00:02:01.020all those folks who are in this dome in Edmonton
00:02:04.520and lobby groups, special interest groups, big unions.
00:02:09.980She's surrounded by them all the time in Edmonton.
00:02:13.000And they're saying, spend more, spend more, spend more.
00:02:15.840like it happens all the time and so here we are the alberta government is running a deficit of
00:02:25.140more than nine billion dollars with a b it's close to 10 billion what that means what a deficit means
00:02:31.860is like a mini debt every single fiscal year so your spending is outpacing what you're taking in
00:02:37.420in revenue. So that amount of borrowing is now being heaped onto our provincial debt.
00:02:45.000And our provincial debt is now more than $100 billion in Alberta. I never thought I'd say that.
00:02:57.100It's upsetting, actually. So that debt, we all have to pay interest on that debt. It's a line
00:03:04.220item in the budget, just like on a credit card. So that interest on the debt is going to cost
00:03:10.660Albertans well over $3 billion this year. And next year, it's going to be over $4 billion.
00:03:18.520To put that into context, that's more than $250 million a month. A month just on debt
00:03:28.460interest payments. Why is this? Let's find out. Joining me now is my good friend and colleague
00:03:35.840Franco Terrazzano. He is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Importantly,
00:03:41.960Frank, hi Franco, you lived here in Alberta and I phoned you kind of distraught yesterday
00:03:48.640after the budget. I don't really know what to say. Well, okay, let me start because I saw this
00:03:55.280wonderful quote somewhere in the media about the Alberta budget. And I think it sums up my entire
00:04:01.400view of what just transpired in Alberta, unfortunately. Okay. I'm going to read you a
00:04:06.660quote. Quote, spending is up, debt is up, taxes are up, and this is a terrible budget for taxpayers,
00:04:15.600said one Chris Sims, the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. So Chris,
00:04:20.340tell us how you really feel about the budget. Yeah. So I was in a bad place. It was called
00:04:26.420budget lockup. And yeah, I was super upset about this because we're fighting for taxpayers all the
00:04:32.940time. And this government, frankly, Franco, they didn't try. They didn't try. They're adding more
00:04:40.000than $9 billion onto the debt. Now we see the provincial debt of Alberta, more than $100
00:04:47.480billion dollars. It would be embarrassing if it weren't so alarming. Taxpayers are paying
00:04:54.960interest on that thing every single year. It's gross. And so I saw this. I saw this crazy spending
00:05:00.760and I'm like, OK, things must have been really grim. Like they probably went through here and
00:05:05.380made some cuts and, you know, desperately tried to save money. No, no. They cranked up spending
00:05:11.260and they just cranked up the debt. So I honestly I went through that thing for a few hours yesterday
00:05:16.620trying to find something nice to say i couldn't find anything good in this budget yeah it um
00:05:22.820folks like this really makes me mad as chris mentioned i'm the now federal director of the
00:05:27.360canadian taxpayers federation i was previously the alberta spokesperson for the ctf uh essentially
00:05:32.500uh the canadian taxpayers federation shipped me off to mordor aka ottawa to do this federal
00:05:38.480position but like my heart still um resides in alberta so seeing the government just absolutely
00:05:44.520tank alberta's finances really makes me upset and to your point it's like they didn't even try
00:05:50.340right it's like they didn't even try here's a dumpster fire of a budget and one thing that
00:05:54.980really stuck out to me in terms of how bad this budget is is that alberta still has a spending
00:06:01.320problem like that's the problem here right like what uh you know the cost of the bureaucracy the
00:06:07.480alberta government employees went up almost nine percent yeah yeah like that's crazy in one year
00:06:13.660in one year, one fiscal year, year over year. That blew my mind. I also, A, they're breaking
00:06:24.200their own balanced budget rule. It's often referred to that way, where they can't run
00:06:28.300three consecutive deficits. Deficits are basically mini debts, folks. That's where they're spending
00:06:33.340outstrips their resource column and they add it to the provincial debt. They're technically not
00:06:38.740allowed to do that three times in a row unless like Mars is invading, like unless it's like
00:06:43.700exceptional circumstances. And right now, oil is in like in the mid 60s for price of barrel oil,
00:06:50.680like nobody's invading, like new, this does not qualify as a big fire emergency. So A,
00:06:57.500they're breaking their own rule there. And I was doing some quick back in the napkin math last
00:07:02.560night. I didn't have time to do it yet. But their spending increase doesn't look too good
00:07:08.400compared to their inflation plus population growth number for the last year it doesn't i don't know
00:07:13.500if they're breaking that yet if they're not they're coming darn close franco all this is to say
00:07:18.660they're way over spending and that the do you want to get into the sneaky tax hike or do you
00:07:24.820want to talk about what they're spending on more i just want to keep talking about what they're
00:07:27.900spending on because look i'm gonna make a damning comparison here because i mentioned you know
00:07:33.320spending on pay for government employees looks like it's going up almost 9%, right? Year over
00:07:38.580year. Folks, we just got the Carney government's main spending plan for 2026-27, and everyone knows
00:07:46.240how brutal the cost of Ottawa's bloated bureaucracy has become. But even under Carney, the federal
00:07:52.920liberals, the cost of the bureaucracy is only going up about 5%, right? In the upcoming year.
