New tax bracket among features of Alberta’s 2024 Budget

Budget 2024: A responsible plan for a growing province

Budget 2024 is a responsible plan to strengthen health care and education, build safe communities and manage resources wisely to support a growing Alberta.

With a steady focus on fiscal responsibility and wise spending, Alberta’s government will continue to meet the needs of Albertans today and tomorrow. Budget 2024 presents three more years of balanced budgets, beginning with a forecast surplus of $367 million in 2024-25. Budget 2024 strengthens the vital services Albertans rely on and ensures those services remain sustainable over the long run.

“Alberta is growing. Budget 2024 is a plan that manages the pressures faced by a growing province today while securing the future for generations who follow. I’m proud of the choices we made in this budget that support Albertans’ top priorities and prepare our province to meet the challenges that lie ahead. Budget 2024 invests today and saves for tomorrow so we can continue to be the nation’s economic engine.”

Nate Horner, President of Treasury Board and Minister of Finance

Budget 2024 is a responsible plan that puts Albertans and Alberta families first by investing in their health, education, safety, and economic growth and success. Priority investments include:

Health and mental health supports: $26.2 billion in operating dollars, a 4.4 per cent increase over the forecast for 2023-24.
Education supports: $9.3 billion in operating expenses, a 4.4 per cent increase from last year, to support record enrolment growth, hire hundreds more education staff including teachers and educational assistants, and support students with specialized needs.
Social supports: $2.9 billion in 2024-25 to Albertans through the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program, the Alberta Seniors Benefit and other social support programs, plus $355 million for Alberta Child and Family Benefit payments to help low-income families, indexing payments to inflation and providing for more eligible clients.
Workforce supports: An increase of $102 million over three years to add 3,200 apprenticeship classroom seats in high-demand areas and support curriculum updates to the apprenticeship program, as well as $62.4 million over three years to expand physician education, including through rural health training centres.
Public safety supports: $1.2 billion in 2024-25 operating expense for Public Safety and Emergency Services to support police and mental health crisis teams, deploy street-level police officers to tackle crime in Calgary and Edmonton, and provide $74 million to the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.
Wildfire supports: $151 million operating expense over the next three years for enhancements to the Wildfire Management Program and $55 million in capital investment for new firefighting equipment and facilities.
- The fiscal framework provides the flexibility the government needs to respond quickly to disasters and emergencies as they arise, including a $2-billion contingency.
Water management and drought preparedness supports: $1.3 billion in capital funding over the next three years, including $251 million to better prepare the province for floods and droughts; $272 million for irrigation projects; and $539 million to support municipal water supply and wastewater infrastructure.
- Budget 2024 also provides additional operating support of $19 million over three years for the Strategy to Increase Water Availability and $9 million for water management initiatives.
Capital supports: In total, $25 billion over three years in capital funding to build schools, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure, supporting 24,000 direct jobs and 13,000 indirect jobs across the province.

Alberta is well-positioned to remain the economic engine of Canada, with real gross domestic product forecast to grow 2.9 per cent in 2024, but the province continues to face challenges. While Alberta’s growing population is supporting economic activity and helping to ease labour shortages, it is also increasing demand for housing, health care, education and other public services. Ongoing geopolitical turmoil, uncertainty from federal government policies and high consumer prices risk dampening growth. Budget 2024 prepares Alberta to face those headwinds, with its responsible plan that invests in Albertans today and builds prosperity for tomorrow.

The fiscal framework introduced in spring 2023 requires the government to use at least half of any available surplus cash to pay down debt, freeing up more money to support Albertans. Taxpayer-supported debt will be reduced by a forecast $3.2 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year. With the government’s commitment to paying down debt, the total taxpayer-supported debt will be $78.4 billion at the end of 2024-25.

High interest rates and the need to refinance maturing debt are driving up debt-servicing costs (the interest payments and fees on the debt) paid by taxpayers. As a result, debt-servicing costs are growing by $229 million in 2024-25 to $3.4 billion. While high interest rates on refinanced maturing debt are driving up those costs in the short term, the government’s strategic debt repayment plan will save Albertans millions in the long term.

