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Laurie in Question Period

Provincial Savings Policy

Ms Blakeman: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Prosperity equals luck in Alberta. Unfortunately, that luck won’t last forever. As we heard yesterday, markets can change, and in the blink of an eye a billion dollars is lost. We need to act now and save the billions we are still able to collect before this boom becomes another missed opportunity. My questions are to the Minister of Finance and Enterprise. Why does the government continue to rely on windfalls to produce savings?

Ms Evans: Well, just a correction, Mr. Speaker. A billion dollars isn’t lost; it’s a paper loss, just like everybody’s RRSPs. You get those, and you look, and sometimes they’re down, book and market values being different. It’s only lost if you go in and cash your chips. I made that quite clear yesterday.

Relative to a savings policy that focuses on surplus funding, I think that this has served Albertans particularly well. There has been last year over $3 billion allocated to savings. We have a number of different ways we do that, not only in inflation-proofing the fund. The heritage fund, the endowment funds that have been a hallmark of this province put us in the most enviable position of anybody in Canada.

Ms Blakeman: The minister keeps using gambling analogies, which does not bring me great comfort. Again to the same minister: why did the minister scrap the only savings plan we did have, which was the in-year surplus allocation policy, at a time when we still had the money to fund it?

Ms Evans: Mr. Speaker, let’s not say scrap. Although we didn’t put it into allocation for savings, we reserved the projected surplus for savings, and it’s all projected surplus until the year-end stops. It’s almost incredible that this opposition is being critical of our financial planning when at the start of the year they hooted at $78 a barrel, and then they hooted at $119, and now they’re hooting at our savings plan. There’s nobody else with a track record of savings like this government has. We’ve paid down the debt. We’ve got incredible savings with this government.

Ms Blakeman: You only save when you have a surplus. The last question to the same minister: how can the minister create stability when the government is already spending $2,800 more for every man, woman, and child in Alberta than is being collected through reliable revenue streams? You’re already spending more money than you’re bringing in through reliable streams.

Ms Evans: Mr. Speaker, I guess the question for this House is: where would the hon. members opposite want us to cut? In health care? In education? In infrastructure? In any of the social programs that are the best in this country? They’re the best in this country because last year we had an inflationary growth plus population of 8.7 per cent, 103,000 more people last year coming to Alberta. Were we going to leave them out in the cold? We embraced them. We’re building schools for them. We’re looking after them. Our financial fundamentals are solid.