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Do we buy new chairs or a new photocopier?
Cause if we get new chairs I get @beautiful_dog_6700’s old chair… then I’ll have two chairs. Only one to go.
A government no matter how large or small budgets a certain amount of money for the year to spend on things the government does like schools, infrastructure, medical care, the police... anything they touch comes out of the budget for the year. The money for this budget comes from government revenue, the biggest source of revenue being taxes.
Alberta did not spend as much as they budgeted for over the course of the year, the leftover sum is called a surplus. Overspending is called a deficit.
Typically a surplus is seen as a good thing, as that money can go directly into paying off any debts a government may have accrued or growing programs. However, as you can see from some of the comments in this thread, critics say the Alberta government created this surplus by underfunding certain initiatives.
>Alberta did not spend as much as they budgeted for over the course of the year, the leftover sum is called a surplus. Overspending is called a deficit.
Not quite. A surplus and a deficit are based on revenues and expenses, not necessarily overspending or underspending their budget. Alberta is actually a great example of this, as they budgeted for a surplus in 2023 (that is, their budget included higher revenues than their anticipated expenses), so they could underspend, overspend (within a margin) or meet their budget exactly and it would have resulted in a surplus. They would have had to overspend their budget fairly significantly to end the year in deficit.
The Alberta government budgeted to spend a certain amount to fund public services, but underfunded those services to the result of 4.5 billion. Now they have some free money they can do whatever they want with, likely hand outs for corporations
Are wait times worse in Alberta hospitals? Or access to surgeries compared to the rest of Canada? Are students doing worse?
I am not arguing, I am curious.
Edit: was missing a word
Yeah. If they are able to fund education less but have the same or better results as the rest of Canada it is a moot point. If they have the lowest funded and the lowest results then there is a problem.
We have better standardized test scores because we have a system to easily retake those tests. Pretty much everyone here rewrites at least one diploma exam.
Alberta students continue to rank near the top internationally. [link](https://teachers.ab.ca/news/public-education-alberta-continues-world-class-standing)
>Are students doing worse?
Unfortunately that's not something that can often be seen right away. Testing scores may not be down right away as the effect on the kids will not be drastic yet. However, eventually overcrowded classrooms and lack of resources will show up. (Although, PATs and diplomas are not the best way to measure student success as the government makes those tests, and can create them to have good results)
As a general thought: we need to be looking at education as an investment. I believe there have been quite a few studies that educational investment done by the government leads to economic success.
My friend did manage, barely to survive colon cancer during and after the pandemic. The hospitals were clogged and having been told had to have surgery ASAP had his surgery then delayed and rescheduled repeatedly. But post pandemic the situation has not improved. The government has been actively driving doctors and nurses out of the province. Recently my friend was scheduled for tests to be sure he is cancer free now, and now they keep getting rescheduled, month after month. I was supposed to drive him last week; now he is rescheduled for Sept.
Reading between the lines of the anecdote, it does sound like Alberta's healthcare is no better than other provinces with budget deficits. Having cancer and not being able to schedule an appointment does not sound like a good healthcare system.
Yes because more and more people are accessing the system and they are sicker than ever before and we have families demanding that 95 year old grandma needs every single life saving measure used to prolong (horribly) their existence even if it has a 1% chance of working.
Hospital resources are stretched to the fucking limit right now.
And it's only going to get worse.
No they’re not. The minimum wait time to see an Oncologist (cancer doctor) is 3 months due to a massive shortage of Oncologists in ‘berta. The majority of Oncologists have left the province because Alberta doesn’t pay as well as other provinces or the US and poor working conditions created by UCP.
>Healthcare remains the largest line item and among the fastest growing expense at 5.1%. Large increases are set for physician compensation and development (including the [Dynalife buyout](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/dynalife-alberta-health-services-alberta-precision-labs-1.6940595#:~:text=781-,Alberta's%20health%20minister%20says%20Alberta%20Health%20Services%20has%20signed%20a,by%20the%20end%20of%202023.)), drugs and supplemental health benefits and community care, particularly for seniors.
>Education accounted for another $412 million (4.4%) of the increase with more than half of the additional funding going to capacity enhancements for early childhood service to Grade 12 and post-secondary operations.
[https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/alberta-budget-2024-keeps-fiscal-surplus-and-lowest-provincial-debt-burden/](https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/alberta-budget-2024-keeps-fiscal-surplus-and-lowest-provincial-debt-burden/)
They did cut funding, just not from education and healthcare:
>Public safety and emergency services (-15%), children and family services (-8.5%), and seniors community and social services (-0.3%) will see spending cuts of $351 million in 2024-25 despite record population growth and a more turbulent economic environment.
There's quite a bit in capital investment for hospitals in the budget:
[https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/23c82502-fd11-45c6-861f-99381fffc748/resource/9c8f7cb3-51f6-4f00-a267-7af147e59a70/download/budget-2024-highlights-refocusing-albertas-health-care-system.pdf](https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/23c82502-fd11-45c6-861f-99381fffc748/resource/9c8f7cb3-51f6-4f00-a267-7af147e59a70/download/budget-2024-highlights-refocusing-albertas-health-care-system.pdf)
Because of the change to the funding model (rolling 3 year average enrollment) a lot of major school districts are being funded less than any other province on a per-student basis.
>The ATA warned that 13 school boards received less provincial funding than last year so schools in communities such as Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Okotoks, High River, St. Albert, Camrose, Two Hills, Fort MacLeod and Morinville will likely experience even larger class sizes and program cuts in the fall.
https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/local-news/alberta-teachers-say-funding-model-disastrous-for-students-7364381
Anecdotally, the teachers I know are close to, if not entirely burnt out, and have classrooms of 30+ kids, including special needs, without any educational assistants or caregivers. There's just not enough time in the day to properly help kids with those kind of ratios.
While raw numbers sound impressive, what is the outcome of them? Smaller classroom sizes? Reduced wait lists for care? Key performance indicators needed.
After years of massive underfunding to what is needed to maintain our Healthcare system they make a negligible contribution.... is not a win -9-9-9+1= -35
Alberta’s population grew ~4.4% in the past year. Then take into account inflation, a 4.4% and 5.1% increase in spending is essentially a pay cut. Not a huge one, but considering how much they already cut going back to 2019, it’s certainly not going to help the increasingly dire situation.
https://www.alberta.ca/population-statistics#:~:text=Alberta's%20population%20growth%20continues%20to,year%20growth%20rate%20since%201981.
You can't measure it that way. The vast majority of health care costs are spent on the elderly, but the vast majority of the population growth are younger people. So it's not like if the population increases by 5% then health care costs also increases by 5% since the distributions aren't the same.
If we measure it by wait times or class sizes or damn near any other metric used to measure our public services currently, it clearly indicates that a 5% increase still isn’t enough.
Also what these numbers don’t specify is how much of that “increase” in money is going to private charter schools and private health clinics. I would love to see that break down.
That is how it's measured, this had been known since they've release their budget https://albertaworker.ca/news/ucp-health-spending-not-keeping-up-with-inflation/
Please dont oversimplify this, It isent a matter of "giving the hospitals" more money. We spend more on HC then almost every other country on earth and get jack shit for it. The contracts need to be re-negotiated. Pumping more money into these systems will not help.
Im willing to bet the cellphone ban in schools will do more for quality of education then an extra billion dollars.
