Skip to main content

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

NEXT DOOR IN ALBERTA …

 


Alberta’s budget deficits and mounting debt are, in part, due to its treatment of non-renewable resource revenues, but establishing new constitutional rules requiring a portion of resource revenues be saved would help stabilize provincial finances, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan, Canadian public policy think-tank.

 

“It’s time the Alberta government introduced rules to stabilize this volatile source of revenue and stop the boom-and-bust cycle in government finances,” said Tegan Hill, economist at the Fraser Institute and co-author of A New (Old) Fiscal Rule for Non-Renewable Resource Revenue in Alberta.

 

As a sign of the volatility connected with resource revenues, consider that over the past 50 years, Alberta’s non-renewable resource revenue (adjusted for inflation) ranged from a low of$1.6 billion (1970/71) to a high of $19.0 billion (2005/06). As a share of provincial revenue, it’s ranged from 77.4 per cent (1979/80) to a projected 4.7 per cent in 2020/21—the lowest on record.

 

This volatility has fueled instability in the budget, particularly as the provincial government increased spending to unsustainable levels during periods of relatively high non-renewable resource revenue.

 

The study recommends re-introducing a savings account (the Alberta Sustainability Fund was eliminated in 2013) in which resource revenues can be deposited during periods when resource revenues are high. These savings can then be used to stabilize resource revenues in periods of comparatively low resource revenues.

 

The second recommendation is for the province to reinstitute the rule that requires a portion of non-renewable resource revenues be deposited into the Heritage Fund.

 

Crucially, these rules should be engrained constitutionally so that it is more difficult for future governments to change or simply ignore the rules when finances are tight.

 

“New rules based on the past experiences of the province—and not easily undone by future governments—that establish a predictable level of non-renewable resource revenue for the province’s budgets would help put an end to the boom-and-bust cycle in Alberta’s finances,” said Jason Clemens, executive vice-president of the Fraser Institute and study co-author.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GORDON F. D. WILSON: When The Trick Masquerades as The Treat

Thirty-seven years ago, Halloween 1987, I became the leader of the BC Liberal Party.   British Columbia was badly polarized. Social Credit held one side and the NDP the other. It had been twelve years, 1975, since Liberal MLAs Garde Gardom, Pat McGeer, and Alan Williams had walked away from their party to join Social Credit, one year after the lone Progressive Conservative MLA Hugh Curtis had abandoned his party to sit with Bill Bennett, the son and heir apparent to long-serving BC Premier, WAC Bennett.   An unwritten agreement by the biggest Canadian political shareholders, the federal Liberals and Conservatives, decided that if British Columbia was to remain a lucrative franchise from a revenue perspective, they couldn’t risk splitting the electoral vote and electing the real enemy, the NDP, so no resources would be used to finance either a Liberal or Conservative party provincially.   “There are two sides to every street,” I was told by a very prominent Canadian businessman who cont
Post a Comment
Read more

FORSETH: As a BC Conservative member, and campaign worker, I will again state that the fact these errors were found -- AND brought to light BY Elections BC -- shows the system IS working

Sadly, two and a half weeks after the BC provincial election campaign, those who want to undermine our political process are still at.  PLUS, we also have one who doesn’t even live in our country, never mind our province. I speak of the buffoon running for President of the United States, who has poisoned the well when it comes to faith in the electoral process. Just today alone, comments such as the following, were being made of posts that I shared online: ... all the votes they keep finding has just favoured NDP on in all critical ridings and soon they will flip another riding in favour of NDP, Come on. ... Elections BC has ridiculed British Columbians, and I no longer have confidence or trust in their process and competence regarding the results Then there are others online, with comments like these – who are claiming fraud in the October 19th election: ... Who is the oversight for Elections BC? They should be investigated for election fraud! ... Fraudulent election ... should be red
Post a Comment
Read more

Rob Shaw: Eby should be worried why mudslinging missed the mark in B.C. election

  Why did a BC NDP election campaign overwhelmingly focused on attacking the character of the BC Conservatives fail to prevent a blue wave that came within 27 votes of toppling the governing party? Partly because voters didn’t much care for, or about, all the New Democrat mudslinging. They were just hopping mad about some very specific issues ... CLICK HERE for the full story
Post a Comment
Read more

Labels

Show more