Alberta may have some hard times ahead as the Conference Board of Canada warned last week that the province will likely face a recession this year due to the significant drop in oil prices.
No doubt there will be a lot of pressure on Alberta’s new NDP government to keep the promises it made during the election campaign to better fund education, to create 2,000 more long-term care spaces, to raise the minimum wage, to offer a tax credit to businesses creating jobs, and a slew of other promises. The challenge will be finding a course to deliver on the promises, and finding funds to do so from lean coffers, depleted by more spending in better times.
The government has indicated that it will present interim supply measures but will wait until September before introducing a full budget.
In the meantime, the government has restored $103 million in funding to education last week, an announcement which surely had the metro school boards breathing a little easier. These school boards warned that even before the cuts, they were only just scraping by and were at a loss as to how they would operate with the budget the PCs had introduced, which slashed funding for new student enrolment and grants for transportation, infrastructure, students with special needs, ESL and for FNMI students.
Restoring the funding for these vital education needs is a good start, but there is a mountain ahead for this new government to cross, and they’re planning on doing it on the backs of a very small cabinet of 12 people.
It’s not an enviable task and we hope they are up to it.
