In a budget commentary last week, the CBC noted that Alberta spends $2,700 more per person than B.C. That figure is correct.
The commentary then continued: “Slashing Alberta’s budget to [the B.C.] level would require drastic measures — such as cutting health spending in half or completely eliminating the departments of post-secondary education, children’s services, and community and social services.” That analysis is false.
You don’t have to wipe out whole departments to fix the problem, you just have to manage responsibly.
Anyone who has worked in the public sector knows how our neighbours created this mess. For years, successive governments in Alberta spent like drunken sailors. Here are some examples of the milestones on this road to fiscal ruin:
The deputy minister of health in B.C. gets about $300,000 a year. His opposite number in Alberta (with a population 10 per cent smaller than ours) makes $580,000. (These, and other figures below, are sometimes a year or two out of date. I’ve tried to maintain a proper balance by using comparable years in each case.)
The approximate salary range for a category 5 teacher in Victoria is $49,000 to $74,000. The equivalent range in Calgary is $61,000 to $95,000.
The salary range for a registered nurse at Island Health on Vancouver Island is $63,000 to $77,000. Across Alberta, the range is $74,000 to $96,000.
In 2013, the average payment to physicians in B.C. (both GPs and specialists) was $272,795. In Alberta, it was $349,665 (highest in the country).
The price tag for an average hospital stay at Victoria General is $5,436, and $5,845 provincewide. An average stay at Foothills Hospital in Calgary costs $8,475, while the provincewide average is $7,851. (In case you think B.C. hospitals are cutting corners, their patient outcomes are as good or better.)
In 2012, the average provincial public-service salary in B.C. was $61,140. In Alberta, it was $85,540. These are Statistics Canada numbers, and because they do not distinguish between full-time and part-time employees, they have to be read with caution.
But even so, look at the difference. Alberta’s salary bill, per person employed, is 40 per cent higher.
I could go on, but you get the idea. The Alberta government spends more than we do, per capita, indeed more than we do in total, because the province has failed to control day-to-day costs such as salaries and overhead that, over time, add up.
I was part of an interprovincial committee process some years ago that tried to keep a hold on public-service compensation awards. Most jurisdictions played ball, or tried to. But not Alberta.
Frequently, when one of the poorer provinces aimed for a moderate settlement with its doctors or teachers or nurses, Alberta would blow them out of the water with a whopping pay raise. And why? Because with all those oil revenues rolling in, they could afford it. More than that, they gloried in their wealth and wore it like a Hollywood diva flashing her bling.
So now B.C. has a surplus budget, while Alberta expects to close out 2016 with a deficit in the $11-billion range. And according to Alberta’s finance minister, Joe Ceci, the red ink is projected to continue for another seven years.
Yes, Ceci’s oil revenues are down. Resource revenues are also down in B.C., though not by as much. But if Alberta simply spent the same amount, per capita, as B.C. does, the province would have a balanced budget, even with the oilpatch woes.
This is a perfect example of the difference between disciplined management and profligate behaviour. It is also a credit to the B.C. government’s outstanding public service.
