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Following shortly after Finance Minister Toews’ release of the 2020-21 financial provincial accounts, on 5 July Energy Minister Sonya Savage seemed delighted to announce “a better deal on the Sturgeon Refinery… reducing risk and saving an estimated $2 billion.”  While the long-suffering Finance Minister had to offer a positive spin on a falling $17-billion deficit, Savage described the $2 billion “optimization” of the contract. Background As Abpolecon.ca reported last November, the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission (APMC) was the government agent tasked with achieving the best deal for taxpayers when the saga of the Northwest or Sturgeon Refinery. In last year’s financial accounts, a provision against the government’s economic interest in the refinery was taken of approximately $2-bi...

Updated 18 May 2021 On 25 March 2021 Canada’s Supreme Court issued arguably its most crucial judgment in a decade. The case arose from three appeals from the high courts of Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan respecting the constitutionality of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act  (GGPPA). Challenges of the GGPPA were made to the legislation by the Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan government in their various jurisdictions. In Ontario and Saskatchewan the courts of appeal sided with the federal government while the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled against the constitutionality of the GGPPA. While the jurisprudence within the case will be cited for generations, it is difficult at this stage to assess the long-term consequences on the future balance of the Canadian federation. The winners we...

Updated 16 December 2020 The final instalment in the Jim Dinning- Lou Hyndman memo prepared  as background for a forthcoming budget- presumably 1980-81. The first part of these excerpts compare spending of the 50th anniversary celebration of Alberta's entry into confederation as a province with spending proposed for the 1980 - 75th celebrations. in addition, these excerpts from budgets in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970 reflect perennial concerns of provincial treasurers: the constant spending pressures and the use of non-renewable resource revenues to fund the appetite for education, municipal, highways, and health services.  These budgets including the final budget of the Social Credit government are full of admonishments towards spending beyond our means and the perils of debt and Canada's ...

Updated 16 January 2020 From the Provincial Archives of Alberta and the Hyndman papers comes an undated memorandum from Jim Dinning to Lou Hyndman giving a history of previous budgets.  The tone seems archaic in this elite white male system, These excerpts underline the great optimism which has been incorporated into the psyche of most Albertans.  An unbounded future- ever expansionary- no room for pessimists and little time for opposition members.  The tone is also conversational in these first segments indicating that few in the population knew about or cared about this arcane art of provincial budgeting.  FROM:            Jim Dinning                         Executive Assistant TO:                  Hon. Lou Hyndman                         Provincial Treasurer REVIEW OF PREVIOUS BUDGETS...

Updated 15 October 2020 with correction to Chart 24 in Slide presentation On Thursday 1 October, I gave the following Power Point presentation entitled "Alberta’s Halting Economic Recovery-  Implications for Alberta’s Public Finances" to a local group of Rotarians. It was a rather sobering and depressing presentation.   The presentation also gave me an opportunity to plug the edited collection A Sales Tax for Alberta: Why and How to published next year by Athabasca University Press.  In my view the present government is doing what a succession of provincial governments have done for decades: accept the myth that Alberta is defined solely by its economy and the economy IS  the exploration, mining, development and production of fossil fuels.  This mindset has clouded the decision-making o...