Budget

Green shoots- still clouds on horizon Treasury Board President and Finance Minister, Joe Ceci released the Government of Alberta's Third Quarter Fiscal Update and Economic Statement on Thursday 23 February 2017. Overall the fiscal picture has not changed very much over the past three months. The 2017-18 budget is expected to be in March and will likely reflect some tweaks to the fiscal 2017 numbers published today. There is definitely some more optimism in Alberta today as oil prices have stabilized, pipeline approvals announced, and Fort McMurray rebuilds. Possibly the worst is behind the economy but there is little reason to be complacent. Today Mr. Ceci announced the passage of an Order in Council authorizing the borrowing of up to $14 billion. He immediately cautioned that this appro...

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...

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...

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...