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1. Lessons for Fiscal Reform from the Klein Era

   Alberta is facing serious fiscal challenges, including a historic deficit and rapid debt accumulation that extend beyond the COVID shock. This is not the first time Alberta’s finances have been in trouble. Today’s situation has parallels to the ...

2. What’s Changed, By How Much, and What Remains to be Done: An Analysis of Alberta’s Budget

   Since 2008/09, Alberta has run a nearly uninterrupted string of budget deficits. This bulletin analyzes the recently tabled 2019 Alberta budget to assess the extent to which it represents a change of course from the policy approach that has ...

3. Lessons from the Lone Star State: Comparing the Economic Performance of Alberta and Texas

   This bulletin compares the economic and fiscal performance of the Canadian province of Alberta and the American state of Texas in recent years and provides a brief discussion of how different policy choices may be contributing to the divergent ...

4. A Spending Framework for Alberta: Balancing the Need for Deficit Elimination and Tax Reform

   This paper calculates the extent of spending reductions that Alberta would need to make over the next three years to eliminate the province’s budget deficit by fiscal year 2021/22 while also creating the necessary fiscal room for pro-growth tax relief. ...

5. The Decline of the Other Alberta Advantage: Debt Service Costs in Alberta Are Rising

   Throughout recent history, Albertans have enjoyed a substantial fiscal advantage other Canadian taxpayers, resulting from the fact that government debt interest payments in Alberta have been far lower than in any other province. For example, in ...

6. Why Is Alberta’s Deficit Still So Big?

   Main Conclusions The Government of Alberta has run nearly uninterrupted deficits since 2008/09 including deficits expected to average over $9 billion annually between 2016/17 and 2018/19. Alberta’s deficit today is much larger than the deficit the current ...

7. Alternative Paths for Alberta's Budget: Balance by 2023/24 Is Not Enough

   Alberta faces significant fiscal and economic challenges. The government has run nearly uninterrupted deficits since 2008/09 and has seen an approximately $57 billion decline in its net financial assets between 2008/09 and 2017/18. The government has ...

8. Canada’s Past Fiscal Leaders Are Now Fiscal Laggards: An Analysis of 2017 Provincial Budgets

   Around the turn of the 21st century, Alberta and Ontario could both boast of having comparatively sound public finances relative to most other provinces. In recent years, however, serious fiscal problems have emerged in both provinces. Alberta and Ontario ...

9. Rae Days in Alberta: The Notley Government at Two Years

   When Premier Notley took office two years ago in Alberta, her new government faced severe fiscal challenges. The province had a large and growing budget deficit and was headed towards net debt status for the first time in approximately 15 years. It was ...

10. Race to the Bottom: Comparing the Recent Deficits of Alberta and Ontario

    Alberta’s public finances are deteriorating rapidly, with the provincial government set to run a cumulative budget deficit of $27.6 billion over the three-year period from 2015/16 to 2017/18. Until recently, by far the largest deficits of any ...