The province is retaining more than $1 billion in investment earnings from 2023-24 in the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Alberta’s government will also deposit another $2 billion from the Alberta Fund, increasing the value of the Heritage Savings Trust Fund to a forecast $25 billion. This is a significant investment in the future of Albertans and the province’s main long-term savings fund

Revenue

In 2024-25, total revenue is estimated to be $73.5 billion, which is $2.1 billion lower than the third-quarter forecast for 2023-24.
Revenue from personal income taxes is estimated to increase to $15.6 billion in 2024-25, up $365 million from the third-quarter forecast, and grow in the following two years as more people continue to move to Alberta.
Corporate income tax revenue is estimated at $7 billion in 2024-25, down $176 million from the third-quarter forecast for 2023-24, but rising over the next two years.
Non-renewable resource revenue is estimated to drop to $17.3 billion in 2024-25, from $19.4 billion forecast for 2023-24, and is forecast to pick up over the medium term.

Expense

Total expense in 2024-25 is $73.2 billion, a 3.9 per cent increase from the forecast for 2023-24.
Total expense is expected to be $74.6 billion in 2025-26 and $76.2 billion in 2026-27.
Total operating expense in 2024-25 is $60.1 billion, a 3.9 per cent increase from the 2023-24 forecast.
A contingency of $2 billion will help the province respond to disasters and emergencies and other in-year expense pressures, a $500-million increase from 2023-24.

Surplus

A surplus of $367 million is forecast for 2024-25.
Surpluses of $1.4 billion and $2.6 billion are forecast for 2024-25 and 2025-26, respectively.

Economic outlook

In 2024, real gross domestic product is expected to grow by 2.9 per cent, up from the 2.6 per cent forecast at mid-year.
Strong population growth is expected to continue at 3.7 per cent in the 2024 calendar year, down from 4.1 per cent growth in 2023.

Energy and economic assumptions, 2024-25

West Texas Intermediate oil (USD/bbl) $74
Western Canadian Select @ Hardisty (CND/bbl) $76.80
Light-heavy differential (USD/bbl) $16
ARP natural gas (CND/GJ) $2.90
Conventional crude production (000s barrels/day) 507
Raw bitumen production (000s barrels/day) 3,429
Canadian dollar exchange rate (USD¢/CDN$) 75.90
Interest rate (10-year Canada bonds, per cent) 3.70

Related information

Budget 2024

The case for expanding Canada’s energy exports

Published on December 10, 2025

Todayville

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Deborah Jaremko

For Canada, the path to a stronger economy — and stronger global influence — runs through energy.

That’s the view of David Detomasi, a professor at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University.

Detomasi, author of Profits and Power: Navigating the Politics and Geopolitics of Oil, argues that there is a moral case for developing Canada’s energy, both for Canadians and the world.

David Detomasi. Photo courtesy Smith School of Business, Queen’s University

CEC: What does being an energy superpower mean to you?

DD: It means Canada is strong enough to affect the system as a whole by its choices.

There is something really valuable about Canada’s — and Alberta’s — way of producing carbon energy that goes beyond just the monetary rewards.

CEC: You talk about the moral case for developing Canada’s energy. What do you mean?

DD: I think the default assumption in public rhetoric is that the environmental movement is the only voice speaking for the moral betterment of the world. That needs to be challenged.

That public rhetoric is that the act of cultivating a powerful, effective economic engine is somehow wrong or bad, and that efforts to create wealth are somehow morally tainted.

I think that’s dead wrong. Economic growth is morally good, and we should foster it.

Economic growth generates money, and you can’t do anything you want to do in social expenditures without that engine.

Economic growth is critical to doing all the other things we want to do as Canadians, like having a publicly funded health care system or providing transfer payments to less well-off provinces.

Over the last 10 years, many people in Canada came to equate moral leadership with getting off of oil and gas as quickly as possible. I think that is a mistake, and far too narrow.

Instead, I think moral leadership means you play that game, you play it well, and you do it in our interest, in the Canadian way.

We need a solid base of economic prosperity in this country first, and then we can help others.

CEC: Why is it important to expand Canada’s energy trade?

DD: Canada is, and has always been, a trading nation, because we’ve got a lot of geography and not that many people.

If we don’t trade what we have with the outside world, we aren’t going to be able to develop economically, because we don’t have the internal size and capacity.

Historically, most of that trade has been with the United States. Geography and history mean it will always be our primary trade partner.

But the United States clearly can be an unreliable partner. Free and open trade matters more to Canada than it does to the U.S. Indeed, a big chunk of the American people is skeptical of participating in a global trading system.

As the United States perhaps withdraws from the international trading and investment system, there’s room for Canada to reinforce it in places where we can use our resource advantages to build new, stronger relationships.

