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1. Provincial finances in trouble—spotlight Western Canada

   The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) recently published its annual fiscal sustainability report, which provided long-term projections to assess the sustainability of public finances for the federal government and the provinces. In this ...

2. Canada’s federal deficits would be much worse without Alberta

   The prevailing narrative surrounding the post-2008 recovery in Canada is that the country weathered the storm significantly better than the United States, and has emerged in relatively strong fiscal shape (though certainly not unscathed) ...

3. Grasping Alberta's budget problems

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald The new Alberta government has delayed introducing a budget until the fall, so MLAs will have plenty of time to think about how they’ll collect and spend Albertans’ money. Thus, to properly manage the estimated $48.4 billion ...

4. Government budgets are like volcanoes: It’s what underneath that counts

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Imagine you’re near what you thought was a dormant volcano but it suddenly erupts. Assuming you escape, you might later reflect that there was nothing “sudden” about it. The eruption resulted from earlier events deep within ...

5. Prentice chooses Getty over Klein; further erodes Alberta Advantage

   Appeared in the Calgary Sun With tumbling oil prices and resource revenues, Premier Jim Prentice had a choice when he delivered Alberta’s 2015 budget. He could emulate former premier Don Getty and raise taxes or follow the Ralph Klein playbook and reduce ...

6. A Tale of Two Energy Booms

   Non-renewable resource prices, especially oil prices, and associated revenues to governments have fallen significantly over recent months. This is not the first time such gyrations in oil and gas prices and then government revenues have occurred. Recent ...

7. Alberta’s missed Heritage Fund opportunity

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Over the past decade, the province of Alberta treated boom-time resource revenues like a permanent state of affairs. That set the province up for fiscal failure, for multiple lost opportunities. One high-profile example is ...

8. The Myth of Education Spending Cuts in Alberta

   Appeared in the Fox Creek Times and Okotoks Western Wheel It’s budget season in Edmonton but Premier Prentice has already announced a five per cent across-the-board reduction in program spending to help deal with an expected $7 billion-plus deficit. Of ...

9. Does Alberta need a sales tax?

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald, Jan 17, 2015 With oil prices plunging and provincial resource revenues expected to drop, Alberta’s red ink will rise. In response, Premier Jim Prentice has floated the notion of a provincial sales tax and/or hikes in other ...

10. Myth of energy-induced booms and busts

    Appeared in the Medicine Hat News, Kelowna Daily Courier, and Penticton Herald 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 ...