About two dozen Westlock residents took the time last Friday afternoon to see for themselves how quickly Alberta’s debt is rising.
The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation made a brief stop in Westlock with the debt clock on their way to finance minister Doug Horner’s office in Spruce Grove, showing the running tally of the province’s borrowing.
Derek Fildebrandt, Alberta Director of the CTF, said the province’s debt had surpassed $10 billion as of Thursday, July 10. By Friday’s stop in Westlock, another $100 million had been added to that total.
Those figures don’t match the ones provided in the 2014 provincial budget, which the government has described as being balanced. This has drawn criticism that the government is hiding debt by splitting the capital and operating budgets.
“No more of this funny-money math,” Fildebrandt said. “We should be able to know easily from our government whether we’re running a surplus or a deficit.”
Mary Anne Van Nieuvenhuyse, a Westlock-area resident, said seeing those numbers adding up so quickly made the entire prospect of the debt scarier.
“I don’t think it will be paid off in my lifetime,” she said. “Are we leaving it for our children and grandchildren to possibly take care of some of this?”
She added she’s not confident the people in charge of managing the province’s finances are doing a very good job of it, suggesting they have breached the trust that voters put in them.
Roland Sauve said it was good to see a complete picture of the province’s finances; he agrees with the CTF that the government isn’t being truthful about the money it’s borrowing.
“These are the true numbers compared to what the PC Party is putting out in terms of debt,” he said.
He isn’t very confident the people in power are doing a good job with the province’s money, either.
“Is there even anybody in charge?” he asked.
Not everyone agreed with Fildebrandt’s message; at one point he got into a debate with a man whether it was the PC government or the CTF that was making up numbers. The man declined to give his name or comment for this article.
Fildebrandt encouraged those in attendance to sign a petition calling on the provincial government to balance the budget and eliminate the debt, and said the CTF is asking all MLAs to sign a pledge to do so as well.
“We’ve asked your local MLA to sign the pledge,” he said. “She hasn’t responded.”
Several members of the Wildrose caucus have signed the pledge, as well as some Liberal MLAs including finance critic Kent Hehr.
“If even the bloody Liberals will sign the balanced budget pledge, if even the Liberals will pledge to stop the debt clock, we have to ask ourselves why is our government refusing to do so,” Fildebrandt said.
He said Westlock has been one of the biggest financial supporters of CTF in the province, and asked those in attendance to consider continuing that support — it costs a lot of money to run the debt clock and tow it around the province.
