Drip, drip, drip. Nope, that’s not the sound of glaciers melting but instead is the disturbing noise emanating from the relentless evisceration of what once was proudly called "The Alberta Advantage."
That singular phrase emerged back in the Ralph Klein years due to a combination of fairly stringently-imposed governmental cutbacks allied to a somewhat unexpected boom in the natural gas price – a commodity that’s been in the Dumpster for so long many folk forget it, not oil, was once the prime driver of provincial resource revenues.
That seems a long time ago: when the then premier held up one of those daft, make-believe gigantic cheques and announced our debt was paid in full.
After that it was more a matter of salting money away in various governmental cubbyholes, as the Alberta boom appeared never-ending. Meanwhile all sorts of financial ring-fencing went on – balanced budget legislation for example -- to ensure we never again ended adrift in the debtors’ soup where we had found ourselves in those spendthrift "pave every secondary highway" years of Don Getty’s government.
The initial cracks were showing during the final years of the weary Tories before the combination of another lurch downward in oil prices coincided with the election of the province’s first NDP government. Those cracks suddenly widened to sinkhole proportions, which is where we sit today: sadly sinking.
One of the major planks in that Alberta Advantage was the tiny amount of interest we were paying as a province. All that remained of the debt back then were some residual bond issues that would be easily retired from current revenues when they came due.
So, 10 years ago the provincial government was shelling out about $60 a year per Albertan in interest payments – that’s proverbial chickenfeed, unless you happen to possess some exceedingly greedy hens.
Back then, according to the numbers crunched by those ardent if somewhat dull lads and lasses over at the Frazer Institute, other provinces were shelling out a heck of a lot more per resident, from $520 in B.C. to over a grand apiece in Quebec and Newfoundland.
Ah, but that was then. This, sadly, is now.
In three years, given current spending projections, we will be paying more per person than the lotus eaters to the west of us and, 12 months after that sad event, we’ll overtake our flatlander neighbours to the east.
Yep, in a few more years still, at this current rate of spending, we will join the Newfoundlanders and Quebeckers in paying out more than a thousand dollars a year per Albertan in interest payments. That’s an absolute disgrace and such lack of fiscal and moral fortitude should be tarred and feathered upon this current government for eternity.
Instead we see Captain Blithely Unaware, that person being Finance Minister Joe Ceci – yes, the former social worker who seems to have spent more than anyone from his initial profession during the history of planet Earth – proudly declare, at one of these excruciating quarterly updates, we are only borrowing $7.8 billion this year instead of the budgeted $8,800,000,000: hey, it looks a bit more daunting written out in full, don’t you think?
Glory be. Let Handel’s Messiah play from coast to coast to coast. Less than eight billion bucks is cause for celebration? Well, let’s party hearty folks.
Joe also said we’re on track – sorry, but I then imagine a scene from those old silent movies of the damsel tied to a railway line – to balance the budget by 2024.
Hey Joe: drip, drip, and yet another drip. That’s time melting away. Soon we won’t have to listen to such piffle.
- Nelson is a syndicated columnist