There’s already close to 40 kids in most public school classes. I’m sure doubling the amount of teachers so their attention can be divided up into 20 kids instead of 40 would help quite a lot.
Hiring that many teachers is gonna require a lot more than a 4% increase in money though.
> We spend more on HC then almost every other country on earth
*Citation required*
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita
Looks like we’re middle of the pack.
One example is in the page linked above. [Life expectancy vs health expenditure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita#/media/File%3ALife_expectancy_vs_healthcare_spending.jpg)
Canada seems about average on this metric. Some countries spend less to get similar results, some spend more.
Per the table, which appears to only go down to 188 countries, Canada is spending more on health care than lovely places like Lebanon, Colombia, Azerbaijan, Myanmar, and Bangladesh.
The OECD table, which lists Canada as 12th out of 38 countries, is probably a better comparison, because it only includes countries with a decent economy and western values.
LMAO.
Nurses quit because of shit pay for being overworked and understaffed. And you think pumping money to hire more +/- raise their pay wouldn't help? Instead of ignoring healthcare and purposefully fucking it, they could take an actual crack at helping it but they never will because conservatives couldn't give 2 shits about people.
They tried to get back-pay during COVID from nurses, the UCP are literally despicable fucking vile people.
Well I have lived in Alberta for more than 60 years. It has really gone downhill under the UCP! And apparently it is intentional as they want to channel money into private for profit companies. Compared to other provinces, I can only say Quebec was way better, and in spite of how folks in B.C. think it is bad there, it is worse here, now.
Edited to clarify:
I'm only talking about the 8 years since you left
Having a private health insurance that runs along side a public health insurance program isn't a bad thing. In fact, some of the more advanced economies in the world use that system (like Germany and Austria). Also, since Quebec is receiving equalization payments from Alberta, I would hope Quebec has a good universal healthcare program.
You're missing some details
In Germany, you only qualify for private health insurance when you make more than €70,000/year. Only 10% of Germans opt for private insurance.
Nobody is receiving equalization payments from Alberta. The federal government apportions federal tax revenues from all Canadians based on a funding formula agreed to by all provinces and implemented by the Stephen Harper government.
Exactly conservatives think government surplus is a good thing. When in reality it means they are hoarding your tax dollars and not helping you with it. You are basically paying for nothing.
Government surplus is not the same as your household income being higher than your household expenses.
Why do they want this? Beyond pute ignorance, I'd guess its so they can invest it in the companies that spend the most lobbying, bribing and promising kickbacks
I am okay if the surplus is either a) paying down provincial debt or b) building a sovereign fund. All other options are not optimal and if it's not a) or b), it should be towards school, hospitals, housing, or roads.
Okay, serious questions for everyone complaining. I don't know the answer to this. I live in BC.
What is underfunded and sucks more in Alberta than it does in BC?
People in Alberta love to complain about things that are no shit worse in BC. I live in BC and drive to AB to get healthcare for my daughter because the ER is better, they have a pediatrician we can always access, and the hospital is brand new.
Conversely, in BC there are no family doctors, ridiculous wait times in ER, and a lack of specialists. Everyone in my city goes to Edmonton for all major surgeries or specialist appointments because we actually get in there sooner.
BC education is heavily funded, but that largely results in more non-enrolling teachers which are hired on seniority and are largely useless. We have a ton of personnel bloat and are not getting good results. AB students score higher on university entrance exams than BC students. Maybe there will be trickle down, but BC education is just inefficient even if heavily funded.
AB doing pretty good in my eyes, but ya a lot of that is anecdotal.
Sources: Am an administrator in BC. MIL is the dean of admissions for the nursing program at UBC and notes how AB students always enter stronger.
Just about every public service. Infrastructure, roads, healthcare, education, income tax is higher under 100k which is the majority. After housing in Edmonton and gas, almost everything else is collapsing or 2 -3 x more expensive. 40 plus class sizes, limited TA's, and foreign unqualified nurses. It's actually pretty scary how bad and how fast Alberta is going backward. It's actually pretty gross.
It’s wild. Alberta is so pro-ultra-wealthy that it’s cheaper (taxwise) to live in BC as upper middle class and power upper class because everyone is subsidizing the tax rate for the highest class
"Almost everything else is collapsing or 2 -3 x more expensive"
This is hilariously inaccurate and exaggerated. *Everything* is collapsing or 2 to 3x more expensive? More expensive than what? *what* is more expensive? And *what* is collapsin*g*?
Alberta has the highest emigration levels in the country and is generating a surplus...
I was skeptical of your claim that income tax is higher under 100k. [That does not seem to be the case: ](https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/alberta-tax-brackets#what_are_alberta_s_2024_tax_brackets_and_rates)
* **10%** on income up to $148,269
* **12%** on income between $148,269 and $177,922
* **13%** on income between $177,922 and $237,230
* **14%** on income between $237,230 and $355,845
* **15%** on income over $355,845
It’s better to have a surplus than to overspend. At least they have the option to responsibly increase spending for sectors that need it most in the coming years. People will always have something to complain about.
It’s actually at an all time high for assets. It should be much higher though and definitely issues. Until last year investment income was not reinvested.
lol. Not OP. But you're not wrong. It is the highest its ever been.
That's of course assuming you just blindly ignore everything to do with investing profit proceeds, which hasn't been done to the fund since 1987, outside of three years (06,07,08) right in the dot com boom and right before the 09 bust.
And since we're also ignoring things, lets also just for the entire time ignore inflation since 1987 too.
> As shown, the Heritage Fund would be worth approximately twice its actual value today if it had been inflation proofed since inception. Specifically, it would be worth $33.7 billion compared to $16.2 billion in 2019/20
And lets also just ignore the average market growth for stock market investments over that time from 1987 to today, at 9.7%. Since we didnt track even close to that either after 1983, and absolutely flat overall, again, not even accounting for inflation.
In which case its also been an absolute disaster. The per capita value of the fund peaked in 1983, when the nominal value was about $12,500 per Albertan. At the end of 2021, the per capita value of the fund is approximately $4,200.
But sure. Lets stick our heads in the sand and say "Its the highest its ever been!!!".
Citations:
https://monitormag.ca/articles/alberta-squandered-the-heritage-fund-but-its-not-too-late-to-fix-it/
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/repairing-albertas-heritage-fund.pdf
It's easy to be an ass, but regardless of how you're measuring, the only way to grow the fund again is to keep adding to it. The fact we have one at all is impressive relative to the rest of the provinces that are posting deficits and sending the country into all-time high levels of debt. "It's been an absolute disaster" is a totally hyperbolic.
It definitely needs better protections established. As a recipient of my Ralph Bucks back in the day it was an absolute travesty that we watched 3 successive Premiers dip into the HF like it was a candy bowl.
Many of these breaks you talk about are in exchange for funding green energy projects. There has been billions spent on green projects due to money saved through these tax breaks, please dont parrot things you know nothing about.
Shocker how you have extra money left over if you do not spend any on services and infrastructure for yor province eh? Crazy right? Who would have thought.
Are governments supposed to run as corporations who are responsible to their shareholders OR are they supposed to be an organization that helps its constituents?
BaLanCe tHe BuDget is such a grift that attracts the attention of those who lack critical thinking.
