New provincial committee to review government spending in every department, premier says

WESTLOCK – The Alberta government is creating a productivity review cabinet committee that will assess spending in every government program, Premier Danielle Smith said at two party events over the weekend.

At a UCP constituency fundraiser in Westlock on Aug. 16, Smith said the committee will perform a program-by-program review with the aim of “finding savings so that we can deliver on that $760 per taxpayer personal income tax cut.” The committee is composed of the premier, Finance Minister Nate Horner, Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish, three treasury board members, and three private members, Smith said.

“We're going to be starting going through, looking at every single program in every single department to see if there are ways that we can remove wasteful spending, move spending from low-priority areas to high-priority areas, find ways that we can use technology to be able to deliver services better, and accelerate that personal income tax cut,” Smith said at a members-only town hall event in Drayton Valley on Aug. 17.

A new tax bracket on the first $60,000 of personal income was promised in the UCP 2023 election campaign. The rollout of the tax cut has been pushed back until 2026-27, and budget documents say its implementation is “contingent on the province maintaining sufficient fiscal capacity to introduce the tax cut while maintaining a balanced budget.”

The premier’s office did not respond to detailed questions about the productivity review committee. In an email, Smith’s press secretary, Sam Blacket, suggested the premier was not indicating a new cabinet committee in her remarks to the two audiences but was referring to routine government program reviews.

“The premier was referencing the Alberta government’s ongoing process to regularly review government program spending to ensure Alberta taxpayers are getting the greatest value for their hard-earned tax dollars,” Blacket said.

Andrew Boitchenko, UCP MLA for Drayton Valley-Devon, is one of three treasury board members recruited to take part in the exhaustive program evaluation. Boitchenko said in a phone interview he was only recently notified he would be on the committee and expects it will begin work next month.

“I think it's a great model, and I think productivity and efficiency benefit everyone,” he said.

At the Drayton Valley town hall, Smith said she asked Boitchenko to be part of the review panel because of his treasury board experience and his reputation for being a "hard guy" to get spending approval from.

Boitchenko said he did not know the identities of the other treasury board and private members serving on the committee.

Marie Renaud, NDP MLA for St. Albert, said the new cabinet committee has more to do with boosting support for Smith before her leadership review this fall than finding program efficiencies and savings.

"A tax cut was Danielle Smith’s signature campaign promise, but she broke that promise in this year’s budget. Now her leadership review numbers are looking bad, so she’s hastily pulling together a committee to figure out how to rush a rewrite of her own budget. This kind of deception is no way to run a province," Renaud said in a statement.

Smith’s popularity has seen the largest net negative change of all provincial leaders this year, dropping 18 percentage points over the last six months, according to a recent Leger poll. NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi and Smith are now tied with a 39 per cent approval rating among Albertans.

Smith will face a leadership review at the UCP annual general meeting in Red Deer this November.

Brett McKay is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with Great West Media. Title image by Jonibean from Pixabay.