A country needs money that works on the commencement of sovereignty, cash to draw on during the transition, and reserves that match what it owes. Those are serious institutional questions. They are also separate from the plain arithmetic of whether revenue exceeds cost.
Possible arrangements include temporary use of an established currency, followed by an Alberta currency if that is later judged desirable, together with adequate reserves and liquidity arrangements. None of those choices is required to make the fiscal balance in Part I work.
Alberta's own debt is real and already on its books
Alberta's taxpayer-supported debt is projected at C$108.9 billion at the end of 2026-27, up from roughly C$92.1 billion a year earlier. Budget 2026-27 projects C$137.5 billion by 2028-29 [AB-B26]. Independence does not make that debt disappear.
Any final monetary plan should be tested separately for reserve needs, lender-of-last-resort arrangements, payment-system continuity, foreign-exchange exposure and the cost of committed liquidity facilities.
A major concern often raised is that independence would severely impact the Canadian dollar and damage the Albertan economy. It is worth being precise, because for Alberta the effect on the public accounts runs in the opposite direction to the intuition.
Alberta’s largest export is priced in United States dollars. Crude oil, natural gas liquids and much of the petrochemical and agricultural trade settle in that currency, while the royalties, corporate taxes and personal taxes they generate are collected in domestic currency. A depreciation therefore raises the domestic value of Alberta’s resource revenue and of the earnings of its export sector. The provincial treasury has repeatedly benefited from precisely this effect during past currency weakness.
That is not an argument that a depreciation would be welcome. Imported food, vehicles, machinery, building materials and travel would all cost more, and the burden of that falls hardest on households with the least room to absorb it.
A government with the fiscal capacity described in this paper would have the means to offset it through tax relief or targeted support, and the choice of whether to do so is exactly the kind of decision the paper leaves to a future legislature.
What can be said with confidence is narrower than either side of the usual argument. Depreciation would tend to raise the domestic-currency value of United States dollar export receipts, but the net effect on the budget also depends on the cost of imported goods and equipment, on inflation-sensitive spending, on interest rates and on any foreign-currency obligations.
No currency gain is counted anywhere in the core ledger.
The serious currency questions are about reserves, payment continuity, the cost of committed liquidity and the management of foreign-denominated obligations — institutional questions, addressed in the transition planning rather than here.
