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Throne speech, budget should make for interesting election

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Guest Editorial

Throne speech, budget should make for interesting election

Two days after delivering a throne speech that said Alberta is relying too heavily on unpredictable energy revenues, the government brings down a budget that says we’ll be relying on those same revenues even more heavily in the future.

It makes one wonder if Premier Alison Redford, responsible for the throne speech, and Finance Minister Ron Liepert, who delivered the budget, even talk to each other.

It’s baffling that the throne speech on Tuesday can say Alberta’s “current fiscal framework relies too heavily on volatile energy revenue” and Thursday’s budget reveals the government is gambling that those same revenues will show remarkably sharp increases for the next three years.

It’s painfully obvious that even after years of price fluctuations this government has learned little about the unpredictability of energy revenue. And it’s equally obvious it’s quite prepared to gamble the province’s future on hopes the royalty revenues from oilsands bitumen rise from $4.3 billion this year to $5.6 billion next year to $7.6 billion in 2014 and a pie-in-the-sky figure of $10 billion by 2015.

Perhaps the Wildrose party is right in saying the budget is “Alison in Wonderland” relying on “pipe dream projections” of a red-hot economy that few economists see coming.

One thing is for sure: It is simply unacceptable for the government to willingly accept a fifth straight deficit budget in a filthy-rich province that continues to annually waste billions of dollars without even attempting to control its spending.

Yes, the throne speech said the government’s first bill to be presented to this sitting of the legislature will call for results-based budgeting aimed at reviewing all government programs from the bottom up every three years. That doesn’t mean departments won’t still increase their budget requests every year, so we’ll have to wait and see just how successful the new approach is at actually reducing government spending.

Liepert’s budget calls for more spending on education and health, yet he’s saying it’s not a budget that “the province can’t afford.” Really? He just presented a budget with an $886-million deficit. How is that affordable?

And what happens if the price of oil dips, instead of rising as the Conservatives – their fingers and toes crossed – are predicting?

Politicians love to say everything they do is in response to what they hear from the citizens. It’s hard to believe responsible Albertans, many of whom make sacrifices to balance their books every year, are telling the government to continue its ridiculous spending without making any real, substantial effort to either balance its books or to diversify its revenue sources.

For how many years, and from how many PC governments have we heard that Alberta has to diversify? Nice words; little action.

Alberta Party leader Glenn Taylor is right when he says Albertans “are smart people” who know how to budget and save. So how come when those smart people get into government they forget how to budget and save?

One suspects the throne speech and the budget will make for a very interesting election.

- St. Albert Gazette