Photo Courtesy Canadian Press

By The Canadian Press with files from rdnewsSNOW

Alberta announces final numbers for fiscal year, including $4.3B surplus

Jun 27, 2024 | 5:03 PM

Alberta has announced its final numbers for the fiscal year that ended in March, and the bottom line is a $4.3-billion surplus.

Finance Minister Nate Horner says Alberta took in almost $75 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year, powered by more than $19 billion from non-renewable resources and a higher tax take due to more people moving to the province.

Alberta spent more than $70 billion, more than expected, as the province worked to cover off natural disasters and revamp the core structure of its health system.

The province also grew the size of its long-term savings piggybank, the Heritage Savings Trust Fund, to almost $23 billion.

Debt servicing costs were $3 billion.

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Horner says the province is setting a prudent course that has led to credit-rating upgrades from multiple firms.

Samir Kayande, Alberta NDP Critic for Finance, made the following statement in response to the government’s fiscal year-end update:

“Albertans have seen our health care and education get worse under the UCP and won’t see the tax cut they were promised during the election.

“While Minister Horner was boasting about a surplus today, there were no doctors available in Grande Cache. There are 29 partially closed hospitals across Alberta today. A rural community health centre is slated to close permanently at the end of this week. Our schools and post-secondaries are overcrowded and underfunded. Albertans are squeezed between rising prices and the lowest wage growth in Canada.

“Danielle Smith increased spending by $5.9 billion while kids experience ever-increasing class sizes and just one new school under construction in Calgary. Cancer patients aren’t getting treatment because of a lack of oncologists. She’s wasting our resource endowment, wasting taxpayers’ money, and Albertans’ lives get worse every day.”

(The Canadian Press – With files from rdnewsNOW)