Alberta's budget last week was a bust. There - I said it. That's not the most popular view of Treasurer Stockwell Day's budget speech but it's probably the most accurate. The national media seemed to think the 2000 budget was somehow indicative of fiscal conservatism. Ha! The truth is that the provincial budget looked more like the work of Pierre Trudeau.

The bottom line is that taxpayers were passed by in this year's Alberta budget in favor of massive spending hikes. The province is spending more and more of its ever growing revenues with almost nothing flowing back into taxpayers' wallets.

Here are the spending numbers -- the province's program spending in 2000-2001will balloon by more than $1.6 billion to $16.7 billion from the original 1999-2000 spending projection of $15.1 billion - an increase of 11 percent.

Last spring the government claimed that the extra money they spent as a result of this year's surplus constituted a "one-time" expenditure - clearly that's not the case. The province will be spending more next year than they did this year including the so-called 'one-time' expenditures. That's no big surprise. When was the last time any government reduced its year-over-year spending

Meanwhile, Albertans will reap only $236 million in tax savings for the 2000-2001 fiscal year. And don't expect a big refund check out of this if you're making less than $45,000. These savings will only accrue to high income Albertans. Most middle- and low-income earners won't even see the measly tax cut portioned out this year. It's a safe bet that we'll see bigger, deeper, more meaningful tax cuts from Paul Martin's budget than from what has been provided by the Alberta Tories.

It's not all bad, of course. There are some areas for praise including the province's user fee review which will produce a savings of $60 million. Still, the lowering of user fees is a very selective reduction measure -- only a few Albertans will see any benefit.

Here's what should have happened. The province should have implemented a broad-based income tax cut worth $500 million. The government had the fiscal room to make a significant tax cut applicable to all Albertans. Instead they chose to spend our dividend.

So now it looks like we'll have to wait until 2001, when the new single tax rate system kicks in, for meaningful tax relief. And that's a shame, because we could have had real tax relief today.