Alberta Considers Radical Idea: Revenue That Isn’t Pumped From the Ground

Alberta’s once debt-free swagger is giving way to a three-year stretch of red ink, as the province projects rising deficits and fresh borrowing to keep core services afloat.

Finance Minister Nate Horner said Thursday that his United Conservative Party government will need to bend some of its own fiscal restraint laws to manage rapid population growth that arrived without the hoped-for economic boom. The upcoming fiscal year is forecast to post a $9.4-billion deficit, a figure Horner called “a tough pill to swallow.”

The province’s finances, long buoyed by volatile oil and gas royalties, are again riding the familiar roller-coaster. Horner suggested that breaking the boom-and-bust cycle would require a broader conversation about revenue, including whether Albertans are prepared to rethink their longstanding resistance to new taxes.

For a government elected on promises of discipline, the numbers mark a sobering recalibration.

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