NDP's balanced budget to come a year later, due to accounting error
NDP bean counters overlook Tory budget cuts to health care, education in projections
The NDP has acknowledged its fiscal plan for Alberta announced Sunday is overly optimistic.
A day after releasing its plan to balance Alberta's budget in two years, a promise similar to those made by the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose, the NDP said it would take the party an extra year.
"All three major parties running in this election agree we should balance the budget in 2017," Leader Rachel Notley said Sunday. "And we all agree this needs to be achieved by changing something. Where we don't agree is on what needs to change."
However, an accounting error forced the NDP to issue a retraction, saying the party's fiscal framework would require another year to balance the budget.
The impact of government cuts to health care, education and advanced education in the 2015-2016 provincial budget were not properly reflected in their numbers, Notley said Monday.
"We still get to a balanced budget, just a year later than what we talked about before," she said.
The NDP plan includes rolling back the program cuts made in the Conservative budget, and hiking corporate taxes.