It was some tough but fair budget criticism, given the extent of the red ink and reliance on resource revenues.

For example: “They think that all they have to do is wait out the relative weakness in oil prices, hope that they can get the pipelines built . . . hope that the bitumen royalties will continue to grow with an increase in production and hope that oil and gas prices bail them out again.”

And this: “After promising during the last election to balance the budget and stay out of debt . . . short-sighted and reckless spending will have lasting impacts on future generations, and no doubt cause long-term pain as we deal with the debt we are taking on today.”

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That’s what you’d expect to hear from a fiscal conservative, assuming there are any left in Alberta.

But it wasn’t last week’s budget those comments were about, and it wasn’t Premier Danielle Smith on the receiving end of that criticism. Rather, it was Smith herself more than a decade ago trying to hold the government to account.

How fortunate for her........

© Calgary Herald