Budget Archives - AB Pol Econ

Mentzelopoulos: AHS, Government defence and plaintiff’s reply

2Apr

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Agencies, Budget, Health, Opinion/Research, Politics

Mentzelopoulos: AHS, Government defence and plaintiff’s reply

Note: this post should be read in conjunction with "Smith, LaGrange, Alberta public service face grave test" which examined the Statement of Claim brought by the former President and CEO of Alberta Health Services, Athana Mentzelopoulos against AHS, Adriana LaGrange and the Government of Alberta. In addition a Chronology of Events provides a detailed timeline based on the statements filed at the Court of King's Bench. No allegations have been proven in Court. The full Statement of Claim (SOC) is found below. Government of Alberta (GOA), Adriana LaGrange Statement of Defence (filed 18 March) The statement of defence (SOD) may be found below. Health Minister LaGrange and the Government of Alberta are represented by Bennett Jones LLP (Munaf Mohamed KC). The GOA defence r...

3Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Capital Spending, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Opinion/Research, Politics

Alberta Budget 2025- deficits return

On 27 February Treasury Board President and Minister of Finance Nate Horner tabled the budget for the fiscal year 2025-26 and as required by law the budget sets out targets for fiscal years 2026-27 and 2027-28. I was privileged to be the guest of NDP MLA for Edmonton-Goldbar, Marlin Schmidt. For over 40-years I have been able to attend budget addresses, work on about 10 budgets while at the Treasury department, and attend half a dozen budget lock-ups while at ATB Financial and the Institute for Public Economics. I have watched the performance of many finance ministers under 9 premiers (excluding the caretaker David Hancock). I note that no finance minister over these 40-years has ever become premier. Notable were Jim Dinning, Doug Horner, Ted Morton, and Travis Toews’ challenges for t...

23Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

ATB, Budget, Capital Spending, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Opinion/Research, Politics

Budget 2025- Matters to watch for

The budget on 27 February is watched very closely by the usual suspects which include think tanks, credit rating agencies, government lobbyists, and provincial agencies (e,g, Alberta Health Services), the education, health care sector and post secondary institutions). Oil prices As is customary the number that will be focused on is the assumption for bitumen prices and the value of the Canadian dollar. Analysts will also look at the forecast for the fiscal year ending at the end of March. A key consideration in the broader economic forecast is whether U.S. trade policy will cause a recession in this country and how Alberta’s fossil fuel exports will fare. Even with the Trans Mountain extension, most Alberta oil and natural gas flows to the United States. We can expect e...

Smith, LaGrange, Alberta public service face grave test

17Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Agencies, Budget, Government Finances, Health, Opinion/Research, Politics

Smith, LaGrange, Alberta public service face grave test

Updated 18 February 2025 On 5 February 2025, Carrie Tait of the Globe and Mail broke the story of the dismissal of Athana Mentzelopoulos who was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Alberta Health Services (AHS). Since that date Ms. Mentzelapoulous has entered a statement of claim at the Court of King's Bench seeking: a. Judgment for pay in lieu of notice in the amount of $583,443.00, less applicable income tax; b. Judgment for bad faith, aggravated, and/or punitive damages, in the amount of $1,116,557.00; c. In the alternative, judgment for damages for breach of contract in the sum currently estimated at $1,700,000.00, less applicable income tax, being the balance of the compensation owed under the Employment Agreement, or such further and other amount as this Honourable Cou...

30May

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Agencies, Budget, Credit Ratings, Economic Data, Environment, Government Finances, Opinion/Research, Politics

Alberta’s Public Accounts Committee- Thoughts on Accountability and Public Service Neutrality

The purpose of this post is to the delve into the accountability aspects of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in Alberta through the lens of one meeting which took place on 7 May 2024. The transcript of the meeting can be found here and the video proceedings here. Readers may wish to skip over the detail about the meeting to read the conclusions at the foot of this essay. I attended this meeting because a colleague and I provided briefing material for Marlin Schmidt, NDP MLA for Edmonton Goldbar about the Auditor General’s report on Key Audit Matters. This post serves as a companion piece to my interview with Professor Jared Wesley on the state of democracy in Alberta. As discussed below, the Public Accounts Committee serves as one of the principal structures of holding governm...

