Higher income taxes create disincentives for hard work and entrepreneurship, two important drivers of growth.
alberta government finances
Alberta ran seven deficits in the past eight fiscal years when oil prices averaged $88 per barrel.
Ontario’s cumulative deficit from 2009 to the end of last year was approximately $81.9 billion—50 per cent more than projected in 2009.
The real “resource curse” is the way successive Alberta governments squandered revenues from resource development.
Rachel Notley’s New Democratic government faces severe fiscal challenges it did not create, but it has an opportunity to solve them. Will her NDP government clean up the fiscal mess left behind by its Progressive Conservative predecessor?
There is a prominent view among some in Alberta’s provincial government and elsewhere in the province that believes booms and busts in government finances are a result of the province’s large energy sector.