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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. 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 ...

3. The Texas Advantage over Alberta

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Alberta and Texas have always had a lot in common. Ranching in the 19th century. A can-do entrepreneurial approach to oil and gas in the 20th century. And in the 21st century they are still somewhat similar; oil and gas ...

4. 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 ...

5. 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 ...

6. 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 ...

7. Albertans closest to the land are often best suited to manage it properly

     The issue of property rights has slipped off the public radar in Alberta, as the province grapples with red ink. But once budget matters fade from the news, population growth, oil and gas exploration, agricultural demands, recreational ...

8. 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 ...

9. Property rights on the Prairie

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Amid the current focus on provincial red ink, one issue has slipped off the public radar screen in Alberta: Property rights. The lack of attention is understandable given the nearness of the provincial budget and the ...

10. Alberta’s government program spending reaches new heights

    According to a Fraser Institute study released in February, between 2004/05 and 2013/14, the Alberta government’s program spending jumped to $43.9 billion from $29 billion. This spending, beyond the rate of inflation and population ...