[https://x.com/McfarlaneGlenda/status/1806099220228645071](https://x.com/McfarlaneGlenda/status/1806099220228645071)
Just saw this - somewhat relevant to your point lol
It does matter in the long run. AB's debt servicing costs was 3B last year and the heritage fund generated 1.7B in gains to offset that. Meanwhile if you look at Ontario they spent 13B on debt servicing costs.
That's the difference between them growing their savings fund and reducing their debt costs further vs having to continue borrowing to get by. Ontario's current budget forecast is they'll add another 60 billion to their debt load over the next 4 years.
All of that is money that's no longer available to future generations.
Ironic how some in here want it spent like someone on a spending spree at retail therapy day. Pylons would rather be servicing a debt than getting out. Btw how’s that gst being collected stacking up against the national debt? Stop writing checks your stupid asses can’t cash.
A surplus can be a good or bad thing. In this case, some of that money should be going to education and infrastructure. Alberta need more housing, better road maintenance, and more funding for social services.
This is the kind of fiscal restraint that our society needs. Would be nice if other governments could follow suit and avoid a devastating debt crisis down the line.
Or y'know, we could cut back on immigration/international students. When I was in HS in the Vancouver, BC suburbs, there were sometimes 5+ Chinese international students in a single class. Not only did this impact class size, but many of these international students were ESL and so impacted group projects, etc. Not to mention these students tend to just congregate together and not interact with the other students at all.
People are complaining because a lot of it is our money. If I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars in income tax each year and our health care sucks then where is my money going? Why is the government sitting on it? Where is it going?
> People are complaining because a lot of it is our money.
Considering the majority demographic of Reddit is post-secondary students with a median age of 23 - it's a pretty safe bet that not a single red cent of that surplus is from the taxes of anyone making these complaints. They receive services well above the value of whatever little taxes they do pay.
This surplus is from one place - oil royalties on a strong oil price & strong production. What do you think the venn diagram looks like of the people whining about Alberta's surplus and those advocating for shutting down the oilsands? I'm willing to bet its *pretty darn close* to a circle.
Fiscal restraint? Ha
I love when folks that don't live in Alberta have such insightful commentary about Alberta politics without understanding how we have been fucked in the ass by the same conservative government for the past 40+ years
So frustrating. “Wow Danielle smith saved money”. She did it by slashing education and healthcare budgets, not by reducing bribery, endless study costs, subsidies to O&G, shutting down green projects (to the tune of 15B placed on hold)
Fun fact: Quebec also has oil and gas reserves. They have voluntarily declared a moratorium on drilling, despite interested parties.
These reserves are not considered in equalization payments.
Happy to collect, unwilling to contribute.
Additional fun fact:
Quebec exports excess Hydro power to it's US neighbours. The maritime provinces have expressed interest in purchasing that excess power themselves to replace coal & nat gas generators, and Quebec declined because they wouldn't pay as much as the Americans do.
Quebec not only gets preferential treatment on their hydro revenues, but they also use those revenues to subsidize electricity costs for the province so that they are never realized, and not included in equalization.
Fun fact: you built a strawman.
1. Quebec's Hydro is treated exactly the same in equalization as Hydro in Ontario, BC, Newfoundland or anywhere else
2. You are lamenting that Hydro Quebec maximizes revenues, while lamenting that they are minimizing revenues, in basically the same sentence.. it can't be both.
Basically taxes collected around all canada helped building these infrastructure back then, quebec being second most populated province gave its fair share.
They should build some refineries with that money, and stop selling their oil for cents on the dollar. Had decades to do, but never ever met demand. Instead they ship out the oil and the jobs. Could be so much more.
Ah, once again the best run province doing what well run jurisdictions do: finishing with a surplus and using the additional funds to pay down debt and save for the future.
If only we had a federal government that behaved the same way, but alas, not for another 15 months or so.
EDIT: my goodness there’s a lot of Alberta haters. My favourites are the ones spewing endless disinformation. And for the record, I haven’t downvoted a single response to me, even the obvious trolls. Obviously some people feel very threatened by Alberta.
Actually, both.
Further, earlier in the year I needed some minor surgery. Took a week to get into my family doc, saw the referral surgeon three weeks after that and they offered me a surgical time a month after that. I doubt many people in other provinces could say the same for that kind of turnaround.
I don’t pretend everything is wine and roses in Alberta… I just say compared to the rest of the bunch we’re rock stars.
Your comparison for getting this procedure vs. other provinces is based on what evidence? One procedure in one province?
I'm glad you got the care that you needed in a timely fashion, but having a family doctor is not possible for many, and our province is losing physicians at an alarming rate. I personally know three that have left the province in the last 16 months.
This surplus is partially a result of our government starving our most vital public services. It is nothing to be proud of.
Wait… my sample size of 1 was too small to matter, but your sample size of three was relevant? Come on.
In truth, Alberta’s doctor to patient ratio has remained quite steady for decades. There are indeed significant issues with getting enough nurses and support staff, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. There are growing problems with having enough family docs and that definitely needs to be addressed, especially in rural areas, but again the problems Alberta is facing in this regard are nothing compared to elsewhere in Canada.
There is a website people can use to find a family doc. Up until a year or so ago it was trivially easy to find one in Calgary or Edmonton, much less so today. I wonder if that correlates at all with the massive flood of people moving here? I suspect so.
[Here's my supporting evidence, I'm sure you can back all the claims you've completely made up.](https://globalnews.ca/news/10245505/family-physicians-alberta-report/)
I know three physicians that have left a town with ten total physicians, none replaced as of yet, and three out of roughly 1,400 in the entire province. You were one procedure among hundreds of thousands. Maybe you should understand how your anecdote is maybe less representative than mine. I also actually have dozens of anecdotes from practically every person I know that works for AHS, from primary care physicians, dieticians, PT/OT, nurses and they all paint a picture that isn't hard to peice together.
You keep claiming things, but you haven't proven a single damn thing other than ignorance. You keep claiming shit like," it's worse elsewhere," but if you speak to anyone in healthcare, they are burnt out, and things are getting worse. So our access to care is getting worse, and you are out here celebrating that it's even worse somewhere else. Frankly, I don't care about elsewhere. There are easily fixable problems that our government is purposefully not fixing.
If you were to inform yourself by reading my link, the website you find a family doctor on has had a 428% increase in visitors since 2020. There are only 190 primary care physicians taking new patients in the entire province of 4.4 million people. There is a legitimate issue with access to care, especially in rural areas where ERs are shutting down due to lack of coverage.
If things are so good, why don't you tell your family doctor that you will give up your spot and you can find another one to prove me wrong?
You used the condition of ERs and schools in Alberta as if it is a singularly unique condition to the province. It's the same across the country, even in provinces that go into deficit to possibly legally fund those services.
It's not an issue of the funding. It's a matter of spending. Which neither group in Alberta do very well.
$19.3B in oil and gas royalties. Without those, we'd be in a deficit and [we will be facing massive cuts to those royalties very shortly](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-29/trudeau-climate-plan-calls-for-42-cut-in-oil-and-gas-emissions). Increasing overhead to match good revenue years from royalties that will soon disappear is bad budgeting.
Ya, I'm no ucp fan. I don't particularly like smith and think she will do anything to spite the liberals or oppose the NDP. But her government isn't always wrong, and people hate her, so they can't ever admit when something makes some sense.
