Deborah Yedlin, a columnist with the Calgary Herald, said in a recent item that the Alberta 
budget should draw from a recent Macdonald-Laurier Institute study for ideas on how to rein in a projected deficit.
The MLI paper, written by Greg Poelzer, argues that Canadian governments should invest revenues from natural resources in sovereign wealth funds rather than spend them at budget time.
This would make provinces such as Alberta less subject to wild oscillations in resource revenue, such as the one created by the recent drop in oil prices.
Norway, he says, is a great example from which Alberta can draw.
Yedlin draws from the paper to show that, had Alberta followed Norway’s lead in creating a sovereign wealth fund, it would have $170 billion today.
That’s why, she says, the Alberta government should look to Poelzer’s study as “a good starting point”.
The Alberta budget is set to be released on Thursday.
To read the full Calgary Herald article, click here.
