Alberta budget will focus on job creation, Joe Ceci says

Alberta's Finance Minister Joe Ceci says the NDP's first budget will focus on creating new jobs and building much-needed public infrastructure.

Ceci said spending would be linked to a revised forecast for the price of oil, but that Albertans wouldn't find massive spending cuts in next month's budget.

"They can expect an operational plan, which continues the front-line services Albertans can rely on," Ceci said as NDP MLAs wrapped up a two-day retreat in Banff ahead of the fall sitting of the legislature.

Ceci has dropped the oil price forecast from what the PCs presented in their spring budget — resulting in a deficit approaching $5.9 billion.

Experts say Albertans know from the 1990s that when deficits are racked up year after year, there will be a day of reckoning if spending isn't controlled.

"At the end of seven years, we elected Ralph Klein who said that we'll fix the problem by having a 30 per cent cut in spending," said Ron Kneebone with the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy. 

Lesson learned?

"If we're not careful, that's exactly the history we're going to repeat," he added

Given depressed oil prices, the finance minister says there's no magic wand to make up for revenues that just aren't there.

Cabinet ministers have been giving Ceci outlines of what proposed spending for their departments will look like.

"We're in the process of reviewing their submissions to treasury board and finance. That's the work of this week and the next two weeks is to land on things that we're comfortable with as a group and to move forward," Ceci said.

Ceci also said he is reviewing a proposed infrastructure plan given to him by former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge.

Opposition parties have been pushing the government to unveil that plan sooner, but Ceci says it's not ready yet.