Alberta's dollar signs are still showing up red after Finance Minister Joe Ceci gave an update yesterday (June 29) on the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

The Province is facing a $33 Billion deficit with the government continuing to spend on Infrastructure projects and funding for public services.

Despite this ballooning deficit, Ceci believes the Province is heading in the right direction.

"Last November I reported that the Alberta economy was turning the corner. I repeated this at Budget in March and at our third quarter report. Although the path to recovery has had it's obstacles and not all Alberta families are feeling this yet, we're heading in the right direction."

Ceci remarks that last year was a tough one for the Province with many events that were beyond their control.

"We had population growth, we had people still coming to this province. We had a challenging year with more operational expenses for those people coming here and we had a wildfire where we had additional expenses."

When asked to provide more details about the government's plan to balance the budget, Ceci didn't have specific answers but only said it would be a slow process.

"What you see is smaller deficits, and we'll continue that on with the budgets and that would have to be in the 2020-2021 budget that's presented."

Ceci expects that the government can fully balance the books in 6 years, something opposition critics have already dismissed.

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean says the fiscal year was "without question the worst year on the books in Alberta’s history and the NDP government is working twice as hard this year to try and outdo themselves."

Liberal Leader David Khan echoed those statements saying that the NDP's "out-of-control spending and their creation of an unattractive investment climate is failing Albertans now and in the future."

Regardless of the criticisms, Ceci believes the government can erase the deficit, but it won't come easy.

"It's not without some challenge I can tell you. The issues in Alberta, with regard to volatile revenues, I was asked about the billion dollars in revenues that weren't anticipated...that's the challenge in this province."

 

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