One of these is Europe, which still imports a lot of gas. We can also build positive relationships with the enormous emerging markets of China and India, both of whom want and will need enormous supplies of energy for many decades.

I would like to be able to offer partners the alternative option of buying Canadian energy so that they are less reliant on, say, Iranian or Russian energy.

Canada can also maybe eventually help the two billion people in the world currently without energy access.

CEC: What benefits could Canadians gain by becoming an energy superpower?

DD: The first and primary responsibility of our federal government is to look after Canada. At the end of the day, the goal is to improve Canada’s welfare and enhance its sovereignty.

More carbon energy development helps Canada. We have massive debt, an investment crisis and productivity problems that we’ve been talking about forever. Economic and job growth are weak.

Solving these will require profitable and productive industries. We don’t have so many economic strengths in this country that we can voluntarily ignore or constrain one of our biggest industries.

The economic benefits pay for things that make you stronger as a country.

They make you more resilient on the social welfare front and make increasing defence expenditures, which we sorely need, more affordable. It allows us to manage the debt that we’re running up, and supports deals for Canada’s Indigenous peoples.

CEC: Are there specific projects that you advocate for to make Canada an energy superpower?

DD: Canada’s energy needs egress, and getting it out to places other than the United States. That means more transport and port facilities to Canada’s coasts.

We also need domestic energy transport networks. People don’t know this, but a big chunk of Ontario’s oil supply runs through Michigan, posing a latent security risk to Ontario’s energy security.

We need to change the perception that pipelines are evil. There’s a spiderweb of them across the globe, and more are being built.

Building pipelines here, with Canadian technology and know-how, builds our competitiveness and enhances our sovereignty.

Economic growth enhances sovereignty and provides the resources to do other things. We should applaud and encourage it, and the carbon energy sector can lead the way.

Agriculture

Growing Alberta’s fresh food future

Published on December 10, 2025

Government of Alberta

A new program funded by the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership will accelerate expansion in Alberta greenhouses and vertical farms.

Albertans want to keep their hard-earned money in the province and support producers by choosing locally grown, high-quality produce. The new three-year, $10-milllion Growing Greenhouses program aims to stimulate industry growth and provide fresh fruit and vegetables to Albertans throughout the year.

“Everything our ministry does is about ensuring Albertans have secure access to safe, high-quality food. We are continually working to build resilience and sustainability into our food production systems, increase opportunities for producers and processors, create jobs and feed Albertans. This new program will fund technologies that increase food production and improve energy efficiency.”

RJ Sigurdson, Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation

“Through this investment, we’re supporting Alberta’s growers and ensuring Canadians have access to fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables on grocery shelves year-round. This program strengthens local communities, drives innovation, and creates new opportunities for agricultural entrepreneurs, reinforcing Canada’s food system and economy.”

Heath MacDonald, federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

The Growing Greenhouses program supports the controlled environment agriculture sector with new construction or expansion improvements to existing greenhouses and vertical farms that produce food at a commercial scale. It also aligns with Alberta’s Buy Local initiative launched this year as consumers will be able to purchase more local produce all year-round.

The program was created in alignment with the needs identified by the greenhouse sector, with a goal to reduce seasonal import reliance entering fall, which increases fruit and vegetable prices.

“This program is a game-changer for Alberta’s greenhouse sector. By investing in expansion and innovation, we can grow more fresh produce year-round, reduce reliance on imports, and strengthen food security for Albertans. Our growers are ready to meet the demand with sustainable, locally grown vegetables and fruits, and this support ensures we can do so while creating new jobs and opportunities in communities across the province. We are very grateful to the Governments of Canada and Alberta for this investment in our sector and for working collaboratively with us.”

Michiel Verheul, president, Alberta Greenhouse Growers Association

Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP)

Sustainable CAP is a five-year, $3.5-billion investment by federal, provincial and territorial governments to strengthen competitiveness, innovation and resiliency in Canada’s agriculture, agri-food and agri-based products sector. This includes $1 billion in federal programs and activities and $2.5 billion that is cost-shared 60 per cent federally and 40 per cent provincially/territorially for programs that are designed and delivered by provinces and territories.

Quick facts

Alberta’s greenhouse sector ranks fourth in Canada:

195 greenhouses produce $145 million in produce and 60 per cent of them operate year-round.

Greenhouse food production is growing by 6.2 per cent annually.
Alberta imports $349 million in fresh produce annually.

The program supports sector growth by investing in renewable and efficient energy systems, advanced lighting systems, energy-saving construction, and automation and robotics systems.