Gage Haubrich is the Prairie Director and Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.The Saskatchewan and Alberta governments can’t use other provinces’ fiscal failures to justify their own.Both Saskatchewan and Alberta recently released their first-quarter fiscal updates for 2025. It was not good news for taxpayers.In Saskatchewan, the government is planning to increase the debt by more than a billion dollars compared to last year. In Alberta, the story is the same, where the government is increasing the debt by about $1.6 billion compared to its budget. .EDITORIAL: Ottawa’s overreach on the notwithstanding clause threatens provinces rights.Interest payments on Saskatchewan’s debt will cost taxpayers $878.4 million this year, or about $702 per person. In Alberta, it’s more than $3 billion, or about $603 per person. For context, a new hospital costs about a billion dollars to build. But neither provincial government is admitting this is a serious problem for taxpayers. .That’s apparently because other provinces are doing worse.The government of Saskatchewan touted stats highlighting its high credit ratings and low debt-to-GDP ratios compared to other provinces in its news release. Alberta highlighted other provinces’ increased debt loads in its own release.Alberta and Saskatchewan can’t take a victory lap because they are doing better than the rest of the country, because the rest of the country is doing awful. .EDITORIAL: King Carney’s Palestinian statehood decree is a dangerous reward for terrorism.Every provincial government is increasing its debts and saddling taxpayers with the cost of debt interest payments. In Newfoundland and Labrador, every person owes more than $35,000 in government debt. Every Manitoban is on the hook for more than $1,500 in debt interest payments this year.Saskatchewan and Alberta’s fiscal hole might not be as deep as those in other provinces, but it’s still a big problem that’s getting worse.Comparing Alberta and Saskatchewan to other provinces is like being proud of being the most sober person in the drunk tank. You are still in the drunk tank..The sting of having to fork over $878.4 million in debt interest payments to the Saskatchewan government doesn’t hurt Saskatchewan taxpayers any less because Manitobans are paying more.Instead, Alberta and Saskatchewan should look at what’s happening to other provinces and take it as a warning that it’s what could happen to them if they don’t get their act together.And both provinces have easy places to start to control spending. In Alberta, the government can cancel its $128 million in corporate welfare to the Edmonton Oilers. And in Saskatchewan, the government can stop overspending its budget every year. Year after year, the Saskatchewan government racks up unexpected costs without finding savings anywhere else, and the debt goes up. .The Saskatchewan government spent $970 million more than budgeted in 2024. In 2023, the government went over budget by $2.2 billion. In 2022, it was $1.4 billion. Alberta and Saskatchewan need to get back to being the model for paying back debt. Former Alberta premier Ralph Klein previously paid off all of Alberta’s debt in 2004. And former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall paid off about 40% of Saskatchewan’s debt in a single year. At the time, Wall said his goal was to pay back the debt completely to stop wasting money on interest payments. Paying back part of that debt saved taxpayers about $180 million a year in debt interest payments. The government used those savings to provide tax relief to Saskatchewanians..SYRETT: America’s Socrates: Charlie Kirk and the silencing of truth.If Saskatchewan didn’t have to pay those debt interest charges, it could cut the entire fuel tax with more than $300 million extra to spare every year. If Alberta didn’t have to pay interest on its debt, it could also cut its entire fuel tax with about $1.6 billion left over every year.Instead of ignoring their growing debts, the provincial governments need to follow the leadership of Klein and Wall and pay back the debt to reduce the cost of government for taxpayers.Gage Haubrich is the Prairie Director and Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
