Some highlights from the first budget of Alberta’s United Conservatives

EDMONTON – Alberta’s United Conservative government tabled its budget Thursday. Here are some of the highlights:

— $8.7-billion deficit on revenues of $50 billion.

— Debt projected to rise from the current $63 billion to $72 billion by the spring, on track to reach $93 billion by 2023.

— Three more years of deficits with projected surplus of $584 million in 2023.

— The public sector to be reduced by almost eight per cent over four years, mainly through attrition.

— No budgeted pay increases for public sector workers.

— Program spending to drop 2.8 per cent over four years to $47 billion by 2023.

— Health funding maintained as $20.6 billion.

— Education funding maintained at $8.2 billion.

— Corporate income tax revenue to fall by $700 million to $4.2 billion in 2019-20.

— Operational spending to be reduced by 0.5 per cent this year and eventually by 2.8 per cent to $47.1 billion by 2023.

— A one-time payment of $1.5 billion to end the crude-by-rail shipment plan announced earlier this year by the former NDP government.

— $1.8 billion in new capital funding for schools and new modular classrooms.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2019.