Roundup: Alberta’s big budget hole

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Alberta released a fiscal update yesterday, and it was pretty abysmal, projecting a record-breaking $24.2 billion deficit. The problem? Was that the province’s finance minister spent much of it lying to the legislature and Albertans about the state of their books going into the pandemic, not to mention not having a real plan for the recovery. But it to put some of the staggering numbers in context, the province is taking in more revenue from gambling, alcohol and cannabis than they are from oil revenues – you know, what they have based their economy on. Meanwhile, their non-existent recovery plan is bro-heavy, and they still insist that they have a spending problem on services rather than a revenue problem from having the lowest tax rate in the country and no sales tax – and you know that’s going to mean the province is looking to slash and burn services, and they’ve already started by picking fights with doctors in the middle of a global pandemic, and those doctors are already shutting down their clinics and moving away. So yeah, Alberta’s got problems.

Economists Andrew Leach and Lindsay Tedds have more, starting with this preview thread by Leach that set the stage for the speech of lies that was to come.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1299171987655327744

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1299173816577347584

Good reads:

  • Bill Blair says he is reappointing the committee tasked with reforming solitary confinement in prisons, and assures them they’ll get the data they need.
  • François-Philippe Champagne met with Lebanon’s president, and said Canada could join the investigation into the explosion, under the right conditions.
  • The Commons’ law clerk says that public servants may have violated the finance committee’s orders when they pre-redacted documents they handed over.
  • As part of Elections Canada’s ongoing readiness planning, there are suggestions to Parliament that they allow for voting on both days of a weekend in advance polls.
  • The Royal Canadian Navy has now replaced its “seaman” ranks with “sailor” in a bid for more inclusive language.
  • Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem says that the central bank needs to clearly explain its actions, or else they will lose the public confidence.
  • Leslyn Lewis says that Erin O’Toole should leave Derek Sloan’s fate in the party up to voters…and she’s not wrong.
  • On Wednesday, Alberta’s new lieutenant governor, Salma Lakhani, was installed, making her the first Muslim vice-regal in Canadian history.
  • Heather Scoffield suggests that Mark Carney can have more impact on working toward a green recovery from the private sector than in government.
  • Kevin Carmichael walks through the Bank of Canada’s research on updating their mandate, as people no longer believe inflation measurements reflect the truth.
  • Colby Cosh looks into the points system that the Conservative leadership rested on, and Peter MacKay’s inadvertent hand in his own downfall because of it.
  • Robert Hiltz wonders which Erin O’Toole – the affable moderate or the barking shitposter – will appear when things start getting difficult.
  • In the Globe, I recall the Trudeau government’s plans to reform prorogation back in 2017, and explain why one of those proposals should have been adopted.

Odds and ends:

Here is a crazy tale of a new group of swivel-eyed loons who are quoting a defunct section of the Magna Carta to claim they are immune from Canadian law.

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2 thoughts on “Roundup: Alberta’s big budget hole”

  1. About the only time I would agree with something Lewis says. Let Commander Waterford be the face of O’Toole’s hub in Ontario where he hopes to appeal to middle-of-the-road normal people who… don’t want their country to turn into Gilead. Then the Liberals can highlight in great big neon letters that *this is who Conservatives really are*. Maybe Margaret Atwood should campaign for Trudeau.

  2. O’Toole will revert to what Cons do best. Bark like dogs against those who disagree, spread fear and misinformation, inject more religion into our politics, continue to keep women in secondary roles as bearers of children, albeit many times against their wishes and stack their opponents personally rather than counter with cogent policies for Canadians. All that by championing big business and trickle down economics.

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