by Joel French, Executive Director for Public Interest Alberta. This article was written for online media outlet Ricochet.
Every year for the past several years, the Alberta government’s budget documents have included a graph titled
. The graph shows how much revenue the government would raise if it had the same tax structure as each of Canada’s nine other provinces.The graph ought to be more appropriately titled Alberta’s Revenue Disadvantage. Being starved of revenue is not an advantage. It has led to large classroom sizes, long wait times to get into seniors’ care, and limited capacity to bring in other needed reforms, such as accessible, affordable, high-quality child care.
