Over the past few weeks and months, government officials have been talking up the 2014 Alberta budget and promoting Premier Alison Redford's "Building Alberta Plan" as "borrowing today to build for tomorrow.
Over the past few weeks and months, government officials have been talking up the 2014 Alberta budget and promoting Premier Alison Redford's "Building Alberta Plan" as "borrowing today to build for tomorrow."
The problem is it's not being built for tomorrow; it's being built three or more years down the road.
A major part of this "plan" was the announcement of the future construction of 50 new schools and the "modernization" of 70 other existing facilities for an estimated investment of over $2 billion.
Residents of the Lakeland will see two of those 120 projects take place, with Notre Dame High School chosen for a modernization project and Cold Lake Elementary set to be replaced with a brand new school.
Initially this sounds great. Schools in the region are in serious need of more space to deal with the rapidly growing population in northern Alberta.
However, I'm not sure the plans are as great as they first appear.
All of these projects are on multi-year plans, with completion dates set for 2016 and beyond. Why so far in the future, when most of the problems exist now?
It's quite simple. The next provincial election will likely be in 2016.
The 2014 provincial budget, released earlier this month, includes $19.2 billion in capital infrastructure spending over the next three years. The capital projects, including new and updated schools, health facilities and twinned or rehabilitated highways will be coming to fruition just in time for MLAs to throw their hands up and say "Look what we've done!"
The province has said the plan is to take out $5.1 billion in loans in order to help facilitate this year's capital budget. A move that is highly criticized by the opposition parties, who feel the province is already in enough debt.
"The government needs to put planning ahead of politics," said Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark. "This budget does not translate into quick access to health-care services for the sick and vulnerable, or more long-term care spaces for the elderly or reasonable class sizes."
MLA for Bonnyville-Cold Lake Genia Leskiw, defended her party's budget, saying it was quite "positive."
"A lot of people are emphasizing the (dollars spent/borrowed) for infrastructure (spending), but everywhere we turn we have people on our case about when they are going to get a new school, when they are going to see road improvements and when they are going to see a new seniors complex," said Leskiw, in an interview with the Nouvelle following the budget announcement. "At the end of the day, that's all capital spending, so we (need to borrow) in order to complete particular projects."
The bottom line is that provincial politicians work on a four-year term. Even though we need more school space now, better roads now and health centre upgrades now, we are stuck hoping for them to arrive in three years time. And with the ever-growing population, who knows if those upgrades will even be enough.
I don't have a problem with the government borrowing money to deal with infrastructure that is clearly lagging behind its population. What I do have a problem with is a 2014 budget that is not going to see the most needed results until 2016 and beyond.
Government and politicians need to change the way they work. All I have heard over the past year is, 'We are working it in to our three, four or five-year plan.'
Taking the long view certainly has its value, but the infrastructure in this province is lagging well behind growth and needs attention now.
