Energy prices rose rapidly through much of 2022. In the third quarter of that year, the price of coal from Australia was up 150 percent compared to one year earlier. Natural gas prices in Europe rose over 150 percent; globally, it rose over 115 …
“Our debt is dead,” declared a front-page Calgary Herald headline on July 13, 2004 (Hudes, 2021). The paper was covering a famous event in Alberta’s fiscal history: Premier Ralph Klein holding a “Paid in Full” sign high above his head, marking the end of a 10-year plan to eliminate provincial debt as detailed in Budget 1994. To be clear, Alberta was not literally debt free, but by March 31, 2005, it was projected that the province’s Debt Retirement Account would have sufficient assets ($3.
Edited by Duane Bratt, Richard Sutherland, and David Taras
About the Book
The first scholarly analysis of the 2019 Alberta Election, which led to the victory of Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party, and of the UCP’s first years in government.
In 2019, the United Conservative Party, under the leadership of Jason Kenney, unseated the New Democratic Party to form the provincial government of Alberta. A restoration of conservative power in a province that had seen the Progressive Conservatives win every election from 1971-2015, UCP quickly began to make political waves.
Chapter 12 in E. Lindquist, M. Howlett, G. Skogstad, G. Tellier, P. ’t Hart. eds. Policy Success in Canada: Cases, Lessons, Challenges. Oxford University Press, 2022.
Created in 1957, the federal equalization program addresses the issue of horizontal fiscal imbalance and, more specifically, seeks to reduce interprovincial disparities in fiscal capacity. Excluding the three territories, which fall under Territorial Formula Financing, the equalization program allocates payments to the provinces whose fiscal capacity falls under a national average.
Chapter 5 of *The Budget that Changed Canada: Essays on the 25th Anniversary of the 1995 Budget*, forthcoming.