Members of the St. Albert Progressive Conservative Association were schooled on the province’s fiscal future during the association’s annual general meeting Saturday.
Human Services Minister Dave Hancock spoke to the roughly 60 local association members about the province’s fiscal challenges and social policy framework.
“Alberta is yet again in one of those very trying fiscal times,” he said. “The fiscal challenges … (have) come upon us a lot faster than we anticipated.”
The province’s second-quarter fiscal update released in November projected a deficit climbing from $2.3 to $3 billion.
This is largely the result of less-than-forecast oil revenues, which came in nearly $7-per-barrel less than expected.
Hancock said technological advances have allowed other parties to gain better access to oil, while landlocked Alberta has struggled to gain access to other markets.
“Technology has sped up on the one side, but the political process has slowed down the other side,” he said. “For the next two or three or four years, at least, we can anticipate getting a lower price on the spread for our bitumen product.”
He said each ministry has been significantly rethinking its budget items and is looking towards a social policy framework for guidance.
More than 40,000 Albertans – including a large number of St. Albert-area residents – participated in social policy framework discussions over the last eight months.
The social policy framework details how human needs are met by government, non-profit organizations, businesses and individuals. It will address topics such as child care, housing, health care and seniors’ issues.
Hancock said work on the framework will be ongoing, as it is designed to be a living document that generates constant discussion and improvement.
“As we make the decisions that we make, we need to be conscious, not just of the focus on the today issues of how we get access to market, but the tomorrow issues,” Hancock said. “There’s nothing more important to our future than the future economy and community.”
Hancock spoke at the meeting despite his father’s death just hours prior.
When St. Albert MLA Stephen Khan took the podium, he once again celebrated the party’s electoral victory last April.
“It was a different kind of election – an election that had some peaks, certainly had some valleys. The highest peak of all, as we all remember, was election day and the astounding result that we earned in St. Albert,” he said.
Khan received 10,481 votes, or 54 per cent of the votes, in his first shot at provincial politics.