00:07:59.380So it looks like the Alberta government's going on a bureaucratic binge here.
00:08:04.380Now, Chris, it's not just the bureaucracy.
00:08:06.960And when you mentioned that they're not even trying, there's some silly examples of complete government waste in Alberta that they're not even canceling.
00:08:15.900Why don't you talk about that a little bit?
00:08:28.240I'm doing inflation, all that stuff. And I'm seeing where their spending is going up. It's
00:08:32.160frustrating. I'm seeing the tax increases. And I was like, OK, just like regular level reaction,
00:08:37.420quite cold and calculating. Then I saw this spending and I got mad. So there is this thing
00:08:44.400called the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. OK, it's some slush fund where governments dump
00:08:50.420taxpayers money into it. And then the foundation ladles out that money to individuals and groups.
00:08:56.680Now, in Alberta, provincially, just last year, Franco, they handed out more than $5 million to individuals.
00:09:08.020I'm not talking the school group that's taking clarinet lessons in Calgary, okay?
00:09:12.580I'm not talking about the little old lady's church choir that had to go on a trip to Red Deer.
00:09:16.900I got rid of those ones in the column.
00:09:19.840Just for the individuals, they're blowing more than $5 million just last year.
00:09:25.020And I found some examples of this stuff. So there's this one person that flew overseas.
00:09:30.220People might have seen our Teddy Waste Awards stuff. And she she flew overseas and she rolled
00:09:35.140around on a lawn chair and videotaped herself. We gave her $15,000 to go do that. Same person
00:09:43.000flew overseas and hid behind a big piece of paper that was taped to the wall. Again, 15 grand. These
00:09:49.340are just ones I'm randomly finding. This is a spot check. Want to get into groups for a second?
00:09:54.240this is what really blew my mind franco some of the groups are these art galleries and i'm using
00:09:59.280that term very loosely this one art gallery in calgary that got funding from three levels of
00:10:05.840government i'll point out they took plastic food container garbage taped it to christmas tinsel
00:10:15.520and then they hanged it in the window of the calgary transit station it's literally made
00:10:20.320of garbage. That group, we told this government many times, this is low-hanging fruit, cut this
00:10:26.980crap. They increased it. They increased the funding by $3.5 million. So that's where I'm
00:10:35.420like, nope, you're not trying. And now I'm super ticked off. Yeah, me too. Me too. Because I hate
00:10:42.460to see Wild Rose Country's provincial finances being absolutely tanked like this. It makes me
00:10:48.880super upset uh it just seems to me like they're not even trying and you know you think of alberta
00:10:54.580and alberta supposed to be you know the alberta advantage is supposed to be that it's supposed to
00:10:58.660be a bastion of freedom in a in a country that all too often is lacking it right so this is what
00:11:05.580really infuriates me um look so spending is up clearly right debt is up the government is is
00:11:14.320borrowing almost 10 billion dollars yeah right so spending up debt is up and somehow taxes
00:11:21.420are going up what's going on chris so um i'm trying to maintain myself here uh there's a
00:11:31.820really big sneaky tax hike that is being put through by the province um and i just want to
00:11:37.540I feel like I need to say this. I'm a huge fan of Danielle Smith. I like that lady a lot of
00:11:43.920Danielle Smith. The premier of Alberta has got to get this under control, though. Must. She must.
00:11:51.860She has to reach down in herself, find that iron lady, start going through those cabinet ministers,
00:11:56.620their staff, their departments, kick butt and take names. Because obviously, none of this has
00:12:02.000happened. Not one bit of this has happened. So she, Wild Rose Danielle, the one that I met like
00:12:08.50020 years ago, she would be furious at this budget. And so I know she probably isn't a fan of this,
00:12:15.000but she's got to get this under control. Yeah, too bad because she's the premier.
