By Curtis Galbraith/EverythingGP

Provincial Budget

Budget speech includes news of a surplus plus swipes at the federal Liberals and provincial NDP

Feb 28, 2023 | 5:24 PM

Finance Minister and Grande Prairie-Wapiti MLA Travis Toews says in the Budget 2023 speech that the budget will be balanced for the second year in a row.

“This means debt is on the decline. In this last fiscal year Mr. Speaker, we paid off over $13 billion of debt, all of the debt that matured in 2022.”

“This means lower debt service costs and more resources available for health, education and other programs.”

Toews says $2 billion from the surpluses in the last two years will go into the Heritage Savings Trust Fund.

Toews also warned that while the province’s economy has strengthened, Alberta “cannot afford to become complacent.”

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He warned of problems like global unrest, supply chain issues and what he terms “our federal government’s irresponsible fiscal policy.”

“Inflation is making life most costly for all Albertans at home, in business and even in government.”

“At the same time, despite record-breaking investment in Alberta, we continue to see declining business investment nationally.”

Toews says buying homes and government and consumer spending funded by debt has led to a 13 per cent growth in real GDP since 2015 and that business investment actually went down between 2015 and 2019.

The speech also contained what sounded like an early start to the spring election campaign.

Toews says Albertans will have a decision to make in three months, adding there are two different approaches to the economy to pick from.

“The NDP’s economic management model of raising taxes, increasing regulatory burden, high operational spending, and working to expedite the energy transition in conjunction with Trudeau’s Liberals was nothing short of disastrous.”

“It resulted in the flight of billions of dollars in capital, tens of thousands of lost jobs and perpetual deficits.”

Toews praised his own government’s fiscal management and cuts to taxes and regulations as factors in Alberta leading the country in economic growth.

The provincial election is set for May 29.

Opposition NDP reaction

Meanwhile, the New Democrats say in a news release that the first budget under Premier Danielle Smith should also be the last.

They charge that forecasts for employment and GDP growth are higher than other forecasts from the private sector.

The opposition also says funding for health care is too low by $1.4 billion while education spending planned in the new budget is short by $1.6 billion.

NDP leader Rachel Notley calls this a “fraudulent budget designed to buy votes ahead of the election and then spring the costs on Albertans after the polls have closed.”

“It hides Danielle Smith’s worst ideas while sidelining the real priorities of Alberta families.”

The NDP say schools are underfunded and are short 3600 teachers, that there is no funding for the Red Deer Regional Hospital or the South Edmonton Hospital, and that drug benefits will be cut by $100 million.

The party says its plan for Family Health Teams includes more for health care than what is in the budget.

The NDP also says there is no plan to attract investment. pointing to their own proposed strategy they say will attract new investment and create “tens of thousands of private sector, industrial jobs.”