A tale of two budgets – Alberta and Saskatchewan

There is no better example of budgets being about political choices than a comparison of the Alberta and Saskatchewan budgets. Alberta’s budget invested in infrastructure and public services while Saskatchewan went with cuts and tax hikes for everyone except corporations (who got a tax break). Alberta’s reliance on revenue from oil and gas has had a ‘boom and bust’ effect on government revenue for decades. When oil and gas prices were high, the province racked up huge surpluses, and when prices dropped, deficits appeared. During the 44-year reign of the Alberta Conservatives, the approach to low resource prices was to slash public services and raise user fees and taxes. The Ralph Klein government cut public sector wages by five per cent, laid off public sector workers and privatized public work, and cut funding to health care and education. Health care premiums were hiked, alcohol taxes raised, and Albertans faced a wide range … Read more…

False fiscal crises undermine the public sector

The deficit made me do it. It’s becoming a distressingly predictable excuse. A new (or old) government suddenly finds a larger-than-anticipated deficit, claims it’s facing a fiscal crisis and uses this as cover to freeze or slash wages, demand concessions and two-tier contracts, lay off workers, cut public services and privatize. We’ve seen this show many times across the country, with devastating consequences. Wage freezes, layoffs and public spending cuts don’t just hurt workers and people who rely on public services – they also slow down economic and income growth, which squeezes government revenues. Economic models show cuts to public spending are worse for the economy and jobs than tax increases. In almost all cases where governments claim they’re in a fiscal crisis, they don’t have a spending problem, they have a revenue shortfall. Over time, these governments could balance their budgets by allowing the economy to grow, and reversing tax cuts … Read more…

Ensuring equality in growing sectors of the economy

The caring professions and other female-dominated areas of the economy are projected to create the most jobs in Canada over the next decade. With the future of jobs increasingly female, we need to focus on raising wages and creating good jobs in these sectors to improve the quality of jobs for everyone. Thirty per cent of the new jobs projected to be created in the next seven years are expected to be in health care and social assistance, where the workforce is now 83 per cent female. The second-largest share of jobs (8.3 per cent of the total) will be created in the retail sector, where the workforce is 54 per cent female. The male-dominated construction industry will create 7.7 per cent of new jobs. Close behind construction are new jobs in education, accommodation and food services, where the workforce is also predominantly female. The share of jobs in primary, resource … Read more…