00:12:19.700Yep, exactly. This ain't personal. You got to get this job done. You have to, you must. And this is
00:12:24.480Why you must? Because Albertans won't tolerate big sneaky tax increases, especially when the party
00:12:32.360campaigned on not raising your taxes. I remember that during the last election. And so now there's
00:12:40.700something in Alberta where you pay when you pay your property tax, if you're a property owner,
00:12:45.120no matter what city you're living in, actually part of your property tax is imposed by and goes
00:12:52.180back to the province. A lot of people don't know this. We just basically have a provincial property
00:12:58.460tax. They call it the education property tax. They're jacking it up at like the provincial
00:13:05.920level. Okay. And it's a really sneaky way of doing it because most people don't know that
00:13:11.780their local property taxes, that a chunk of it's going to Edmonton. They don't know that.
00:13:16.300They'll just yell at their mayor. They'll just yell at their local city hall, who often deserve
00:13:20.680to be yelled at by the way uh just saying um but no it's super sneaky and i did the quick math
00:13:27.400franco next year or this year they're collecting like 400 million dollars extra
00:13:33.240so a huge tax increase on people who own homes and are trying to afford to keep their house
00:13:39.080i thought we couldn't afford houses like i'm in a dark timeline yeah you know i'm seeing this
00:13:46.600dumpster fire of a budget from the alberta government premier daniel smith and like
00:13:51.240it almost just reminds me of the anchorman one of my favorite parts of anchorman with
00:13:56.840will ferrell where he's like talking to his little dog and he's like you ate the whole
00:14:01.080wheel of cheese and you pooped in the fridge i'm not even upset it's that's impressive right it's
00:14:06.840almost impressive how bad um this budget 2026 is where they're increasing the debt even while
00:14:15.560hiking taxes on Albertans, right? So it's impressively bad. I would laugh if it wasn't
00:14:24.200so upsetting right now. Now, Chris, I was the Alberta director years ago now. And I remember
00:14:30.820whenever you would see these massive deficit numbers, governments borrowing like crazy,
00:14:36.540you all of a sudden get some academics, some taxpayer funded academics, and even some business
00:14:42.140groups by the way yeah i remember calling for a provincial sales tax in alberta and folks you
00:14:49.420might know you might not but alberta i love alberta so much alberta is the only province without a
00:14:55.180provincial sales tax so you'll often hear these taxpayer-funded academics even some business
00:14:59.340groups pushing for sales taxes in alberta whenever you see these massive deficit numbers chris what
00:15:05.420What do you say to that? I funny you, Franco. I've been asked that question about a PST
00:15:11.300like six times already just since yesterday. It's amazing. So this is the perennial problem
00:15:19.000in Alberta. OK, the government actually tried to say yesterday, basically, I'm paraphrasing,
00:15:24.040oh, my goodness, the price of a barrel of oil isn't what we wanted it to be. And
00:15:28.100Ottawa is being super mean to us. We're in Alberta, like the price of a barrel of oil
00:15:34.740fluctuates all the time. And Ottawa is often a jerk. So pull your socks up and do your job.
00:15:40.140Budget for such things. And lo and behold, as the sun rises in the east, these academics,
00:15:47.020they were asking, these journalists, they were asking, isn't it time for us to have a PST?
00:15:52.120Because, you know, we clearly don't have enough money. The cupboard is bare.
00:15:56.100Really? The cupboard is so bare that you're spending another $3.5 million on art literally
00:16:03.800made of garbage. I don't buy it at all. We don't have a, we don't have a revenue problem. We have
00:16:10.120a spending problem big time. And it's the lazy way of getting out of something. And you won't
00:16:17.380even get out of it either. Like the government, first of all, doesn't deserve a single cent more
00:16:21.400from Albertans, but you know, even if you did give the government another tax, they're just
00:16:25.580going to blow even more money. Yeah. Um, case in point, British Columbia, British Columbia,
00:16:32.040they've got a provincial sales tax uh how are their finances doing yeah then surplus they're
00:16:38.620stacking up cash making money no uh they've got record deficits they're a fiscal dumpster fire
00:16:44.140speaking of which um if i hear one more growing minister or politicians say we're not doing as
00:16:51.820bad as other provinces uh no you're in timeout you pull that with me you're in timeout because
00:16:57.960that's like saying that you are the soberest person who's still in the drunk tank. Like we're
00:17:03.280all still in the drunk tank now. Every province, it seems, is a disaster. But we expect better of
00:17:08.340Alberta. We've got things like the Taxpayer Protection Act. We've got things like no PST.
