Alberta expected to unveil largest deficit budget in its history | CTV News

Welcome No Down Payment governments....ready to ruin another province...

The fiscal deficit for 2012 was 2.2 billion. For 2013 they had to borrow 4.3 billion to make ends meet. For 2014 the deficit was 6.3 billion left by the Redford Conservatives.

How are the NDP any worse, other than being up front about it?

6.5 billion. Based on what price of oil?

Methinks it will be more, lots more. PST anyone ?

The fiscal deficit for 2012 was 2.2 billion. For 2013 they had to borrow 4.3 billion to make ends meet. For 2014 the deficit was 6.3 billion left by the Redford Conservatives.

How are the NDP any worse, other than being up front about it?

what you can't play fair? it doesn't work with the feds so it doesn't work here either. The sitting government is always lambasted for the sins of the previous government so what's good for the goose is good for the gander I am afraid.

The fiscal deficit for 2012 was 2.2 billion. For 2013 they had to borrow 4.3 billion to make ends meet. For 2014 the deficit was 6.3 billion left by the Redford Conservatives.

How are the NDP any worse, other than being up front about it?

what you can't play fair? it doesn't work with the feds so it doesn't work here either. The sitting government is always lambasted for the sins of the previous government so what's good for the goose is good for the gander I am afraid.

Almost a half-billion of it is slated for flood projects, which were important to everyone in 2013 until the water drained away and then everyone forgot all about it.

Tell ya what - you get Calgary, Edmonton and every other city/town/village/hamlet/place in the province to stop asking for hospitals, schools, roads, water purification plants, flood mitigation projects, transit, and everything else and the budget will be magically transformed into a $20 billion surplus.

Do that for the next 10 years and we can transition into a frozen third world shithole.

Or would you prefer that kids can go to school instead of join gangs/terrorist groups, there are jobs for people, ways to get our goods to market and hospitals to take care of the sick?

Tell ya what - you get Calgary, Edmonton and every other city/town/village/hamlet/place in the province to stop asking for hospitals, schools, roads, water purification plants, flood mitigation projects, transit, and everything else and the budget will be magically transformed into a $20 billion surplus.

Do that for the next 10 years and we can transition into a frozen third world shithole.

Or would you prefer that kids can go to school instead of join gangs/terrorist groups, there are jobs for people, ways to get our goods to market and hospitals to take care of the sick?

Wow, amp up the drama.

I suspect your opinion on this budget is highly swayed by your political bias. Had this come from a PC Premier, we'd be hearing the same thing the right wing is saying about the NDP.

Tell ya what - you get Calgary, Edmonton and every other city/town/village/hamlet/place in the province to stop asking for hospitals, schools, roads, water purification plants, flood mitigation projects, transit, and everything else and the budget will be magically transformed into a $20 billion surplus.

Do that for the next 10 years and we can transition into a frozen third world shithole.

Or would you prefer that kids can go to school instead of join gangs/terrorist groups, there are jobs for people, ways to get our goods to market and hospitals to take care of the sick?

Pretty sure that saved $200 billion wouldn't end up in public savings either. That sort of money tends to disappear into certain portions of the financial sector never to be ever seen again.

What's the chance of floods like that ever happening again?

0%. It'll never happen again. That's how you ought to plan, fiscally, emergency response and contingency speaking.

Tell ya what - you get Calgary, Edmonton and every other city/town/village/hamlet/place in the province to stop asking for hospitals, schools, roads, water purification plants, flood mitigation projects, transit, and everything else and the budget will be magically transformed into a $20 billion surplus.

Do that for the next 10 years and we can transition into a frozen third world shithole.

Or would you prefer that kids can go to school instead of join gangs/terrorist groups, there are jobs for people, ways to get our goods to market and hospitals to take care of the sick?

Wow, amp up the drama.

I suspect your opinion on this budget is highly swayed by your political bias. Had this come from a PC Premier, we'd be hearing the same thing the right wing is saying about the NDP.

Apparently your sarcasm detector is broken...

It has absolutely nothing to do with which party is running the province.

The fact is Albertans, even though they refuse to admit it, are just like every other voter out there.

They want all sorts of things that benefit them AND do not want to pay for them - and god forbid they pay for anything that benefits anyone else either.

I thought the PCs overall did a good job with one exception - they zero funded the Heritage Trust Fund.

Had they kept up the $1 billion or so annually that Lougheed had envisioned, it would be worth about $200 billion right now - instead of $18 billion - a mere $4 billion higher than when Lougheed left office in the mid-80s - and it wouldn't matter one bit what the price of oil is. We could draw off some of the interest and still be in the black.

The reason why we didn't do it is because of people who are constantly bitching about taxes, yet still want schools and hospitals in every rinky-dink town, twinned highways and all the other goodies in whatever part of the province they live in. So Getty, Klein, Stelmach and Redford scooped up every single cent of resource royalty and spent it every single year.

I love Alberta, but because of that rationale, the province is just like many Canadians, living pay cheque to pay cheque and not putting a cent into savings in case something bad happens.

Albertans are the architects of this deficit, not the government.

The PC's should be pretty proud of how the fast-tracking of the Highway 63 project got things done so fast. Only about 20 km left to do. A lot of lives will be saved and it won't be anywhere near as terrifying as it was before as a single laner. The only drawback now is that it could be a white elephant thanks to the oil collapse. If the Arabs don't back off with the predatory pricing and Ft. McMeth turns into a ghost town then they could have just finished doubling a highway to nowhere.

The fiscal deficit for 2012 was 2.2 billion. For 2013 they had to borrow 4.3 billion to make ends meet. For 2014 the deficit was 6.3 billion left by the Redford Conservatives.

How are the NDP any worse, other than being up front about it?

what you can't play fair? it doesn't work with the feds so it doesn't work here either. The sitting government is always lambasted for the sins of the previous government so what's good for the goose is good for the gander I am afraid.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. You don't like me holding the previously ousted Provincial government accountable for their actions because of something something something the federal government? Use your outside words!

I'll be the first to hold the NDP government's feet to the flames, when/if they screw up. But today they release their first ever budget! They haven't had time to screw anything up, and I am giving them the benefit of the doubt that they can't screw it up any worse than the last 10 years of governments have. And they have a lot of unscrewing to do on top of it.