The most recent provincial budget has been both lauded as the fulfillment of premier Alison Redford’s leadership campaign promises, and criticized as showing too little in the way of fiscal restraint.
The budget includes funding for all the big-ticket items on Albertans’ lists — health, education, infrastructure and municipalities — and without increasing taxes. It does so by running a deficit, the fifth in the row.
It has been referred to as “Alberta’s first NDP budget,” by the editorial board of the National Post, but closer to home it is getting less flack.
Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock MLA Ken Kowalski said he didn’t want to comment too much on the budget because of his position as Speaker of the Legislature, but shared his thoughts on some of its key components.
“I’m the speaker and I’m chairing all of these meetings,” he said. “I have to adjudicate all the votes. I think it’s best not to make too many comments.”
The feature of the budget that stuck out most for him was the $400 monthly increase to the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped (AISH) program administered by the province, as well as an increase in the amount of employment income AISH recipients can earn.
“Thirty years ago when the AISH program was being talked about, I was one of the MLAs working on the original proposal,” he said. “To me, this is one of the really important programs the government offers and it’s unique in all of Canada.”
Kowalski said roughly 500 residents of this constituency receive AISH payments.
The other main highlight of the budget, he said, was there are no tax increases. For months, opposition parties have speculated about possible tax increases, but he said this speculation can now be put to rest.
One aspect of the budget that is good news for municipalities is that funding through the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) will continue for at least the next three years, with $2 billion committed for 2012-2013.
Kowalski said the three-year funding promise, like the five-year funding promise for health care, is essential to allow for longer-term planning.
The most controversial part of the budget, however, comes in the form of the predicted revenue increases over the next several years. Critics, including the opposition Wildrose Alliance Party, have called the projections unreasonably optimistic — one Wildrose media release went as far as to refer to the premier as “Alison in Wonderland.”
Kowalski said the projected increases in resource revenues aren’t at all unreasonable, since they are tied to the production capacity as opposed to volatile oil prices.
When the province began to aggressively promote developing the oilsands, he said, many of the companies that got involved did so with some help from the government, which allowed companies to write off the investment they made against the royalties they would be expected to pay.
Those deferred royalties are coming to an end, and production levels are up.
“Even if the oil price remains the same, what we’re getting now … is they now have to pay full taxes, full royalty,” he said. “We know where the revenue stream is going to come.”
Full details of the provincial budget are available online at budget2012.alberta.ca.
