Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

Alberta’s budget documents show that our tax system is grossly inferior to that of every other province in the country at raising revenue. Applying the tax system of any other province to Alberta would raise us a minimum of $11.2 billion in additional annual revenue, more than covering the projected $8.8-billion deficit in this year’s budget. Protecting our public services from cuts is perhaps the most important reason to fix our tax system, but there are also other good reasons to do so. Universal pharmaceutical coverage could become part of our public health-care system and would actually be a net saving for Albertans while improving the health of our population. Classroom sizes in our schools have gradually increased over time, so fixing our revenue shortage and hiring more teachers would improve the student-teacher ratio to provide higher quality education for Alberta’s children. The speaker will argue that reliance on non-renewable resource revenues and the present tax regime is unsustainable. There ar