A popular narrative holds that the recent fall in oil prices is chiefly responsible for the Alberta's current deficit. The evidence does not support this view.
alberta budget
On Tuesday, the Alberta government will release a budget with a projected deficit of at least $5.9 billion this year, the seventh deficit in eight years. And just the other day, the government announced the budget won’t be balanced until 2019/20.
Alberta’s budget, to be unveiled on Oct. 27, will contain the province’s seventh deficit in the last eight years, most recently projected at $5.9 billion.
The new Alberta government has delayed introducing a budget until the fall, so MLAs will have plenty of time to think about how they’ll collect and spend Albertans’ money.
Premier Jim Prentice dropped hints for months that the 2015 provincial budget was a once-in-a-generation chance to “fix” Alberta’s finances.
In Alberta, to cushion the blow from falling revenues, some claim higher taxes will balance the books. How soon we forget. Alberta tried that in the late 1980s. It didn’t work.
The severity of Alberta’s fiscal problems hit home with many Albertans this week as Premier Prentice announced that the upcoming provincial budget will include an across-the-board five per cent spending cut.
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.
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.