In the Saturday January 12 (online late Friday evening, Jan. 11) edition of the Edmonton Sun, my Hicks on Biz column tried to look at over-all, generally accepted statistics that clearly prove the government of Alberta does spend more per capita than any other big province besides Quebec with its staggering debt load.
And that our nurses, doctors, teachers and civil servants, thanks to association and union agreements that go back to the flush years between 2004 and 2008, are the best-paid of the Big Four provinces.

Here's some of the references I used to arrive at this conclusion.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information's National Physician Database for 2009/10 is a good snapshot of the Alberta docs' income compared to other provinces, especially the eye-opening Table A.5.1 Average Gross Fees for Physicians earning $60,000 or more, broken out by province. Sorry, I'm not sure if this document can be tracked down online, or if it's one of those things that has to be purchased from the website.

RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) has excellent tables breaking down and comparing provincial budgets. www.rbc.com/economics/government-budgets.html.

The government of Alberta does a very good job on presenting many facts and figures - check out budget2012.algberta.ca

Wages of nurses and others can be found at workingincanada.gc.ca

The remnants of what should be our super-sized Alberta Heritage Fund, and some other funds created in the Peter Lougheed area can be found in the AIMCo 2011/12 Annual Report, plus what's left in Ed Stelmach's sensible Sustainability Fund, which has allowed the provincial government to use up its savings from the gusher years to cover the annual deficit for the last few years. It is, however, running out.

If you believe, as I do, that at least Lougheed's one-third of oil/gas revenues should be going into a fund for the future, then the conclusion that A) more taxes are pretty well unavoidable if we want the services and programs we now get from the province ... and B) that the Redford government will have to be very tough on the professionals in the health and education sectors - i.e. flat-line salaries for the next few years - to bring that spending at least in line with other provinces.

In short, it is quite shocking that a government with Alberta's wealth - one of the wealthiest governments in the world outside the despotic kingdoms of the Middle-East - should be rationalizing the heading into debt to the tune of billions of dollars.

And B, we really do have to understand that we can't have our cake and eat it too ... not if we want to leave the province's future and finances in the shape that our children and our children's children deserve.