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MacKinnon Report on Alberta's Finances

An independent panel of experts reviewed Alberta’s finances and provided recommendations to bring the budget back to balance.

Status: Completed
Ministry responsible: Treasury Board and Finance
Completed: 2019

Overview

To get our economy back on track and our budget balanced by 2022-23, we’ve appointed an independent panel of experts to review Alberta’s finances and economy.

The MacKinnon Panel on Alberta's Finances recommended ways to eliminate waste, duplication and non-essential spending to fund government’s key priorities, while ensuring high-quality, front-line services for Albertans.

Panel mandate

The panel brought an outside perspective and decades of experience as they reviewed a range of economic factors and financial processes, including:

  • government's fiscal outlook
  • department and agency expenditure trends and cost drivers
  • a plan to balance the budget by 2022-23, without raising taxes
  • a new fiscal framework that requires future balanced budgets and a plan to retire the accumulated debt
  • government's operating and capital budgeting, fiscal planning and public reporting processes and systems
  • business investment climate in Canada and its impact on Alberta’s economy

MacKinnon report

Read the MacKinnon panel's final report and the supporting material used to inform their work:

Next steps

Information provided in the MacKinnon Report will be used in planning Budget 2019, which will be released in the fall.

Panel members

Janice MacKinnon, Chair

Dr. MacKinnon is a former Saskatchewan Finance Minister, Executive Fellow at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy and Professor of Fiscal Policy at the University of Saskatchewan.

Mike Percy, Vice-Chair

Mr. Percy was previously an Alberta MLA and former Stanley A. Milner professor and dean of the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta. Mr. Percy was also the chief of staff to Premier Jim Prentice.

Kim Henderson

Ms. Henderson is a principal at Sproat Advising. Her previous roles include deputy minister to the Premier, cabinet secretary and head of the British Columbia Public Service and deputy minister of Finance with the province of British Columbia.

Bev Dahlby

Mr. Dahlby is a distinguished fellow and research director, School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.

Dave Mowat

Mr. Mowat is the former president and chief executive officer, ATB Financial.

Jay Ramotar

Mr. Ramotar has held many deputy minister positions with the Alberta Public Service including Service Alberta, Solicitor General and Public Security, Health and Wellness, Infrastructure and Transportation and Treasury Board.

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