Premier Notley faces budget questions during first session of legislature

The budget is expected to feature the biggest deficit in Alberta’s history. While that would be the largest deficit in decades, Alberta has enough money in its rainy-day fund to cover that shortfall.

Finance Minister Joe Ceci hinted last week that the deficit could be a little less than $6.5 billion for 2015-16 and that Alberta could be in the red for another year.

The NDP has pledged to balance the books by 2020. Before this year’s oil-price drop, Alberta collected almost $9 billion in revenue from oil and gas, but this year the previous government was only forecasting about $3 billion – and that was based on an average annual price of oil at roughly $55 per barrel.

Last week, he said an election promise to balance the budget by 2018-2019 would have to be delayed one year.

Mr. Dodge isn’t the only outsider brought in by the NDP government to provide advice.

Notley’s government has already signalled it will continue debt financing for capital construction that began under the former Progressive Conservative government and was projected to hit $31 billion by 2019.

Jack Mintz of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.

Dave Mowat, the head of crown-owned bank ATB Financial, is heading the NDP’s review of energy royalties.

He said it is acceptable for the government to use cash from the Heritage Fund to help pay for operations, but the formula for distribution should be changed to a constant percentage that allows the fund to grow.

The Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund – established by former premier Peter Lougheed in the 1970s to save for the future, diversify the economy and improve quality of life in the province – sat at $17.7 billion at the end of June. While Tuesday’s budget is not expected to make any steep cuts, the government has said that it is looking for efficiencies and could make smaller cuts in non-essential areas.

Lose that rating, said Jean, and the dominoes fall: the province needs to spend more to borrow, causing it to hike taxes to pay for it.

While Mr. Ceci and Ms. Notley have repeatedly ruled out a provincial sales tax, new taxes and fees are a possibility on Tuesday.

“Alberta is alone in all provinces in receiving this AAA credit rating and Wildrose believes it is absolutely imperative we keep that rating in order to protect vital public services at the provincial and municipal levels and in order to keep taxes low for Alberta families” says Jean.