If we are concerned about climate change, reducing emissions, and a green alternative industry driving the future, setting a budget that's driven by an oil and gas surplus is not a good idea. I'm not a fan of cuts and a lot of the governments policies, but if in the future the government rapidly shifts away from industries that generate that revenue, people will be mad as he'll that the bloated budget can't be maintained. The cuts will come at some point, and until the green capital generation is established, being fiscally conservative is wise. Especially when oil can be volatile, and we've seen the price drop and hurt the province more than once.
> So, they do have the money to adequately fund public education. At least to the Canadian average.
Alberta has the best education in the country, by a longshot.
Here are the provinces' [PISA scores](https://www.cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/438/PISA-2022_Canadian_Report_EN.pdf):
||Total|Math|Reading|Science|
:--|--:|--:|--:|--:|
|**AB**|**1563**|504|525|534|
|QC|1540|527|501|512|
|BC|1526|496|511|519|
|ON|1524|495|512|517|
|**Canada**|**1519**|497|507|515|
|PEI|1470|478|496|496|
|NS|1451|470|489|492|
|MB|1448|470|486|492|
|SK|1446|468|484|494|
|NFLD|1428|459|478|491|
|NB|1420|468|469|483|
By total score, not only is Alberta first in the country, it is first by so much that the next best province (Quebec) is closer to the Canadian average than it is to Quebec.
So yeah, I would say that they have the money to "adequately fund public education to the Canadian average".
There was more resource royalties in 2022/23 than in all of 2015-2019.
This has nothing to do with spending and everything to do with the price of and demand for oil.
Exactly. Budget needs to take into account the volatility of oil price and subsequent royalty collection. It's what killed the NDP when they were in power. $30 oil resulting in oil revenues of $4B, rather than $19.4 Billion...
The budget should be balanced on a nominal resource revenue and the surplus should be spent on paying down debt and heritage fund. Make hay while the sun shines....
The UCP cut revenue generation via reducing the corporate tax, which in turn did jack shit. They cut spending, sure, but they also cut revenue sources.
Literally getting bailed out from sustained high oil prices.
Its not "during" a mass surplus. Its a surplus because they are in there. Believe it or not, having a surplus is what many people vote on. I dont want millions going to random foundations and pumping into systems that have proven to fail
Besides the healthcare and education comments already posted by several, the province is also saving a lot of money by not paying their share of municipal taxes and underfunding many things that are impacting municipalities.
Meanwhile, our Edmonton property tax increase is 8.9% this year and we are staring down the barrel of double digit tax increases for the next few years at least.
Why are you pretending a 9% property tax isn't happening elsewhere? Toronto just had a 9.5% increase. 7.5% for Vancouver, which isn't even factoring in their recent infrastructure boondoggles.
All part of the plan. UCP is situating themselves in the middle - between the feds and the municipalities - so they can sit back and blame everyone but themselves for your quality of life.
After all, they’ve added to a surplus they’re ideologically opposed to ever spending - what more do you want from government?
Dude, you need to go back to junior high and take a social studies class.
The province pays no municipal taxes. The municipalities are an extension of the province.
I'd take your complaints more seriously if your city council hadn't bent over for Darrel Katz.
I understand they’re not required to but in a city like Edmonton, that’s a lot of real estate owned by the province that we Edmonton tax payers are supporting indirectly (sewers, water, road maintenance around government buildings, fire and police service in case of emergencies, etc.).
I should have picked different examples of how their policies are impacting cities.
For examples the fact that for the last 2-3 years, per capita provincial spending for infrastructure projects has been at about 1/3 the level it was at in 2011.
The way they downloaded much of the responsibility to deal with homelessness onto the city by underfunding programs.
And don’t get me started on the piss poor compensation for public sector workers who have fallen way behind inflation compared to other levels of government or the private sector under the UCP.
And about your junior high comment… yeah I’ll just leave it at that and won’t stoop to your level.
Said another way:
Alberta continues to underfund healthcare and education while having billions of dollars of room in the operating budget to afford it.
Alberta's worst case scenario is to align economically with the rest of Canada... I agree, that's horrible.
But I think the most pressing issue is that the rest of Canada needs to figure out how to have a better economy than the English Midlands.
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Surplus? Why don't you explain this to me like I'm five?
Your parents give you 10 dollars to open a lemonade stand...
... And next year I'll be 6 ...
Do we buy new chairs or a new photocopier? Cause if we get new chairs I get @beautiful_dog_6700’s old chair… then I’ll have two chairs. Only one to go.
A government no matter how large or small budgets a certain amount of money for the year to spend on things the government does like schools, infrastructure, medical care, the police... anything they touch comes out of the budget for the year. The money for this budget comes from government revenue, the biggest source of revenue being taxes. Alberta did not spend as much as they budgeted for over the course of the year, the leftover sum is called a surplus. Overspending is called a deficit. Typically a surplus is seen as a good thing, as that money can go directly into paying off any debts a government may have accrued or growing programs. However, as you can see from some of the comments in this thread, critics say the Alberta government created this surplus by underfunding certain initiatives.
>Alberta did not spend as much as they budgeted for over the course of the year, the leftover sum is called a surplus. Overspending is called a deficit. Not quite. A surplus and a deficit are based on revenues and expenses, not necessarily overspending or underspending their budget. Alberta is actually a great example of this, as they budgeted for a surplus in 2023 (that is, their budget included higher revenues than their anticipated expenses), so they could underspend, overspend (within a margin) or meet their budget exactly and it would have resulted in a surplus. They would have had to overspend their budget fairly significantly to end the year in deficit.
That sounds quite complicated for ELI5 style, which is why I didn't go into that much detail.
The Alberta government budgeted to spend a certain amount to fund public services, but underfunded those services to the result of 4.5 billion. Now they have some free money they can do whatever they want with, likely hand outs for corporations
Then why is Ms Smith underfunding education and hospitals?
To create the surplus, silly
Are wait times worse in Alberta hospitals? Or access to surgeries compared to the rest of Canada? Are students doing worse? I am not arguing, I am curious. Edit: was missing a word
Wait times for routine screenings have gone from 1 month to 4-6. Source: sick mother.
Lowest funded education system in Canada
Okay but what are the results?
Yeah. If they are able to fund education less but have the same or better results as the rest of Canada it is a moot point. If they have the lowest funded and the lowest results then there is a problem.
We have better standardized test scores because we have a system to easily retake those tests. Pretty much everyone here rewrites at least one diploma exam.
Alberta students continue to rank near the top internationally. [link](https://teachers.ab.ca/news/public-education-alberta-continues-world-class-standing)
>Are students doing worse? Unfortunately that's not something that can often be seen right away. Testing scores may not be down right away as the effect on the kids will not be drastic yet. However, eventually overcrowded classrooms and lack of resources will show up. (Although, PATs and diplomas are not the best way to measure student success as the government makes those tests, and can create them to have good results) As a general thought: we need to be looking at education as an investment. I believe there have been quite a few studies that educational investment done by the government leads to economic success.
Didn’t Alberta schools get graded second best in the world?
[not second best. but great](https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/edmonton/2019/12/3/1_4713229.html)
They should strive to do better - not strive to do as bad as the rest of the country.
My friend did manage, barely to survive colon cancer during and after the pandemic. The hospitals were clogged and having been told had to have surgery ASAP had his surgery then delayed and rescheduled repeatedly. But post pandemic the situation has not improved. The government has been actively driving doctors and nurses out of the province. Recently my friend was scheduled for tests to be sure he is cancer free now, and now they keep getting rescheduled, month after month. I was supposed to drive him last week; now he is rescheduled for Sept.
