Hoping to make some sense about what Alberta’s next budget should look like, Alberta Treasury Board President and Finance Minister Doug Horner met with Central Alberta residents on Thursday.
The two-hour discussion was a part of a province-wide consultation process on the 2013 budget.
About 30 people attended Horner’s visit at the Holiday Inn in Gasoline Alley where discussion topics ranged from budget priorities to revenue sources to the future of the Heritage Fund.
“The general consensus is health care and education are the two top priorities,” said Horner. “Infrastructure comes the next one after that and then you get into regional issues.”
Health remains a key topic of discussion as an aging baby boomer population will put pressure on the system.
One audience member would have preferred a more substantive discussion.
“We’ve all come here and we’ve all complained, but they’re not going to give us any answers,” said Mel Butler.
“It’s time we as Albertans demanded instead of sitting around doing nothing. And it’s time politicians got serious about telling us what we really need instead of what they think we want.”
Butler pointed specifically to health care expenditures, which currently account for 40.9 per cent of the 2012-13 estimated budget expenses, as an area that should be addressed.
“Health care was made for primary service, but they can’t be sustainable because I want a new nose because somebody bopped me in the nose . . . ,” said Butler. “We have to have a discussion on core services and everything else should be private insurance and if I want it, that’s fine.”
There was discussion about putting the health care budget on a diet and reducing spending. Health funding is expected to increase by 4.5 per cent this year compared to last, after two straight years of six per cent.
“Albertans want us to make sure we’re spending wisely,” said Horner. “They want us to make sure we’re getting value for the money that’s going into those programs. They’re not looking at us to wholesale hack and slash, especially the health and education pieces. They’re looking for value for money.”
A significant point of the discussion revolved around the future of the Heritage Fund and the importance of the sustainability fund.
Horner made it clear a sales tax is not on the table.
“People want to go there, but we’re saying we can control our expenditures, so let’s control our expenditures,” said Horner.
Some of the discussion revolved around the importance of balancing budgets. There was a general consensus in the room that a balanced budget should be a priority, however the estimated budget says non-renewable resource revenue will account for the largest portion of overall government budget revenue.
Lower than expected oil revenues this year have led to an increased deficit projection after a first quarter budget update. Originally the deficit for the current budget was projected to by $886 million, but the revised estimations have the deficit between $2.3 billion and $3 billion.
“The resulting message from that is market access is critical to us,” said Horner. “It isn’t so much the price of oil that is killing us, it’s that differential. When we’re at $92 or $93 that doesn’t hurt us as much as the widening of the differential between what the price is and what we’re actually getting.”
The subject of long-term capital projects solicited a response from Red Deer Mayor Morris Flewwelling, who talked about the need for a new courthouse for Red Deer, as well as other are infrastructure projects such as waste water, bridges and roads.
mcrawford@www.reddeeradvocate.com