A local provincial politician says Budget 2025 is missing the mark in multiple areas, including health care, public education and public safety.
Lethbridge-West NDP MLA Rob Miyashiro says items like the rural medical program at the University of Lethbridge and funding toward the Cath Lab at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge are all good for the region, but they are items that have been announced in previous budgets.
“It’s nothing new and there’s no new money for it. It’s a continuation of something that’s already been announced,” he says. “Those are two real things. There’s not much in there for southern Alberta about how we’re going to recruit doctors and specialists and how we’re going to improve primary care in our region.”
The MLA says moving forward, he and his colleagues will go through the budget and look at the breakdown for each ministry and have conversations with the various ministers, asking questions about how the proposed numbers were decided on and the reasoning for proposed cuts.
“The other thing we have to realize too is that this budget doesn’t reflect population and inflation and just to clarify that, population and inflation in 2024 was around 7.3 per cent. Population and inflation in 2025 is projected to be about 5.1 per cent and total spending growth is only [around] 3.64 per cent,” Miyashiro adds.
“You can increase your spending by hundreds of millions of dollars, but if you’re not keeping up with population and inflation, it’s definitely a cut.”
Miyashiro says the one thing the budget does address is a proposed income tax break but at the same time, it comes with a laundry list of new taxes and increased fees, which he says is not making life more affordable for Albertans.
“We have the largest or the highest increase in electricity rates in Canada from 2020 to 2024. It’s a 40 per cent increase, with the next highest being New Brunswick at 23.7 per cent,” Miyashiro states. “The tax break is great but it’s offset by all these other things that aren’t making life more affordable for Albertans.”
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