Albertans grill Finance Minister Joe Ceci on 2015 budget

Finance Minister Joe Ceci says deficits, at this point, are better than deep cuts to health care and education.

• JoeCecitookcalls on the budget duringalberta@noon on CBC Radio today. Follow along with his answersin our live blogor listen to an archive of the broadcast:

Alberta at Noon24:00Joe Ceci takes listener questions about the Alberta budget on alberta@noon

Finance Minister Joe Ceci takes questions from callers on CBC Radio's alberta@noon.

"We could have laid off teachers and nurses to get us to a balanced budget," he said."Some would do that. I know the opposition is calling for that.

"But we wanted to provide predictable, stable funding for those things like healthcare, education and human services."

The morning after introducing his government's first financial plan,Ceciexplained his choices on the CalgaryEyeopener, defending the decision to run a $6.1-billion consolidated deficit the largestin Alberta's history.

Cecisaid the NDP had little other option, given the crash in theprice of oil.

The Alberta government is expected to take in just $2.8billion innon-renewableresource revenue for 2015-16, down from roughly$8.9billion the year before and a peak of $11.6 billion in2011-12.

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New taxes

Ceci said hisgovernment's elimination of Alberta's unusual flat-tax structureon income and its increase to the province's corporate tax rate will help offset part of that massive decline in resourcerevenue, but only a smallpart.

Adding a progressively increasing tax rate for earnings above $125,000 is expectedto bring in an additional $450 million to government coffersin 2015-16and another$906 million more in 2016-17.

Hiking the corporate taxrate by two percentage points, meanwhile, is projected togenerate an additional $250 million this fiscal year and $450 million in the next.

But Cecisaid he opted not to also add a sales tax because the NDP hadn't campaigned on that in the spring election.

"We feelit's important to stay true to the promises we made, and we're following through with our commitments," he said.

Oil rebound assumed

Like the previous PC government's budget that never passed in the spring, the new NDPbudget relies on the long-term assumption thatoil prices will increase in thecoming years.

The financial plan estimatesWest Texas Intermediate prices will reach $61 per barrel in 2015-16 and $68 per barrelin2016-17.

As of this morning, the price was at $45 per barrel.Ceci said he firmly believes oil prices will rise as time goes on.

"I think this is a safe bet," he said.