That’s not what he asked, though.
Reading between the lines of the anecdote, it does sound like Alberta's healthcare is no better than other provinces with budget deficits. Having cancer and not being able to schedule an appointment does not sound like a good healthcare system.
But with a 4billion surplus, we have no excuse. Thats as bad management as having a 4bn defecit.
Alberta's wait times are worse year over year and have been getting progressively worse for the last 5 years.
Yes because more and more people are accessing the system and they are sicker than ever before and we have families demanding that 95 year old grandma needs every single life saving measure used to prolong (horribly) their existence even if it has a 1% chance of working. Hospital resources are stretched to the fucking limit right now. And it's only going to get worse.
Are you agreeing with me???
Wrong question. The question is: are wait times and service levels acceptable in AB? After all we live in AB.
No they’re not. The minimum wait time to see an Oncologist (cancer doctor) is 3 months due to a massive shortage of Oncologists in ‘berta. The majority of Oncologists have left the province because Alberta doesn’t pay as well as other provinces or the US and poor working conditions created by UCP.
I think that's a terrible metric. If your neighbors kids are starving, is it okay for your kids to starve too?
>Healthcare remains the largest line item and among the fastest growing expense at 5.1%. Large increases are set for physician compensation and development (including the [Dynalife buyout](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/dynalife-alberta-health-services-alberta-precision-labs-1.6940595#:~:text=781-,Alberta's%20health%20minister%20says%20Alberta%20Health%20Services%20has%20signed%20a,by%20the%20end%20of%202023.)), drugs and supplemental health benefits and community care, particularly for seniors. >Education accounted for another $412 million (4.4%) of the increase with more than half of the additional funding going to capacity enhancements for early childhood service to Grade 12 and post-secondary operations. [https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/alberta-budget-2024-keeps-fiscal-surplus-and-lowest-provincial-debt-burden/](https://thoughtleadership.rbc.com/alberta-budget-2024-keeps-fiscal-surplus-and-lowest-provincial-debt-burden/) They did cut funding, just not from education and healthcare: >Public safety and emergency services (-15%), children and family services (-8.5%), and seniors community and social services (-0.3%) will see spending cuts of $351 million in 2024-25 despite record population growth and a more turbulent economic environment. There's quite a bit in capital investment for hospitals in the budget: [https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/23c82502-fd11-45c6-861f-99381fffc748/resource/9c8f7cb3-51f6-4f00-a267-7af147e59a70/download/budget-2024-highlights-refocusing-albertas-health-care-system.pdf](https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/23c82502-fd11-45c6-861f-99381fffc748/resource/9c8f7cb3-51f6-4f00-a267-7af147e59a70/download/budget-2024-highlights-refocusing-albertas-health-care-system.pdf)
Because of the change to the funding model (rolling 3 year average enrollment) a lot of major school districts are being funded less than any other province on a per-student basis. >The ATA warned that 13 school boards received less provincial funding than last year so schools in communities such as Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Okotoks, High River, St. Albert, Camrose, Two Hills, Fort MacLeod and Morinville will likely experience even larger class sizes and program cuts in the fall. https://www.reddeeradvocate.com/local-news/alberta-teachers-say-funding-model-disastrous-for-students-7364381 Anecdotally, the teachers I know are close to, if not entirely burnt out, and have classrooms of 30+ kids, including special needs, without any educational assistants or caregivers. There's just not enough time in the day to properly help kids with those kind of ratios.
They did cut finding when you include population growth etc.. but yes if you misrepresent accounting you can come up with any angst you prefer.
While raw numbers sound impressive, what is the outcome of them? Smaller classroom sizes? Reduced wait lists for care? Key performance indicators needed.
After years of massive underfunding to what is needed to maintain our Healthcare system they make a negligible contribution.... is not a win -9-9-9+1= -35
That's actually -26
See! They cut education!
I was educated under a school system run by the ucp
I was educated under the PC in the 90s we had decent class sizes and world class education. But I feel like it has gone down hill since then.
Alberta’s population grew ~4.4% in the past year. Then take into account inflation, a 4.4% and 5.1% increase in spending is essentially a pay cut. Not a huge one, but considering how much they already cut going back to 2019, it’s certainly not going to help the increasingly dire situation. https://www.alberta.ca/population-statistics#:~:text=Alberta's%20population%20growth%20continues%20to,year%20growth%20rate%20since%201981.
You can't measure it that way. The vast majority of health care costs are spent on the elderly, but the vast majority of the population growth are younger people. So it's not like if the population increases by 5% then health care costs also increases by 5% since the distributions aren't the same.
If we measure it by wait times or class sizes or damn near any other metric used to measure our public services currently, it clearly indicates that a 5% increase still isn’t enough. Also what these numbers don’t specify is how much of that “increase” in money is going to private charter schools and private health clinics. I would love to see that break down.
That is how it's measured, this had been known since they've release their budget https://albertaworker.ca/news/ucp-health-spending-not-keeping-up-with-inflation/
because they want to privatize all that stuff.
Please dont oversimplify this, It isent a matter of "giving the hospitals" more money. We spend more on HC then almost every other country on earth and get jack shit for it. The contracts need to be re-negotiated. Pumping more money into these systems will not help. Im willing to bet the cellphone ban in schools will do more for quality of education then an extra billion dollars.
There’s already close to 40 kids in most public school classes. I’m sure doubling the amount of teachers so their attention can be divided up into 20 kids instead of 40 would help quite a lot. Hiring that many teachers is gonna require a lot more than a 4% increase in money though.
What contracts?
> We spend more on HC then almost every other country on earth *Citation required* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita Looks like we’re middle of the pack.
How does our healthcare compare to some of those similar countries? Is there any data that it’s comparable.
One example is in the page linked above. [Life expectancy vs health expenditure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_per_capita#/media/File%3ALife_expectancy_vs_healthcare_spending.jpg) Canada seems about average on this metric. Some countries spend less to get similar results, some spend more.
According to your list, we are #12. That is pretty god damn high. 12th in the world? Is that not high to you?
Per the table, which appears to only go down to 188 countries, Canada is spending more on health care than lovely places like Lebanon, Colombia, Azerbaijan, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. The OECD table, which lists Canada as 12th out of 38 countries, is probably a better comparison, because it only includes countries with a decent economy and western values.
Its not in the world, its among OECD nations. And we're 11th by GDP per capita in the OECD so that sounds totally normal to me.
You should probably update your anger post to include that it's not the highest
LMAO. Nurses quit because of shit pay for being overworked and understaffed. And you think pumping money to hire more +/- raise their pay wouldn't help? Instead of ignoring healthcare and purposefully fucking it, they could take an actual crack at helping it but they never will because conservatives couldn't give 2 shits about people. They tried to get back-pay during COVID from nurses, the UCP are literally despicable fucking vile people.
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Lol it’s better than Ontario on average but Ontario has more specialist
Well I have lived in Alberta for more than 60 years. It has really gone downhill under the UCP! And apparently it is intentional as they want to channel money into private for profit companies. Compared to other provinces, I can only say Quebec was way better, and in spite of how folks in B.C. think it is bad there, it is worse here, now. Edited to clarify: I'm only talking about the 8 years since you left
Having a private health insurance that runs along side a public health insurance program isn't a bad thing. In fact, some of the more advanced economies in the world use that system (like Germany and Austria). Also, since Quebec is receiving equalization payments from Alberta, I would hope Quebec has a good universal healthcare program.
