Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.The Alberta budget is a flaming pile of garbage, so we’d better hope the government doesn’t turn it into art. More on that later.Spending is up, debt is up, and taxes are up.Finance Minister Nate Horner announced the 2026-27 Alberta budget at the legislature in Edmonton.Cabinet ministers were looking nervous in the rotunda while they mingled with the media afterwards, listening in on the scrums of stakeholders criticizing the budget.Those politicians should feel jittery because they’re pushing Alberta’s debt over $100 billion for the first time in our province’s history.The government is borrowing $9.4 billion this year, otherwise known as a deficit.Last year’s budget pegged the provincial debt at $82.7 billion. This year, the debt is set to hit $108.9 billion. A shocking 31% increase from last year.Interest payments on the debt will cost Albertans $3.4 billion this year, the value of the provincial income tax paid by close to a million Alberta workers.The province is forecasting a provincial debt of $123 billion next year, with interest charges costing taxpayers $4.2 billion.What is going on?.The UCP government has a huge spending problem that it’s completely ignoring.Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s team is spending way too much, and they aren’t even trying to save money.We know they aren’t trying because they’re hiking up funding for “art” that’s actually made of garbage. (More on that in a moment.)Compared to last year’s budget, total spending has gone up 5.8%.Spending on healthcare has gone up by 5.8%, while spending on K to 12 education has increased by 30% since February’s 2025 budget.Pay for bureaucrats is costing taxpayers $37.9 billion this year, up by 14% compared to last year.The provincial government is doing the old song and dance that Ottawa is being a big jerk to Alberta, and the price of a barrel of oil is too low.Those things are true; everyone in Alberta knows that, but those things also happen all the time, so it’s absurd for the government to pretend these expenses are sudden or shocking.It’s time for Smith to take responsibility for the waste by her government. She must put her hand to the plow and make big changes.We know the government isn’t trying to save money because it isn’t cutting ludicrous waste..Let’s examine funding for garbage art.The UCP government is boosting funding for the Alberta Foundation for the Arts by $3.5 million to give it a total of $43 million in 2027.That foundation gave a grant to a gallery that displays things like take-out food container garbage taped to Christmas tinsel, and it also funded a video of someone hiding behind a big sheet of paper taped to a wall.In 2024-25, the foundation handed out $25 million in taxpayers’ money to art projects.The Canadian Taxpayers Federation gave the government a Teddy Waste Award for giving thousands of dollars to a person who flew overseas and videotaped themselves rolling around on a lawn chair.Taxpayers called on the government to cut this waste.The UCP government is giving the foundation more money instead.“We’re trying to show some balance in meeting the needs of Alberta right now,” Horner said in the legislature. “I recognize this is a tough pill to swallow.”.Taxpayers should spit this budget pill out because it costs too much money, and there are sneaky tax hikes in it.The government is hiking the education property tax by about $468 million this year.There’s a new tax on rented vehicles that will cost taxpayers about $36 million. The hotel tax is going up from four percent to six percent, taking in about $66 million extra.Spending is up, debt is up, and taxes are up.Alberta will not get back to the days of a debt “paid in full” because this government has no plans to stop overspending and no plans to cut the huge bureaucracy.Smith needs to channel her inner Margaret Thatcher, pick up the chainsaw, and start cutting.Kris Sims is the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
