It’s back to the future for Alberta’s finances

It’s a minor miracle the words didn’t stick in his throat.

Responding to the new Alberta government’s plans to cut corporate income tax and reduce red tape — something every new bunch in office promises but rarely delivers because their bureaucrats adore that particular colour — the New Democrat’s house leader had this to say: “I can tell you it’s a dangerous game when you start disrespecting working people.”

Of course, Deron Bilous should know that only too well considering the legion of unemployed and barely employed Albertans his recently defeated government presided over during the past four years.

You’d think they’d at least give it six months in the opposition wastelands before regurgitating the same old NDP script that’s been read from down the decades. But it’s hard to break old habits.

Oh well, that’s enough about that bunch for now.

No, this new UCP government has much more daunting tasks ahead of it than worrying about opposition rhetoric.

The easy bit will be repealing the more contentious bits of NDP legislation such as the infamous carbon tax. Maybe we’ll get a new provincial holiday to mark that particular milestone, given the palpable relief it will generate in most quarters of Alberta.

But the real issue is how to restore the province to a properly functioning economy without racking up yet more multibillion dollars worth of debt each and every year.

And I’ve a sneaky feeling the true state of the financial hole we now stand in will soon be revealed to be much deeper than even the most pessimistic pundit has so far realized.

Anyhow, we’ll soon be getting a detailed look-see, courtesy of a hand-picked panel set up to probe Alberta’s current and future finances that Premier Jason Kenney’s put in place.

So be prepared for a bunch of ugly-looking fiscal skeletons to come tumbling out of the closet.

We’ve been down this road before, of course. A quarter-century ago, the newly elected Ralph Klein government made a similar move when treasurer Jim Dinning appointed the Financial Review Commission. Its eventual report formed the bedrock of one of the most widespread and detailed accountings of provincial finances ever seen in this country.

Of course, it helps if such a report comes courtesy of a non-partisan group.

Kenney’s obviously learned that lesson and has therefore placed a former Saskatchewan NDP finance minister in the chair of the government’s fiscal review group, with one of Alberta’s most prominent provincial Liberal politicians as her second-in-command.

But both Janice Mackinnon and Mike Percy have a history in showing they believe in that rarefied state of affairs in which governments don’t actually spend more than they collect in revenue.

Kenney’s told them that raising taxes isn’t part of their deployment, so any balancing recommendations or fiscal suggestions are going to fall on the spending side of the monetary equation unless we yet again revert to the age-old Alberta fallback position of wishing upon some far-off star that hugely increased energy revenues are going to bail us out.

The last we heard from former finance minister Joe Ceci, Alberta was on track to spend about $7 billion more than we took in during the past financial year, and debt was projected closing in on $100 billion by 2024.

And that’s in a province taking in a massive amount of cash each year, currently about $50 billion. For heaven’s sake, there are only 4.3 million of us here in wild rose land.

Mackinnon appears to get this salient point. Coming from Saskatchewan, she must have blanched looking at Alberta’s gung-ho spendthrift ways.

“Even if the budget was balanced, I would look at the spending because a lot of money is being spent in a lot of areas and you are not getting the outcomes. You are not getting the results,” is how she put it.

But making suggestions is one thing, implementing them quite another. Kenney has his hands full.