Alberta Records A $3.9 Billion Surplus Due to Rising Oil and Gas Prices

Alberta’s budget surplus has grown to $3.9 billion since the last fiscal year. The province’s finance minister has promised to avoid making the same mistakes as previous governments and not spend the money all at once.

In his first fiscal update as finance minister, Jason Nixon stated, “What goes up will come down.”

The province’s top priorities are reducing debt, saving for future investments, and keeping the cost of public services affordable for Albertans, he added.

“I think it is incumbent upon us at the moment to ensure that we strategically use these resources to help Albertans through these issues right now, particularly inflation and affordability.”

“But do it in such a way that we don’t create problems for future governments when those oil and gas prices come back down,” said Nixon.

Nixon mentioned that he plans to introduce legislation in the fall to allow governments to reinvest more interest made by the Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Currently, there is a legal requirement that any money left in the fund after taking inflation into account must be transferred into general revenue.

After a successful year with approximately 13% returns, the fund is currently valued at $20 billion.

Nixon promised to provide additional information about the United Conservative Party government’s plans for its unexpected surplus in the coming days.

Original source material for this article taken from here