The Budget and Costing Report

This report estimates the cost of Alberta transitioning from a province to a country. The bottom line is that the one-time cost of the transition is estimated at approximately C$5.0 billion, spread over roughly three years — an average of about C$1.65 billion per year during the transition. Once the transition is complete, the additional permanent cost of operating the functions of a sovereign state is estimated at approximately C$3.63 billion per year. These figures should not be confused with pensions, benefits and other payments made directly to Albertans, or with federal transfers Alberta currently receives and would need to replace through its own revenues after independence. Those are separate fiscal flows, not additional transition costs.

This is the cost of establishing the machinery of sovereign government. It does not include any negotiated settlement of federal debt or federal assets; contingent currency or liquidity support; defence equipment, since no armament, vehicles or platforms are costed in this window; federal programme spending in Alberta on First Nations and Metis services, in the order of C$3.1 billion to C$3.8 billion a year; or any obligation whose allocation depends on agreements not yet made. Every one of these is disclosed in this report and recognised at zero rather than estimated, in the domain statement that owns it.

The report sets out, domain by domain across twenty budget statements, what it would cost to stand up the functions of a sovereign state in Alberta and what Alberta would need to raise each year once the federal tier is gone.