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Rob Breakenridge: Smith's referendums distract from province's real financial failings

The premier would have us believe her government is entitled to credit for everything that’s going well in Alberta, but the rest is all Ottawa’s fault

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It was quite a feat, to be honest — a televised address from the premier just ahead of a bleak provincial budget. Yet, the next day’s headlines were about a completely different issue.

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If the announcements about immigration and the related (and unrelated) referendums were intended to serve as a distraction from other issues — including, but not limited to, the budget — then the initial returns on that strategy are quite promising.

For all we heard from the premier in her Thursday televised address and Friday news conference, there was one glaring omission — any hint of responsibility or accountability.

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For all the legitimate critiques that can be offered of federal immigration policy or even Canada’s constitutional order, these are not the sole causes of Alberta’s problems.

The premier would have us believe her government is entitled to credit for everything that’s going well in Alberta, but the rest is all Ottawa’s fault. There’s a reason she put herself in charge of the Albert Next panel, and there’s a reason the next eight months are going to be dominated by discussion and debate around the failings — real and perceived — of various federal policies and institutions.

Much better to discuss another government’s failings than your own.

While the political landscape in Alberta might look very different, it’s difficult to believe that Alberta would be in a significantly different fiscal position if the Conservatives had won the election last year or even the one before that. While the past few years did see an influx of newcomers, let’s also not overlook the Alberta government’s own efforts to lure people to this province.

We did, of course, see the completion of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, which has helped to close the price differential on Western Canadian Select oil, as well as yielding other financial benefits. We’re also coming off a year when Canada set a record for oil production. So while oil prices have softened recently, this is not a price crash or crisis of the likes we’ve seen previously.

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And yes, that softening of oil prices will put a dent in resource revenues for this fiscal year, but that needs to be considered in the context of the record levels of resource revenues Alberta has enjoyed in the past few years. The reduced haul of resource revenue anticipated in the budget being released this week would still be the envy of previous Alberta governments.

In fact, as noted by University of Alberta energy economist Andrew Leach, this premier has seen “the highest real, per-capita resource revenue outside of the governments of Lougheed and Klein.”

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That resource revenue has fuelled record levels of spending under this government. It’s to the point now where it would likely take another record level of resource revenue just to balance the budget.

Is this prudent and responsible fiscal management? Are we prepared to have any kind of serious conversation about that or, for that matter, how we get off the resource revenue roller-coaster?

Here’s a hint: none of the nine referendum ballot questions that we’ll be focused on for the next eight months have anything to do with that.

It will be status quo for spending and revenue, and the premier is banking that her base will tolerate a massive deficit for now (or will buy into the notion that it’s Ottawa’s fault), and that the Opposition NDP won’t come across as credible deficit hawks.

That’s not to say these other issues are unimportant or irrelevant. It’s fair for Alberta to seek a greater say in how immigration is managed or how judges are selected. It’s also possible this could quell the separatist threat to some degree (although creating unrealistic expectations could provide separatists with ammunition in the longer run).

But let’s not be under any illusions about the government’s desire for distractions and scapegoats.

Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com

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