You're missing some details In Germany, you only qualify for private health insurance when you make more than €70,000/year. Only 10% of Germans opt for private insurance. Nobody is receiving equalization payments from Alberta. The federal government apportions federal tax revenues from all Canadians based on a funding formula agreed to by all provinces and implemented by the Stephen Harper government.
Exactly conservatives think government surplus is a good thing. When in reality it means they are hoarding your tax dollars and not helping you with it. You are basically paying for nothing. Government surplus is not the same as your household income being higher than your household expenses. Why do they want this? Beyond pute ignorance, I'd guess its so they can invest it in the companies that spend the most lobbying, bribing and promising kickbacks
I am okay if the surplus is either a) paying down provincial debt or b) building a sovereign fund. All other options are not optimal and if it's not a) or b), it should be towards school, hospitals, housing, or roads.
Ever thought process was the problem and throwing money at the problem is not the solution.
Easy to save money when you dont pay your bills
Okay, serious questions for everyone complaining. I don't know the answer to this. I live in BC. What is underfunded and sucks more in Alberta than it does in BC?
People in Alberta love to complain about things that are no shit worse in BC. I live in BC and drive to AB to get healthcare for my daughter because the ER is better, they have a pediatrician we can always access, and the hospital is brand new. Conversely, in BC there are no family doctors, ridiculous wait times in ER, and a lack of specialists. Everyone in my city goes to Edmonton for all major surgeries or specialist appointments because we actually get in there sooner. BC education is heavily funded, but that largely results in more non-enrolling teachers which are hired on seniority and are largely useless. We have a ton of personnel bloat and are not getting good results. AB students score higher on university entrance exams than BC students. Maybe there will be trickle down, but BC education is just inefficient even if heavily funded. AB doing pretty good in my eyes, but ya a lot of that is anecdotal. Sources: Am an administrator in BC. MIL is the dean of admissions for the nursing program at UBC and notes how AB students always enter stronger.
Just about every public service. Infrastructure, roads, healthcare, education, income tax is higher under 100k which is the majority. After housing in Edmonton and gas, almost everything else is collapsing or 2 -3 x more expensive. 40 plus class sizes, limited TA's, and foreign unqualified nurses. It's actually pretty scary how bad and how fast Alberta is going backward. It's actually pretty gross.
Same shit in Ontario. I think Alberta is actually doing quite well in comparison.
I believe income tax is higher under 150k which is an even larger number lol
It’s wild. Alberta is so pro-ultra-wealthy that it’s cheaper (taxwise) to live in BC as upper middle class and power upper class because everyone is subsidizing the tax rate for the highest class
Bro, come to Quebec. Soon pharmacists will be doing surgery here
You are acting like that is any different than Alberta
"Almost everything else is collapsing or 2 -3 x more expensive" This is hilariously inaccurate and exaggerated. *Everything* is collapsing or 2 to 3x more expensive? More expensive than what? *what* is more expensive? And *what* is collapsin*g*? Alberta has the highest emigration levels in the country and is generating a surplus...
Do you have the stats on this? I would be curious what the difference is in each of those areas.
I was skeptical of your claim that income tax is higher under 100k. [That does not seem to be the case: ](https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/alberta-tax-brackets#what_are_alberta_s_2024_tax_brackets_and_rates) * **10%** on income up to $148,269 * **12%** on income between $148,269 and $177,922 * **13%** on income between $177,922 and $237,230 * **14%** on income between $237,230 and $355,845 * **15%** on income over $355,845
And if I sell my house, I'll have a ton of money. Don't ask me where I'm supposed to live. I'll have all this money!!!
She cancelled edmonton's hospital saying it was too expensive. We havent had a new hospital since the 80's..
Yah, by not funding fucken anything. UCP sucks my balls.
It’s better to have a surplus than to overspend. At least they have the option to responsibly increase spending for sectors that need it most in the coming years. People will always have something to complain about.
That's 4.3B for future tax breaks for the oil and gas CEOs. Or that's 4.3B of money not spent on schools or health care.
It went to debt repayment and heritage fund.
Oh. You mean the heritage fund that they have depleted and would be worth trillions of dollars now if the cons hadn't given it to their oil bros?
It’s actually at an all time high for assets. It should be much higher though and definitely issues. Until last year investment income was not reinvested.
lol. Not OP. But you're not wrong. It is the highest its ever been. That's of course assuming you just blindly ignore everything to do with investing profit proceeds, which hasn't been done to the fund since 1987, outside of three years (06,07,08) right in the dot com boom and right before the 09 bust. And since we're also ignoring things, lets also just for the entire time ignore inflation since 1987 too. > As shown, the Heritage Fund would be worth approximately twice its actual value today if it had been inflation proofed since inception. Specifically, it would be worth $33.7 billion compared to $16.2 billion in 2019/20 And lets also just ignore the average market growth for stock market investments over that time from 1987 to today, at 9.7%. Since we didnt track even close to that either after 1983, and absolutely flat overall, again, not even accounting for inflation. In which case its also been an absolute disaster. The per capita value of the fund peaked in 1983, when the nominal value was about $12,500 per Albertan. At the end of 2021, the per capita value of the fund is approximately $4,200. But sure. Lets stick our heads in the sand and say "Its the highest its ever been!!!". Citations: https://monitormag.ca/articles/alberta-squandered-the-heritage-fund-but-its-not-too-late-to-fix-it/ https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/repairing-albertas-heritage-fund.pdf
It's easy to be an ass, but regardless of how you're measuring, the only way to grow the fund again is to keep adding to it. The fact we have one at all is impressive relative to the rest of the provinces that are posting deficits and sending the country into all-time high levels of debt. "It's been an absolute disaster" is a totally hyperbolic. It definitely needs better protections established. As a recipient of my Ralph Bucks back in the day it was an absolute travesty that we watched 3 successive Premiers dip into the HF like it was a candy bowl.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1dpxu1w/alberta_ends_fiscal_year_with_43b_surplus/lam5ao1/ No, hes right.
Many of these breaks you talk about are in exchange for funding green energy projects. There has been billions spent on green projects due to money saved through these tax breaks, please dont parrot things you know nothing about.
Fiscal responsibility is not my problem. -Someone who will be dead before the debt crisis.
And yet no money for Calgary green line
but there is money for a hockey arena...
Shocker how you have extra money left over if you do not spend any on services and infrastructure for yor province eh? Crazy right? Who would have thought.
How much of that was supposed to be spent on healthcare? All of it?
Yeah, they spent nothing on Health Care just to get that surplus.
Depressing.
Wow...now maybe fund our Healthcare properly...
The new war room will be much nicer than the old war room.
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Are governments supposed to run as corporations who are responsible to their shareholders OR are they supposed to be an organization that helps its constituents? BaLanCe tHe BuDget is such a grift that attracts the attention of those who lack critical thinking.
[https://x.com/McfarlaneGlenda/status/1806099220228645071](https://x.com/McfarlaneGlenda/status/1806099220228645071) Just saw this - somewhat relevant to your point lol
It does matter in the long run. AB's debt servicing costs was 3B last year and the heritage fund generated 1.7B in gains to offset that. Meanwhile if you look at Ontario they spent 13B on debt servicing costs. That's the difference between them growing their savings fund and reducing their debt costs further vs having to continue borrowing to get by. Ontario's current budget forecast is they'll add another 60 billion to their debt load over the next 4 years. All of that is money that's no longer available to future generations.
