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1. 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 ...

2. Alberta’s budget: $11.4 billion in extra taxes

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Premier Jim Prentice dropped hints for months that the 2015 provincial budget was a once-in-a-generation chance to “fix” Alberta’s finances. That didn’t happen. Instead, the province raised taxes on Albertans in a manner ...

3. Spending cuts, not tax hikes, key to balancing the books in Alberta

   In Alberta, to cushion the blow from falling revenues, some claim higher taxes will balance the books. How soon we forget. Alberta tried that in the late 1980s. It didn’t work. It wasn’t until the 1990s, when Alberta got serious about ...

4. Digging Alberta out of the deficit hole

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald, January 31, 2015 Alberta Premier Jim Prentice has warned Albertans that the current fiscal year’s projected surplus has turned into at least a $500 million deficit and that next year’s budget will sink deeper into red-ink ...

5. Premier Prentice is wrong about Alberta’s single tax

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald and National Post After governments abandon fiscal prudence, they will soon search for any and all ways to tax people more. This is the reality playing out in Alberta where Premier Jim Prentice has floated multiple tax ...

6. 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 ...

7. Worried about Alberta’s budget? Stop counting on high resource prices

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Forty-one billion dollars. That’s the extra amount, over and above what was needed to keep pace with population growth and inflation between 2006 and 2013, this to fund Alberta government program spending in those years. So ...

8. Not your mother's budget surplus

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald When apologists for the provincial government's new borrowing binge defend it on the grounds that private sector companies borrow money for capital expenses so why not have the Alberta government do the same? their ...

9. Don't let mythical thinking on taxes mess up Alberta

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald As Albertans approach another provincial budget, the usual fables about Alberta's finances often crop up. To inoculate ourselves in advance, let's ponder two myths. Myth Number One: Alberta's wealth is a ...

10. Alberta throws Jim Dinning's reforms overboard

    Appeared in the National Post and Calgary Herald For those who don’t normally read budget documents, here’s what the Alberta government just did in its 2013 budget: they abandoned the sensible budget and financial framework that former Progressive ...