Southern Alberta reacts to provincial budget

It feels to a lot of Calgarians that the election campaign is already underway, even though it's still seven weeks away

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. -

Alberta’s proposed budget for the next three years features some big spending increases after a strong fiscal year for the province.

Finance minister Travis Toews, who announced the budget, said “we've had a really exceptional year here in the Alberta economy. We've led the nation in economic growth we're seeing diversification of out.

After racking up a $10.4 billion surplus, the province is putting $2 billion into the Heritage Trust fund and $1.4 billion into an Alberta Fund, though details are limited.

This is in addition to sizeable increases in spending in other areas of the budget, namely healthcare and education.

Political watchers said they weren’t surprised to see such big spending in a budget annouced on the cusp of a provincial election scheduled for late May.

“I don't think there was any real surprises," said Trevor Harrison, professor of sociology at the University of Lethbridge. "We knew there was going to be a huge amount of money that would be thrown about. Some of these [funding allocations] had already been announced,."

DOESN'T UNDO CUTS

Despite the increased spending the budget is not without its critics.

Lethbridge West MLA and NDP finance critic Shannon Phillips says the budget doesn’t undo previous UCP budget cuts and lacks planning.

“But that healthcare funding goes nowhere near the hole that has been created over the last four years," Phillips said. "And so you have a government that's going to brag about all this quote unquote new spending with absolutely no plan attached to that."

Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips speaks with the media during a news conference in Ottawa, Wednesday October 24, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Even some municipal politicians take issue with the budget, including Lethbridge Mayor Blaine Hyggen who believes the budget doesn’t allocate enough spending in Lethbridge.

Hyggen said “unfortunately some of the more important Lethbridge community needs that council has been advocating for, for quite sometime are unfortunately absent from this budget.”

Blaine Hyggen speaks to supporters Monday night after narrowly winning the election to become the new mayor of Lethbridge, Alta.

One big supporter the budget is Lethbridge East MLA and minister of infrastructure, Nathan Neudorf.

He stands by the budget his government has created and believes it offers a lot to southern Albertans.

“Overall just very proud of Travis Toews and the work that he's put into this budget. It's a very prudent and balanced approach, it sort of checks all the boxes. We pay down debt, we put money in the heritage savings trust fund for the first time in decades,” said Neudorf.

The merits of the UCP budget will be put to the test by voters at provincial election in May.