The surplus will balance itself, and in the direction of becoming a deficit
I'm amazed JT hasn't suggested that Canadians get a second credit card and swap balances each month.
Ironic how some in here want it spent like someone on a spending spree at retail therapy day. Pylons would rather be servicing a debt than getting out. Btw how’s that gst being collected stacking up against the national debt? Stop writing checks your stupid asses can’t cash.
A surplus can be a good or bad thing. In this case, some of that money should be going to education and infrastructure. Alberta need more housing, better road maintenance, and more funding for social services.
Think of all the indians thatll buy us/s
So everyone is getting a cheque for $1000
And none of it will go to Albertans. It'll just magically disappear on literally nothing.
This is the kind of fiscal restraint that our society needs. Would be nice if other governments could follow suit and avoid a devastating debt crisis down the line.
I mean, there are high schools at 110% capacity that should have been replaced 5 years ago. Maybe a little less fiscal restraint would be better.
Or y'know, we could cut back on immigration/international students. When I was in HS in the Vancouver, BC suburbs, there were sometimes 5+ Chinese international students in a single class. Not only did this impact class size, but many of these international students were ESL and so impacted group projects, etc. Not to mention these students tend to just congregate together and not interact with the other students at all.
Agreed. Yet most of the comments in here are complaints. You really can’t please everyone.
People are complaining because a lot of it is our money. If I'm paying tens of thousands of dollars in income tax each year and our health care sucks then where is my money going? Why is the government sitting on it? Where is it going?
> People are complaining because a lot of it is our money. Considering the majority demographic of Reddit is post-secondary students with a median age of 23 - it's a pretty safe bet that not a single red cent of that surplus is from the taxes of anyone making these complaints. They receive services well above the value of whatever little taxes they do pay. This surplus is from one place - oil royalties on a strong oil price & strong production. What do you think the venn diagram looks like of the people whining about Alberta's surplus and those advocating for shutting down the oilsands? I'm willing to bet its *pretty darn close* to a circle.
Well now there is a surplus to spend on things like that, without creating a bunch of debt. Pretty great news tbh.
Yes, if it get spent on that, and not buying tax breaks for oil companies.
Fiscal restraint? Ha I love when folks that don't live in Alberta have such insightful commentary about Alberta politics without understanding how we have been fucked in the ass by the same conservative government for the past 40+ years
So frustrating. “Wow Danielle smith saved money”. She did it by slashing education and healthcare budgets, not by reducing bribery, endless study costs, subsidies to O&G, shutting down green projects (to the tune of 15B placed on hold)
Won't someone think of the poor oil billionaires
Now, give half of that to Quebec.
That comes from Federal revenue
Fun fact: Quebec also has oil and gas reserves. They have voluntarily declared a moratorium on drilling, despite interested parties. These reserves are not considered in equalization payments. Happy to collect, unwilling to contribute.
Additional fun fact: Quebec exports excess Hydro power to it's US neighbours. The maritime provinces have expressed interest in purchasing that excess power themselves to replace coal & nat gas generators, and Quebec declined because they wouldn't pay as much as the Americans do. Quebec not only gets preferential treatment on their hydro revenues, but they also use those revenues to subsidize electricity costs for the province so that they are never realized, and not included in equalization.
Fun fact: you built a strawman. 1. Quebec's Hydro is treated exactly the same in equalization as Hydro in Ontario, BC, Newfoundland or anywhere else 2. You are lamenting that Hydro Quebec maximizes revenues, while lamenting that they are minimizing revenues, in basically the same sentence.. it can't be both.
Basically taxes collected around all canada helped building these infrastructure back then, quebec being second most populated province gave its fair share.
Nah it's going straight into O&G execs pockets
"Not Taxing" somebody is not the same as a handout.
Whilst money goes into automaker execs pockets whether there is a deficit or a surplus in Ontario.
$19B came from oil and gas "execs pockets"...
They should build some refineries with that money, and stop selling their oil for cents on the dollar. Had decades to do, but never ever met demand. Instead they ship out the oil and the jobs. Could be so much more.
Ah, once again the best run province doing what well run jurisdictions do: finishing with a surplus and using the additional funds to pay down debt and save for the future. If only we had a federal government that behaved the same way, but alas, not for another 15 months or so. EDIT: my goodness there’s a lot of Alberta haters. My favourites are the ones spewing endless disinformation. And for the record, I haven’t downvoted a single response to me, even the obvious trolls. Obviously some people feel very threatened by Alberta.
You haven't been to an ER or a school lately, have you?
As if it’s better elsewhere
Actually, both. Further, earlier in the year I needed some minor surgery. Took a week to get into my family doc, saw the referral surgeon three weeks after that and they offered me a surgical time a month after that. I doubt many people in other provinces could say the same for that kind of turnaround. I don’t pretend everything is wine and roses in Alberta… I just say compared to the rest of the bunch we’re rock stars.
That would take minimum of 2 years in bc
Your comparison for getting this procedure vs. other provinces is based on what evidence? One procedure in one province? I'm glad you got the care that you needed in a timely fashion, but having a family doctor is not possible for many, and our province is losing physicians at an alarming rate. I personally know three that have left the province in the last 16 months. This surplus is partially a result of our government starving our most vital public services. It is nothing to be proud of.
Wait… my sample size of 1 was too small to matter, but your sample size of three was relevant? Come on. In truth, Alberta’s doctor to patient ratio has remained quite steady for decades. There are indeed significant issues with getting enough nurses and support staff, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. There are growing problems with having enough family docs and that definitely needs to be addressed, especially in rural areas, but again the problems Alberta is facing in this regard are nothing compared to elsewhere in Canada. There is a website people can use to find a family doc. Up until a year or so ago it was trivially easy to find one in Calgary or Edmonton, much less so today. I wonder if that correlates at all with the massive flood of people moving here? I suspect so.
[Here's my supporting evidence, I'm sure you can back all the claims you've completely made up.](https://globalnews.ca/news/10245505/family-physicians-alberta-report/) I know three physicians that have left a town with ten total physicians, none replaced as of yet, and three out of roughly 1,400 in the entire province. You were one procedure among hundreds of thousands. Maybe you should understand how your anecdote is maybe less representative than mine. I also actually have dozens of anecdotes from practically every person I know that works for AHS, from primary care physicians, dieticians, PT/OT, nurses and they all paint a picture that isn't hard to peice together. You keep claiming things, but you haven't proven a single damn thing other than ignorance. You keep claiming shit like," it's worse elsewhere," but if you speak to anyone in healthcare, they are burnt out, and things are getting worse. So our access to care is getting worse, and you are out here celebrating that it's even worse somewhere else. Frankly, I don't care about elsewhere. There are easily fixable problems that our government is purposefully not fixing. If you were to inform yourself by reading my link, the website you find a family doctor on has had a 428% increase in visitors since 2020. There are only 190 primary care physicians taking new patients in the entire province of 4.4 million people. There is a legitimate issue with access to care, especially in rural areas where ERs are shutting down due to lack of coverage. If things are so good, why don't you tell your family doctor that you will give up your spot and you can find another one to prove me wrong?
