Oil revenues, taxes nudge up Alberta's projected surplus to $5.5B
CBC
Higher-than expected revenue from income taxes and non-renewable resource revenues are bumping Alberta's expected surplus up to $5.5 billion this year.
Despite a rosy short-term outlook in the second-quarter fiscal update released Thursday, Finance Minister Nate Horner says he wants to prepare for years when the province's coffers are more sparse.
"There's pressures that I see that keep me up at night," Horner told reporters.
Maturing debt will have to be refinanced at higher borrowing rates, he said. And the bulk of Alberta's unionized public employees have contracts expiring next year.
These were some of the considerations when the government decided to end the complete waiver of the provincial fuel tax as of Jan. 1, 2024, he said.
One of the United Conservative Party government's key election commitments was absent from the financial forecast.
During the spring election campaign, the party pledged to create a new eight-per-cent tax bracket on income under $60,000, a move the government said would save Albertans up to $750 annually.
The party's costed platform, released on May 24, estimated the new tax bracket would cost the treasury about $262 million this fiscal year, and more than $1 billion per year thereafter.
The pledge is in October's throne speech and Horner's mandate letter from the premier. The government has yet to table legislation to create the tax bracket.
Horner said Thursday he doesn't know when it's coming or what tax year the new bracket will take effect.
Also missing from the update was the cost of the government's about-face on privatizing community lab testing across the province.
Responding to outcry about weeks-long waits for routine blood work, the province signed a deal in August for provincially owned Alberta Precision Labs (APL) to take over the operations of Dynalife by the end of this calendar year.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange told reporters on Thursday that APL is in the process of acquiring staff and infrastructure from Dynalife.
The province also paid for extra public lab services to fill the gaps in Dynalife's service, she said. LaGrange said she hopes to know the total transition cost by early spring 2024.
The Rachel Notley government's consumer carbon tax wound up becoming a weapon the UCP wielded to drum the Alberta NDP out of office. But that levy-and-repayment program, and the wide-ranging "climate leadership plan" around it, also stood as the NDP's boldest, provincial-reputation-altering move in their single-term tenure.