Tuesday's throne speech contained an acknowledgement that Alberta is too dependent on energy revenues and promised that the province would be moving to more stable long-term economic footing.
The news was delivered in the speech from the throne by Lt.-Gov. Donald Ethell. Repeating earlier promises, Ethell's speech said Thursday's budget will move towards stable and predictable three-year funding for municipalities, school boards, universities and the health system.
To enshrine that predictability, the government promised a complete review of Alberta's finances.
"Alberta's current fiscal framework relies too heavily on volatile energy revenue as a source of income," Ethell said. "It's time for foundational change. It won't be easy, but it is the right way to better manage the annual unpredictability in the budgeting process."
The speech also referenced the government's first bill, a plan for results-based budgeting aimed at reviewing all government programs from the bottom up every three years.
"Your government will scrutinize all costs and challenge the automatic growth of spending, assigning funds only where they are needed," Ethell said.
The government also promised to review all areas of the government books, including income tax revenue, gambling revenues and the heritage and sustainability funds.
The speech reiterated promises on education and health care that will sound familiar from the Tory leadership campaign last fall. It said three of Premier Alison Redford's proposed family care clinics will be up and running in a pilot project this spring.
"Patients in need of medical attention will be able to get it, quickly and easily, at publicly-funded clinics close to home," Ethell said.
The government also promised renewed focus on education, including post-secondary education as the key to a brighter future for Alberta. Albertans must be able to succeed and thirve in the global knowledge economy and that means giving every Albertan the opportunity to benefit from a cutting edge education, Ethell said.
Opposition critical
Opposition politicians were unimpressed with the budget plans and said the speech didn't address what is of greatest concern to Albertans.
"I am still trying to figure out what possessed them to write a throne speech with nothing in it," said NDP leader Brian Mason. "This is the vaguest throne speech I have ever seen. In 22 years of elected office I have never seen a throne speech so short on details."
Liberal leader Raj Sherman had similar criticisms.
"I read through that speech line by line and to be honest it really said nothing to me," he said. "There is nothing bold, nothing new."
On the point of family care clinics, he argued that the government should be doing a lot more than pilot projects.
"This is not the time to do a pilot project, this is the time for action," Sherman said.
Redford dismissed those criticisms, saying they were about election season and not policy differences.
"My response is [opposition leaders] know there is going to be an election in two months and they are already campaigning," Redford said.
Tax increase?
Wildrose leader Danielle Smith said the notion of reviewing income taxes was only another signal that they would be going up.
"After months of speculation about how the PCs are going to raise our taxes we now have a pretty clear road map – income taxes are going up," she said.
Smith agreed the speech was vague, but found one piece of clarity.
"Throne speeches are always vague but one thing is crystal clear – she is going to be raising taxes and the way she will be raising taxes is raising income taxes," Smith said.
Redford said all of the answers would be in Thursday's budget and declined to go into more detail, citing respect for the budget process.
She said the government has to look at everything if it wants Alberta to be on sound fiscal footing.
"I am saying that we are going to review the full fiscal framework," she said. "There is a budget on Thursday and you will see what is in the budget."