You think it's different outside of Alberta?
Who cares about other provinces when we are criminally underfunding our most crucial public services? What do they have to do with this?
You used the condition of ERs and schools in Alberta as if it is a singularly unique condition to the province. It's the same across the country, even in provinces that go into deficit to possibly legally fund those services. It's not an issue of the funding. It's a matter of spending. Which neither group in Alberta do very well.
You mean getting bailed out by resource revenues in spite of their terrible management?
Oil prices were actually lower than they budgeted for.
Respect, alberta
So, they do have the money to adequately fund public education. At least to the Canadian average.
$19.3B in oil and gas royalties. Without those, we'd be in a deficit and [we will be facing massive cuts to those royalties very shortly](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-29/trudeau-climate-plan-calls-for-42-cut-in-oil-and-gas-emissions). Increasing overhead to match good revenue years from royalties that will soon disappear is bad budgeting.
Ya, I'm no ucp fan. I don't particularly like smith and think she will do anything to spite the liberals or oppose the NDP. But her government isn't always wrong, and people hate her, so they can't ever admit when something makes some sense. If we are concerned about climate change, reducing emissions, and a green alternative industry driving the future, setting a budget that's driven by an oil and gas surplus is not a good idea. I'm not a fan of cuts and a lot of the governments policies, but if in the future the government rapidly shifts away from industries that generate that revenue, people will be mad as he'll that the bloated budget can't be maintained. The cuts will come at some point, and until the green capital generation is established, being fiscally conservative is wise. Especially when oil can be volatile, and we've seen the price drop and hurt the province more than once.
Ya that's a week 1 reversal when PP wins. I'm not a Conservative but it's clear this isn't going to stick.
> So, they do have the money to adequately fund public education. At least to the Canadian average. Alberta has the best education in the country, by a longshot. Here are the provinces' [PISA scores](https://www.cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/438/PISA-2022_Canadian_Report_EN.pdf): ||Total|Math|Reading|Science| :--|--:|--:|--:|--:| |**AB**|**1563**|504|525|534| |QC|1540|527|501|512| |BC|1526|496|511|519| |ON|1524|495|512|517| |**Canada**|**1519**|497|507|515| |PEI|1470|478|496|496| |NS|1451|470|489|492| |MB|1448|470|486|492| |SK|1446|468|484|494| |NFLD|1428|459|478|491| |NB|1420|468|469|483| By total score, not only is Alberta first in the country, it is first by so much that the next best province (Quebec) is closer to the Canadian average than it is to Quebec. So yeah, I would say that they have the money to "adequately fund public education to the Canadian average".
That's going back to help Albertans right? ... RIGHT?!
Lol it could be a surplus of 200 trillion and Reddit would still bitch and moan about the UCP
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There was more resource royalties in 2022/23 than in all of 2015-2019. This has nothing to do with spending and everything to do with the price of and demand for oil.
Exactly. Budget needs to take into account the volatility of oil price and subsequent royalty collection. It's what killed the NDP when they were in power. $30 oil resulting in oil revenues of $4B, rather than $19.4 Billion... The budget should be balanced on a nominal resource revenue and the surplus should be spent on paying down debt and heritage fund. Make hay while the sun shines....
That was kind of the UCP's plan. Call a snap election as all the shit is hitting the fan, the NDP inherits a massive shitshow with no real revenues.
Yeah but Notley killed oil /s
NDP = Notley destroying province Saw it on a bumper sticker a while back lol
The UCP cut revenue generation via reducing the corporate tax, which in turn did jack shit. They cut spending, sure, but they also cut revenue sources. Literally getting bailed out from sustained high oil prices.
It’s a government it should not be running surpluses that high when core services are crumbling.
The 2024 budget was the largest spending budget in AB history. None of this is because of fiscal restraint.
Don't let Trudeau know, he'll send it to Quebec before you can say "surplus".
He does/did. It's called equalization...
Absolute worst government to have during a massive surplus. Also worst to have during a record deficit. So fuck the UCP?
Its not "during" a mass surplus. Its a surplus because they are in there. Believe it or not, having a surplus is what many people vote on. I dont want millions going to random foundations and pumping into systems that have proven to fail
...maybe pay your teachers and healthcare workers then. Surpluses are meaningless if you underfund services.
Our teachers and healthcare workers are all volunteers?
The provincial government could build about 12000 homes; 8 really good substance abuse treatment centres; a rail network between the 8 major cities.
Sounds like they need to tax more and cut services harder, like we do here in Ontario.
Quebec like, imma need that
And no water
Yeah, that's on #YYCCC, not the province.
That’s not really their fault but ok
Cool! They will still squander the money and run a deficit somehow!!! Go politicians go!
How can they squander all the money and not spend any on health care and education?
Of course there’s a surplus when they don’t fund healthcare, education and social services, as well as not paying their taxes! Bunch of grifters
We have no health care, education or social services? What taxes do you think the province is not paying...?
Besides the healthcare and education comments already posted by several, the province is also saving a lot of money by not paying their share of municipal taxes and underfunding many things that are impacting municipalities. Meanwhile, our Edmonton property tax increase is 8.9% this year and we are staring down the barrel of double digit tax increases for the next few years at least.
Why are you pretending a 9% property tax isn't happening elsewhere? Toronto just had a 9.5% increase. 7.5% for Vancouver, which isn't even factoring in their recent infrastructure boondoggles.
All part of the plan. UCP is situating themselves in the middle - between the feds and the municipalities - so they can sit back and blame everyone but themselves for your quality of life. After all, they’ve added to a surplus they’re ideologically opposed to ever spending - what more do you want from government?
Dude, you need to go back to junior high and take a social studies class. The province pays no municipal taxes. The municipalities are an extension of the province. I'd take your complaints more seriously if your city council hadn't bent over for Darrel Katz.
I understand they’re not required to but in a city like Edmonton, that’s a lot of real estate owned by the province that we Edmonton tax payers are supporting indirectly (sewers, water, road maintenance around government buildings, fire and police service in case of emergencies, etc.). I should have picked different examples of how their policies are impacting cities. For examples the fact that for the last 2-3 years, per capita provincial spending for infrastructure projects has been at about 1/3 the level it was at in 2011. The way they downloaded much of the responsibility to deal with homelessness onto the city by underfunding programs. And don’t get me started on the piss poor compensation for public sector workers who have fallen way behind inflation compared to other levels of government or the private sector under the UCP. And about your junior high comment… yeah I’ll just leave it at that and won’t stoop to your level.
they used to, and then Jason Kenney decided not to in order to save a couple bucks. https://edmontonlabour.ca/the-ucp-needs-to-pay-their-bills/
That's plenty to plug a whole bunch of orphan wells. Cool.
Quebec liked that...
Said another way: Alberta continues to underfund healthcare and education while having billions of dollars of room in the operating budget to afford it.
So if they run a deficit and healthcare still sucks, then is that a victory?
...and ye shall throw money at it... Liberals 8:19
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>As oil declines What do you mean by this? There is no projected decline in oil demand.. at all.
Alberta's worst case scenario is to align economically with the rest of Canada... I agree, that's horrible. But I think the most pressing issue is that the rest of Canada needs to figure out how to have a better economy than the English Midlands.
Incredibly ignorant and I grew up in Vancouver proper. Mindblowing comment really.
## Cool can I have some money bro?!