program spending

2:48PM
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If the first step towards remedying a problem is admitting that you have one, Alberta is a long way away from fixing its budget woes.


3:37PM
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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.


9:00AM
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The Ontario government has never made a secret of its desire to have the federal government help fund Ontario’s provincial budget. It even started its own think-tank with $5 million in 2009, which regularly publishes reports that call on the federal government to rescue Ontario’s provincial finances.


9:00AM
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Provincial cries for more federal money are as old as Confederation, and rarely have any substance to them.


6:00AM
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In a recent column in the Edmonton Journal, a local historian mused that modern governments have become too enamoured with “the unfettered market of purely economic conservatism.” He then equated higher taxes and more government spending with compassion.


7:00AM
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As expected, the 2015 federal budget had the general feel of an election budget, with a small surplus and a smattering of initiatives to satisfy various voting groups.


6:00AM
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In a year when two heavyweight provinces, Ontario and Alberta, which together constitute 55 per cent of Canada’s GDP, are running substantial deficits, there are three ways to reduce the red ink.


7:00AM
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With tumbling oil prices and resource revenues, Premier Jim Prentice had a choice when he delivered Alberta’s 2015 budget. He could emulate former premier Don Getty and raise taxes or follow the Ralph Klein playbook and reduce spending.


6:00AM
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Premier Jim Prentice dropped hints for months that the 2015 provincial budget was a once-in-a-generation chance to “fix” Alberta’s finances.