Author: Michael Holden
As a think tank dedicated to improving the long-term prosperity of western Canada, the Canada West Foundation is paying close attention to the signals being sent by the region’s provincial governments and the federal government in their 2013/14 budgets.
On March 4, the Foundation laid out five areas we hoped to see in the Alberta budget in our budget preview.
The 2013/14 Budget Analysis assesses the degree to which progress is being made in these areas and presents five key findings:
- The budget contains a plan to rebuild the Heritage Fund, which will improve the province’s long-term fiscal sustainability. The specific plan is modest in scope, but a welcome development.
- Taking on new debt to make strategic capital investments makes sense in a low-interest environment, but a firm repayment schedule is needed.
- The budget provides opportunities for the government to improve the value it receives for the money it spends, but includes no clear plans to that effect.
- The government missed an opportunity to be more aggressive at improving education and skills training.
- Committing non-renewable resource revenues to build a Contingency Account is a positive step towards reducing the government’s vulnerability to dramatic revenue fluctuations.