This week in Edmonton, during a meeting of the federal Liberal caucus, Cabinet Ministers were busy announcing a bunch of programs and initiatives. Let's call it the Alberta tour: Version 2001.

HRDC Minister Jane Stewart was in Edmonton with a cool million dollars for the "establishment of a sector council for the upstream oil and gas industry" to address skills and labour shortages in the industry. Further away, Industry Minster Brian Tobin was touring oil sands near Fort McMurray.

Back in Edmonton, Transport Minister David Collenette and Justice Minister Anne McLellan teamed with Alberta to announce $92.4 million for highway improvements. Down the street, International Cooperation Minister Maria Minna opened a new regional CIDA office. As well we saw $120 million for a National Institute of Nanotechnology split between Alberta and the federal government.

To be fair, some of these initiatives, like highways, are worthy. But after a read through all the news releases from the Alberta tour, less than half tell us where the money comes from. Those that do state: funding for this project was provided in the February 2000 budget and is therefore built into the existing framework.
On a more general note, fewer and fewer government releases now contain this phrase. This is troubling for several reasons. To start, we have not had a full- blown budget in this country for 1 year, 7 months and 25 days. Government, as we've seen this week, is now conducted by press conference and photo op while the cameras roll. Parliamentary debate, why bother

But with this approach, the federal cash register tape rolls as well. Just this week, Finance Minister Paul Martin sounded the alarm that new federal programs could be in jeopardy. This is a double-edged sword to be sure. While the prospect of having Ottawa's reported $16 billion innovation agenda put on hold or scaled back is to be welcomed from a taxpayer point of view, the federal government's spending binge continues on other fronts.

Moreover, since the Finance Minister has not seen fit to inform us about the costs of the government's Throne Speech promises (14 new initiatives, 50 plus continuing or strengthened initiatives) or much of this "new" spending, chances of future tax cuts are also imperiled.

Combine this secrecy with recent market signals and Canadians should be concerned. The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board again cut its target for federal funds rate (the prime rate) by another 25 basis points this week. That's seven rate cuts totaling 300 basis points over eight months trying to kick-start a stubbornly sagging U.S. economy. And the Bank of Canada has cut its prime rate by 150 points over five months: with more to come no doubt.

As Alberta economist Ken Boesenkool points out, the C.D. Howe Institute calculates that for each tax dollar raised by Ottawa, Albertans and Ontarians pay about $1.35 and residents of B.C, pay just over a dollar due to the high incomes these provinces generate while the rest of Canada pays about 67 cents.

All of this leads us inevitably to the Prime Minster's speech in Edmonton this week where he basically encouraged Albertans (could Ontario and B.C. be next ) to share their wealth with the rest of the country.

Through equalization payments; the three "have" provinces already contribute their fair share to the federal treasury. So the moral of this story is simple: Ottawa Liberals are learning to love Albertans, but all the "have" provinces would be wise to guard the provincial chequebook. Ottawa's love could come with a price, as the old saying goes, there is no free lunch!