NDP struggles to make ends meet

Alberta’s new provincial budget has an odd, almost defeatist, title: “Working to Make Life Better.”

This is not a budget that promises to definitively “make life better” for Albertans but rather it is “working” to make improvements. This is the government giving it the old college try.

When you actually read through the budget document you’re left thinking it really should have been entitled, “Struggling to Make Life Better.”

For that is what the government is doing in an economy hit by a recession caused by a drop in energy prices.

It is struggling to make ends meet.

It is struggling to keep spending under control, to keep taxes relatively low, to keep public sector workers employed.

It has, though, completely lost the struggle to keep the deficit and debt under control.

This year’s new deficit will be $10.3 billion on top of last year’s deficit of $10.8 billion.

The total provincial debt will be $45 billion at the end of this year and will balloon to a whopping $71 billion in two years, unless energy prices improve.

And that’s where we are in Alberta yet again — praying for a recovery in the price of oil.

You could certainly argue the NDP inherited a flawed economic model from the old Progressive Conservative governments and you could argue that any political party in power right now in Alberta would be running deficits and stacking up the debt.

But those arguments only take you so far.

The NDP government is proudly borrowing $6 billion this year to build capital projects such as schools and hospitals — and is borrowing $6.4 billion to pay for the day-to-day costs of operating the government, including paying the wages of public sector workers.

“When the oil price shock hit our economy, Albertans were faced with a choice,” Finance Minister Joe Ceci said Thursday in his budget address.

“Some said, and some still say, that government should make deep cuts to public services, such as health care and education.”

Instead, the government is spending more and borrowing more than any government in Alberta history.

It is providing relief to everyday Albertans by, for example, giving parents a 25 per cent reduction in school fees.

No doubt parents will appreciate the relief. But will they appreciate the fact that the government is on track to leave them and their children a debt possibly approaching $100 billion by 2024 (when the government hopes to finally start balancing the budget)?

There are “goodies” in the budget, including a new hospital for Edmonton. However, that hospital might be a long time coming. The government is committing, at this point, just $400 million over four years toward construction (by way of comparison, Calgary’s newest hospital, which opened in 2013, cost $1.3 billion).

The government’s justification for saddling Albertans with a massive debt is that the only other choice to their plan would be to slash government services, leaving us with “longer healthcare wait lists, overcrowded emergency room, much bigger class sizes, and lost jobs.”

The opposition parties argue if they were in power they would trim spending significantly while delivering decent services but, then, that’s what opposition parties always say without having to spell out exactly how they’d do it.

The NDP, though, will have a major uphill climb to sell this budget. Yes, we will have more schools, more hospitals and more seniors’ lodges, to mention just a few of the government’s promises. But will those good news projects be enough to o set the bad fiscal news?

The NDP is determined not to follow the lead of previous PC governments, namely that of Ralph Klein, who began his tenure during a recession by slashing spending and laying o public sector workers.

Later, Klein used surplus dollars to quickly pay o the debt — but let roads, schools and hospitals crumble. Klein paid down the fiscal debt but built up an infrastructure deficit.

The NDP is doing the opposite — paying down the infrastructure deficit but building up a fiscal debt.

Klein won re-election three times. When Ceci faced reporters Thursday, he was asked if he could win re-election running on this kind of budget. He replied with a joke: “I just want to win this news conference.”

I would say Ceci “won” the news conference, in that he managed to answer all questions confidently with a smile on his face. But you have to wonder if the NDP could win re-election with the legacy of a budget that is struggling to make life better for Albertans.