jim Prentice has floated multiple tax increase trial balloons.
January 17, 2015
10:00AM
With oil prices plunging and provincial resource revenues expected to drop, Alberta’s red ink will rise. In response, Premier Jim Prentice has floated the notion of a provincial sales tax and/or hikes in other taxes.
December 1, 2014
9:00AM
Forty-one billion dollars. That’s the extra amount, over and above what was needed to keep pace with population growth and inflation between 2006 and 2013, this to fund Alberta government program spending in those years.
November 28, 2014
9:00AM
Alberta Premier Jim Prentice is in the midst of formulating his first budget and the fiscal path of the province while watching oil prices continue to decline.
March 12, 2014
3:00AM
If you listen to Alberta Finance Minister Doug Horner, the province's public finances are under control. The government's budget imposes no new taxes, spending growth has been moderated, and Alberta is running an operational budget surplus after successive years of budgetary deficits.
March 8, 2014
2:00AM
When apologists for the provincial government's new borrowing binge defend it on the grounds that private sector companies borrow money for capital expenses so why not have the Alberta government do the same? their defence invariably contains a significant and faulty assumption: that political behaviour is the same as that of private companies.
February 22, 2014
2:00AM
As Albertans approach another provincial budget, the usual fables about Alberta's finances often crop up. To inoculate ourselves in advance, let's ponder two myths.
Myth Number One: Alberta's wealth is a result of luck.
This tall tale assumes that the existence of natural resources automatically results in wealth creation, jobs, and a higher standard of living. That's hardly the case. Plenty of jurisdictions have little in the way of natural resources but prosper, while others have plentiful natural resources yet flounder.
March 9, 2013
2:00AM
For those who dont normally read budget documents, heres what the Alberta government just did in its 2013 budget: they abandoned the sensible budget and financial framework that former Progressive Conservative Finance Minister Jim Dinning introduced in 1993.
February 21, 2013
2:00AM
The red-ink budgets that have engulfed Alberta since the last recessionAlbertas Finance Minister Doug Horner just announced this years deficit could hit $4-billion are not accidental. Such red ink is not just the result of weaker resource revenues, as Alberta Premier Alison Redford regularly claims.