A Sales Tax for Alberta- Presentation to the Probus Club of Central Edmonton

14Apr

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Credit Ratings, Energy, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Opinion/Research, Politics

A Sales Tax for Alberta- Presentation to the Probus Club of Central Edmonton

My presentation to Probus members on 20 February 2024 reiterated the main themes in A Sales Tax for Alberta- Why and How published by Athabasca University Press in 2022. The presentation is found below. Much of the discussion acknowledged the why for a retail sales tax but most of the questions and comments focused on the how, The major difficulty is political culture which is very hostile to taxes than in the rest of the country. Several members who had worked within the Alberta public sector argued that waste in governments should discourage taxpayers from further "feeding the beast." It is a Catch 22- to make the political culture less fearful of paying taxes, government needs to become more efficient. To become more efficient typically means to hire private sector managemen...

17Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Capital Spending, Credit Ratings, Education, Government Finances, Politics

Budget 2024- 13th Post-mortem- Panelists’ presentations

On Monday, 11 March I moderated a panel of experts who provided different perspectives on Alberta's 2024 budget tabled by the Honourable Nate Horner on Thursday, 29 February 2024. Our panelists included: Shauna Feth, the CEO of the Alberta Chambers of Commerce gave her Association's views on the Budget. See PDF of slides below. The ACA's perspective (slides 10-15) is generally approving of the budget which supports business competitiveness, growing trade, building healthy communities, and improving government accountability. Two areas of concern regarding competitiveness were Land Titles Office fees increasing which will effect commercial real estate, and the insurance premium tax. The Chamber was pleased with increased investment in the First Nations Development Fund and Alberta...

26Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Capital Spending, Credit Ratings, Energy, Environment, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Opinion/Research

Kaplan-Ten major reasons why Alberta’s new fiscal framework won’t bring a long-term sustainability focus to fiscal planning.

In this critical and timely essay- a few days before the province's 2024 Budget is tabled, fiscal planning expert Lennie Kaplan provides an in-depth analysis of problems embedded in the Smith government's Sustainable Fiscal Planning and Reporting Act (SFPRA). Kaplan argues the SFPRA must be fully re-opened to meet Premier Smith’s commitment to long-term fiscal planning. This analysis reveals there is a great deal of flexibility in the government's framework in spite of the impression that the government has little fiscal flexibility to spend. In her televised address on February 21, 2024, Premier Smith promised to bring a long-term fiscal sustainability focus to Alberta fiscal planning, including building up the assets of the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund (AHSTF) and paying d...

18Sep

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Agencies, Budget, Credit Ratings, Investment, Politics

2023-24 First Quarter Fiscal Update

The First Quarter Fiscal Update released on 31 August 2023 by Treasury Board President and Finance Minister Nate Horner showed marginal change in the budgetary surplus estimated last February. This analysis looks through these numbers to underlying trends. With oil prices now over $90, there is some cause for optimism. So far this year WTI oil prices have averaged about $76.50 U.S./barrel which is about $2.50 U.S. lower than the budget estimate. Much will depend on whether western economies achieve a “soft landing” avoiding a deep recession with falling oil demand. On 14 September DBRS Morningstar raised Alberta’s credit rating a notch to AA (see discussion below). Is spending out of control? No On page 4 in the Fiscal Plan Summary table, total expenditure was $64.5 billion in 2022-23...

2Aug

By Bob AscahNo Comments

ATB, Budget, Credit Ratings, Energy, Environment, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Loan Losses, Politics

The Big Two mandates….

Over the past three weeks, Premier Smith has been busy issuing “mandate letters” to her cabinet colleagues. These mandate letters are ministers’ marching orders and are an excellent guide of future legislative and regulatory initiatives by the newly minted Smith government. Given the importance of five ministries which represent the most important conduits of public spending (Health and Education) and strategic public policy and intergovernmental relations (Energy and Minerals, Environment and Protected Areas, and Treasury Board and Finance), this post, and a succeeding post, looks at the central elements of Smith’s agenda. This post looks examines what I call the Big Two Mandates- Energy and Treasury Board and Finance. Energy and Minerals Smith’s letter to Jean, begins, excluding the b...