Sunday, March 30

Budget

Not a great start to Budget 2017
Budget

Not a great start to Budget 2017

Opinion On 9 January 2017 at 11:23 a.m. I received an email from the Government of Alberta with a press release entitled "Albertans asked for input into Budget 2017"  [News Release].  Puzzled by the contradiction between the desirability of open public consultation on matters of great public interest and these closed door meetings, I hopefully contacted Mike Brown, the Press Secretary for Treasury Board President Joe Ceci, at 12:12 p.m.to learn where the Edmonton event was to be held.  As veteran political columnist, Graham Thomson, reported in today's Edmonton Journal (NDP's public consultations look more like public relations, 10 January 2017)  he was able to get a response from Brown, albeit unsatisfactorily, on the secret location of the meeting. At the time of writing (6:30 p.m. 11 J...
Budget

Budget 2017 signals- Opinion and Questions

The content of the article from the Edmonton Journal of 19 September  2016 is likely to be repeated many times over the coming months before next Spring's 2017 budget. The article quotes the Health Minister and Deputy Premier speaking with addictions' treatment officers. Her choice of words is most interesting: "I have a deficit and the price of oil is a fraction of what we're seeing it at."  The use of "I" suggests that senior cabinet members may now recognize that having been in office for nearly 18 months, they will be held accountable for deficits and not the former Progressive Conservative government. They now have to cope with a fiscal reality that perhaps they (and their advisers) hoped would not persist. As the Minister expressed to this audience, she would "like to provide far ...
Weak Land Tenure Sales Persist
Budget, Energy

Weak Land Tenure Sales Persist

Originally posted 6 September 2016 Sales of oil sands leases since 1 April, the start of the Province`s fiscal year have been weak. As the table below illustrates,  except for the June sale, interest has been weak. Land sales remain important as a leading indicator of future energy investment. Public Sales Results- Oilsands Date Bonus Hectares $/HA 11-May 61,690.63 5,169.89 11.93 25-May 3,717.12 1,024.00 3.63 22-Jun 11,170,378.05 28,039.00 398.39 06-Jul 150,192.64 1,280.00 117.34 03-Aug 170,923.52 3,264.00 52.37 Totals 11,556,901.96 38,776.89 298.0358136 The charts following are taken from the Department of Energy`s webpage disclosing its Petroleum and Natural Gas Sales Statistics. The historical data prov...
Fiscal Policy
Budget

Fiscal Policy

The Voldemort of Alberta Politics- a sales tax No one likes to pay tax, least of all residents of Alberta. The Progressive Conservative Government of Alberta had for years been successful in stifling debate on the need for alternative sources of revenue to offset declines in non-renewable resource revenue. In fact, all parties in Alberta are equally silent on this question. The  Conference Board of Canada's Q32016Outlook on Alberta weighed into the sales tax fray in their June briefing on Alberta's fiscal situation. Their analysis, part of the Conference Board's periodic review of provincial government finances, offered a sober outlook for the province. The Board's analysts Daniel Fields and Alicia Macdonald, forecast Alberta's economy to come out of back to back negative annual growth r...
Budget 2016
Budget

Budget 2016

Prelude to First Quarter Fiscal Update More dreary news surfaced on 11 August when July's drilling rights sales were announced by the province's energy department. The CBC post based on Dan Healing's article (link below) showed how volatile this source of revenue has been for the Alberta government. In 2011 when oil and gas prices were high and the Montney and Duvernay formations were "discovered", $3.5 billion poured into the province's coffers versus perhaps $125 million this fiscal year. Data on the number of land sales per year. the number of parcels sold, the value of the sales and the average price per hectare is available at Alberta energy land sales history. Institute for Public Economics' Post Mortem on Provincial Budget April 2016 As reported in the Edmonton Journal on Fr...