SIMS: Alberta budget terrible for taxpayers |
Spending is up, debt is up and taxes are up.
Finance Minister Nate Horner delivered the 2026-27 Alberta budget on Thursday.
SIMS: Alberta budget terrible for taxpayers Back to video
Cabinet ministers were flashing nervous smiles in the legislature while they milled around with the media afterwards.
They should feel queasy, because they’re pushing Alberta’s debt over $100 billion for the first time in the province’s history.
Debt climbing quickly
The government is borrowing $9.4 billion this year.
Last year’s budget pegged the debt at $82.7 billion. This year the debt is on track to hit $108.9 billion. That’s a 31% increase from last year.
This year, interest payments on the debt will cost Albertans $3.4 billion.
The interest cost on the debt this year is equivalent the provincial income tax paid by close to a million Alberta workers.
Next year, the province is forecasting a provincial debt of $123 billion with debt interest charges costing Alberta taxpayers $4.2 billion.
The UCP government has a huge spending problem that it’s ignoring completely.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s team is spending way too much money and they aren’t trying to find savings.
We know they aren’t trying because they’re boosting funding for ‘art’ that’s literally made of garbage. (More on that in a minute.)
Compared to last year’s budget, total spending has gone up 5.8%.
Spending on health care has gone up by 5.8%, while spending on K-12 education has increased by 30% since February’s 2025 budget.
Pay for government employees is now costing taxpayers $37.9 billion this budget year, up by 14% compared to last year.
The provincial government is giving the same song and dance that Ottawa is strangling our prosperity and the price of a barrel of oil is too low.
Those things are true, everyone in Alberta knows that, but those things also happen all the time, so it’s ridiculous for the government to pretend these are surprise expenses.
It’s time for Smith to take responsibility for the money she’s wasting.
We know the government isn’t trying hard to find savings, because it isn’t cutting the obvious waste.
Let’s get back to funding garbage art now.
The UCP government is increasing funding for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts by $3.5 million to give it a total of $43 million next year.
That foundation gave a grant to a gallery that displays things like take-out food container garbage that’s taped to Christmas tinsel, and it also funded a video of someone hiding behind a big sheet of paper taped to a wall.
In 2024-25, the foundation handed out $25 million in taxpayers’ money to art projects.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation gave the government a Teddy Waste Award for paying thousands of dollars to a person who flew overseas and videotaped themselves rolling around on a lawn chair.
Taxpayers called on the government to cut this waste.
The UCP government is giving the foundation more money.
“We’re trying to show some balance in meeting the needs of Alberta right now,” Horner said in the legislature. “I recognize this is a tough pill to swallow.”
No intention to cut spending
Taxpayers should spit this budget pill out because it costs too much money and there are sneaky tax hikes in it.
The government is raising the education property tax by about $468 million this year.
There’s a new tax on rented vehicles that will cost taxpayers about $36 million.
The hotel tax is going up from 4% to 6%, taking in about $66 million.
Spending is up, debt is up and taxes are up.
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Alberta will not get back to the days of a debt “paid in full” because this government has no plans to stop overspending and no plans to cut the huge bureaucracy.
Smith needs to pick up the chainsaw and start cutting.
Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.