Bob Layton: Alberta’s fake bean budget

It was my favorite philosopher, Will Rogers, who said, “Government budgets are like mythical bean bags. They put mythical beans into a bag and then try to pull out real ones.”

That’s how I see this latest Alberta budget.

The NDP government claims to have a plan to balance the books by 2023.

That sounds like a mythical bean when you consider that the only way it can deal with the $96-billion debt we’ll have by then, is if the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, also known as the TMX, is built.

If it gets built.

If.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claims that it will. That’s another fake bean, because the pipeline will only get built over Trudeau’s politically dead body.

For the prime minister to wade in and force the issue wearing an oil workers costume could well cost him the next election.

Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci says TMX will get built because it’s in the national interest.

That’s yet another fake bean because it’s not in Trudeau’s best interests. He’ll let it sit in the courts, where the government of B.C. Premier John Horgan will delay it forever over possible spills and clean-up questions.

The NDP government will keep the part of the budget promise that deals with spending and running up the debt, but it still needs “bitumen bitcoin” to pay for it all.

The big question is, with a budget as tentative as this one, will Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s government still be around after the next election, or will they go from fake beans to has-beens?

Bob Layton is the news manager of the Corus Edmonton group of radio stations and a commentator for Global News.