Alberta Finance Minister Travis Toews said the plan is to get Alberta out of the financial ditch in February with the budget.

Travis Toews made the comments as he announced the revised budget deficit this year will be $21.3 billion.

The UCP government said while completing upgrades of the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, the living wall will ultimately be replaced with art from the provincial collection.

The adjustment is expected to save nearly $1 million, Kenney said.

In August, the double blow of collapsing oil prices and the COVID-19 crisis pushed Alberta into a historic deficit of $24.2 billion.

'Let me state definitively that there will be no cuts to AISH financial benefits,' Alberta's Minister of Community and Social Services Rajan Sawhney said Saturday.

Coniferous stumpage fees -- paid by forest companies for evergreen wood such as pine or spruce harvested from Crown land -- have nearly doubled to $67.31 in September.

With no provincial sales tax, and high personal income tax exemptions, Alberta has long charged the lowest tax rates on its citizens in the country, relying heavily on non-renewable resource revenues to fill the gap.

The COVID-19 pandemic and low energy prices have pushed Alberta into a historic deficit of $24.2 billion.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney addresses a wide range of issues affecting southern Alberta, including infrastructure and agriculture upgrades, rural doctors, the COVID-19 pandemic and the controversy over speechwriter Paul Bunner.