Finance Minister Bill Morneau visits Calgary

Canada’s finance minister offered few specifics following pre-budget consultations in Calgary on Friday, but stressed he is listening to the concerns of Albertans.

“They heightened my sense of concern, which was already pretty high about making sure that we deal with challenging economic situation in Alberta.”

Morneau says he discussed some ideas for projects with Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi during his visit to the city, where he also met with members of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and leaders from the energy and environmental sectors.

“We are looking to make infrastructure investments that are prudent and responsible, and in cases where we can find prudent, responsible projects that we can embark on quickly, we will do so”, Morneau told a news conference at the University of Calgary after speaking to students earlier.

The province has been shedding jobs and experiencing huge spikes in unemployment since oil prices dropped. “We’re going to see by an engaging government, by us moving forward on partnering with a whole host of groups, we’re going to find more success on this”.

“We do plan on balancing the budget at the end of four years, and that will, I expect, come through growth in the economy”, Morneau said.

Calgary is Morneau’s latest stop before the federal budget is announced, likely in March.

But Morneau also suggested that certain projects are shovel-ready and said the government hopes to get working sooner rather than later.

But he insists that the economy needs to be improved for the long-term. “So our aspiration is to get going on some projects as rapidly as possible”, he said.

“The challenges being faced in Alberta right now are significant”, Morneau told students.

“We’ve seen the former (Conservative) government really, for the last 10 years, see no progress on pipelines”.

During the campaign, the Liberals promised an extra $5B in infrastructure spending in each of the first two years in office, and then $3.4B in the following two years of the mandate.