00:17:12.700We have things like recall legislation, I will remind everybody. We have referendums. We have
00:17:18.780a really good system of direct democracy here. And people love to talk about small government,
00:17:24.020small accountable government that picture of ralph klein holding up the paid in full sign
00:17:28.920i'm surprised it's not like a mural as you head into calgary right now um and i know i know premier
00:17:36.140smith really idolized him and i know that she wants to do that but you're not gonna get there
00:17:42.680by cranking up bureaucrat pay and blowing money on nonsense you're not you're gonna have to get
00:17:50.020tough with your own cabinet and your own departments the same way she got tough with
00:17:57.460the Alberta teachers union when they tried to extort another two billion dollars she said
00:18:02.040no so she's gonna have to do that again I know it's not easy but you're gonna have to do it
00:18:08.080because we are Franco Alberta is more than a hundred billion in debt that's crazy I never
00:18:15.240thought i'd say that like ever yeah and you know for anyone out there who's like why are you
00:18:21.260criticizing premier smith so much i mean folks the government is borrowing almost 10 billion dollars
00:18:26.420this year right it's nearly a 10 billion dollar deficit objectively this is very bad objectively
00:18:32.240this is very bad and and you know you got to hold even like even if it is your own side you know
00:18:38.320whomever you may vote for you got to expect better from them and you have to push them in the right
00:18:42.880direction. So regardless of what party you support, you know, this is unacceptable. Now,
00:18:48.240Chris, there's two other things I want to talk about and ask you about. So, you know, I asked
00:18:52.380you about the sales tax. You already brought up the referendum legislation. It's one of the best
00:18:56.000things about Alberta is that you have these legal restraints on politicians' ability to blunder
00:19:02.060or plunder taxpayers, right? So you have stuff like the Alberta Taxpayer Protection Act that's
00:19:07.400been in place since the mid-90s, which requires a provincial referendum before a provincial sales
00:19:12.700tax can be brought into place. But some of these other legal restraints that you have in Alberta
00:19:18.360are, and that you've seen in the past in Alberta are things like balanced budget legislation. You
00:19:23.400had debt repayment schedules, you had limitations on spending growth. So Chris, you know, I'm not
00:19:29.380an expert like you are on the specific restrictions in Alberta right now, but I mean, I'm seeing
00:19:34.380these massive deficits. I'm seeing spending go through the roof. What's going on with these
00:19:38.720legal restrictions i heard them say we need to uh we're seeking assistance and input on how to
00:19:46.980reframe our fiscal plan is what they said yesterday so basically to me that sounds like
00:19:54.240the kid who never bothered doing his homework now trying to come up with excuses um there's one that
00:19:59.940i really wanted to highlight and i mentioned it off the top so again if they're not breaking the
00:20:05.280rule. They're coming very close to it. So I'm reserving judgment as to whether or not they're
00:20:09.200breaking it. But we have a rule now in Alberta, which should be great. It is this. The government
00:20:16.320cannot increase spending by more than inflation plus population growth of the year previous.
00:20:23.500So that sounds nerdy and wonky and stuff. But the Taxpayers Federation has been asking the Alberta
00:20:29.560government to do this spending rule. It's a spending restraint rule since the mid 90s.
00:20:34.560So since the Spice Girls were topping the charts, we were saying to do this.
00:20:38.640If they had done so, okay, not cutting spending, just keeping it at the level of inflation plus population growth, just under, we would have more than $300 billion saved.
00:20:51.120Not including interest, not including investment, just cash under your mattress.
00:24:04.540You get your own pot of money, and then you have to distribute it.
00:24:07.700So we must take responsibility right here in Alberta.
00:24:11.200And I promise you that my old friend Daniel Smith from Wild Rose would be furious at this budget.
00:24:18.060So this is one of those things where you got to wade in and you got to say, we got to get this work done. So I'll put it this way. I know I can hear the listeners right now who really are big fans that we know. We know you're fans of Smith. Frankly, I can't speak for Franco. So am I. I understand. Okay. But this is where you have to do the hard work. I'll flip it to you this way.
00:24:38.260Smith is in Edmonton. She's surrounded by cabinet, all demanding more money. She's surrounded by
00:24:45.920some MLAs, not all of them, who are demanding more money for their ridings. She's surrounded
00:24:50.860by bureaucrats, like the bureaucrats, and they're just nattering all the time. You know, it's time
00:24:56.560for us to mature and have a sales tax. You know, it's time for us to mature and, you know, keep up
00:25:00.680with, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah contracts. We owe it. That's a good way to cut the bureaucracy.
00:25:05.620They mentioned PST, show them the door.