It’s been a tough few years in Alberta. Years of recession, two major oil-price collapses, 40-year high inflation and a global pandemic have tested our province to the limit.

But Albertans are resilient, hard-working and entrepreneurial. We never give up.

Now, in 2023, the fiscal situation in Alberta has improved without any intentional government action. Thanks to high energy prices, Alberta has again been blessed by extraordinary surpluses and we are back at the top of the proverbial rollercoaster.

This presents us with a generational opportunity to stabilize our province’s finances and build a more resilient economy.

But we need to act now.

Last fall, Rachel Notley enlisted Todd Hirsch, one of Alberta’s most prominent and insightful economists, to advise on how the surplus should best be used to benefit Albertans.

Todd Hirsch was ATB’s Chief Economist for more than two decades and has also spent nine years teaching public finance at the University of Calgary.

After more than 37 interviews with economists, business and labour leaders, and public servants, Todd presented a report with eight concrete recommendations to help the Government of Alberta design a thoughtful fiscal strategy:

• Government should assign a fixed amount of non-renewable resource revenues (adjusted annually for inflation) that will be apportioned for base budgeting purposes.
• Government should consult with Albertans, and consciously determine a goal and purpose for the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund.
• In the absence of a constructive and thoughtful plan, debt repayment should be the default option for all surplus funds.
• The Government of Alberta should maintain the outer bound maximum net debt/GDP ratio of 30 per cent as a fiscal anchor.
• The government should establish a strong, credible and sustainable financial plan that will guide both revenues and expenditures.
• Alberta Treasury Board and Finance should maintain an updated model on the return on investment in three areas: debt repayment, savings and capital investments in physical assets.
• In years when total revenues and resource income exceeds expenditures, apply a fixed formula for how these surplus dollars should be allocated.
• A portion of the surplus should go into fixed endowments, to benefit Albertans in perpetuity.

Rachel Notley and the Alberta NDP have accepted these recommendations in full.

We recognise that it’s time to get off the royalty rollercoaster and build an economy that creates good-paying jobs, now and for generations to come.

We need a government that is thoughtful, deliberate, disciplined and forward-looking—and that’s exactly what the Alberta NDP will deliver.

Todd’s final, unofficial recommendation is this: bet on Albertans. That’s a message we can all get behind.