Government Spending

A Spending Framework for Alberta: Balancing the Need for Deficit Elimination and Tax Reform finds that the Alberta government could balance its budget by 2021/22—and create the fiscal room for much-needed tax relief—if program spending were cut by 10.9 per cent over the next three years. While a 10.9 per cent spending reduction would be significant, it is substantially smaller than the reductions implemented by the Klein government in the 1990s. It would also bring Alberta’s per-person spending closer into line with neighbouring British Columbia, which currently spends 21 per cent less per person than Alberta does.

Prime Ministers and Government Spending, 2019 tracks annual per person program spending (adjusted for inflation) by prime ministers since Confederation, and finds that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has now recorded two of the three years with the highest levels of government spending in Canadian history, including times of war and recession. The all-time high was recorded by Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the 2009 recession.