Alberta budget 2026 comes with spending hikes but $9.4B deficit
Global News
Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government has introduced a new Alberta budget that promises more money for health and education but also an eye-popping deficit of $9.4 billion.
Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government has introduced a new Alberta budget that carries an eye-popping $9.4-billion deficit as the province, after decades of trying to get off a roller-coaster of oil revenues, seeks to manage the ride and weather the whiplash.
The deficit is the largest since the COVID-19 era, a time of global economic catastrophe that saw oil prices trade in negative numbers.
Finance Minister Nate Horner says the costs of a rising population coupled with low oil prices are hammering the province’s bottom line and stretching capacity.
But he says now isn’t the time to ratchet back spending on core services. The budget will see spending increases in health and education. While income taxes aren’t increasing to make up the shortfall, there are several other ways Albertans will be paying more through fees and changes to the education property tax.
Consumers will also pay more on a number of items, from dangerous driving tickets to registry fees and car rentals.
“Our balance sheet is in better condition than that of many Albertan households. So we’re going to weather this for them and keep an eye towards the future,” Horner told reporters Thursday before introducing the budget in the house.
The province projects West Texas Intermediate – the lifeblood benchmark oil price for Alberta’s economy — to average US$60.50 a barrel in the upcoming fiscal year: not nearly enough to balance the books.
Horner said if oil prices stay low indefinitely, the structural deficit will become “extremely obvious” but that he doesn’t have a mandate to tinker with the province’s tax system now.
Ottawa Fire Services said they received multiple calls around 9:30 p.m. Saturday about a fire with people trapped in a high-rise building in the 300 block of Somerset Street West.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre proposed a tariff-free auto pact with the U.S. to revive Canada’s auto sector, at a press conference in Windsor, Ont. on Sunday.
The vice-president of the St. John's Junior Hockey League, says the violent game was an isolated incident and officials have since handed out suspensions to 18 players and coaches.
Alberta RCMP say just before 3 p.m. Saturday, a pickup truck pulled up beside a Honda Civic on Highway 2 and fired a weapon, resulting in the death of a driver.
Two men face charges ranging from mischief to assault and harassment following Saturday's Al Quds Day march in Toronto. Police say the suspects were counter-protesters.
Snow is continuing to fall in parts of Ontario, B.C. and Quebec, with heavy rain and freezing rain expected in some communities in the Maritimes and Ontario.
As demand for syrup has surged in recent years, Quebec's maple industry is evolving too, adding millions of new taps and turning to automation and better technology.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is concluding his time in Norway meeting with that country’s prime minister, along with the leaders of Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Finland.
Two people have been charged with first-degree murder after the remains of Masood Masjoody, reported missing in February, were discovered in Mission, B.C., police say.
A man and a teenage boy have died after a shooting in Winnipeg’s North End, and police are asking the public for information as the homicide investigation continues.
When you walk into the Club Pays coffee shop in Montreal, the first thing you see are the posters with Quebec sovereignty slogans plastered on every wall.
Police have identified the woman found dead inside a north Toronto home as 60-year-old Xian Wei Shao. She is believed to be Toronto's fourth homicide victim of 2026.
Ontario's public safety regulator has laid charges against the operator of a Scarborough trampoline park following a zipline accident in January that sent a boy to hospital.