#72: The Alberta Well-being Budget 2021 Budget Speech: What If?

As a former senior policy advisor to former Alberta Treasurer Jim Dinning in the mid-1990s, I've had experience in helping prepare budgets, budget speeches and performance measurement reports. I've had the honour of serving on the Alberta Audit Committee under Premier Rachel Notley's government. As many of you know, I dream of a day when government's will table capital and operating budgets which are linked to improving the well-being conditions of citizens. I call this Well-being-based Budgeting. On February 25th 2021, the Alberta 2021-22 Budget was table by Finance Minister Travis Toews. The news was grim: a huge deficit and debt levels growing to $100 billion. Budget speeches and budgets predict what may happen tomorrow; they also reflect a desired fiscal future. But like all narratives, they depend on what the authors believe is possible and at best attempt to predict the future. Economists aren't very good at forecasting the future. No one would have known in January 2019 that Covid 19 would decimate our government fiscal conditions. Governments as such operate without a proper balance sheet; there is no full accounting of the state of well-being of the key assets of our province: our people, our relationships, and the state of our landscapes. Failure to account for the state of 'well-being' of these key assets that determine our economic future is simply poor accounting. What if our capital and operating budgets were tied to our genuine wealth and well-being conditions? After all, the word 'wealth' means 'the conditions of well-being' from the 13th Century Old English)? What would a budget say if it aspired to actually improving a common aspiration of 'better well-being' for all Albertans? What might we express as a new path towards improved well-being with the pandemic causing us to pause and count our blessings? In 2019 I prepared (for fun) a fictional Canada 2020 Well-being Budget Speech which many of you liked. It's amazing what is possible to dream about a different approach to budgeting and governance that would be focused on a simple aspiration: better well-being. I would love your feedback and comments.