A $500-million provincial deficit expected
Posted Jan 8, 2015 5:32 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Jim Prentice says the plummeting price of oil means the province is facing a $500-million deficit this year instead of a budget surplus.
Prentice says in an interview with The Canadian Press that his advisers project oil prices will rebound slowly over time, but Alberta may not see a balanced budget until the 2017-18 fiscal year.
Oil prices, the lifeblood of Alberta’s economy, have been in free fall since last summer and tumbled to below US$50 a barrel this week.
As late as November, the government still hoped to run a $933-million surplus this year.
Prentice says the plan now is to budget for oil at $65 a barrel in the next fiscal year, but that would still mean almost $7 billion in lost revenue.
He says his government will look at cutting expenditures, raising revenues and dipping into a $5-billion rainy day contingency fund.
