Heritage fund earning steady rate of return: Alberta finance minister
Alberta's Heritage Savings Trust fund is performing at a rate that will protect Albertans in tough times if it's needed, Finance Minister Iris Evans told a public meeting in Edmonton Thursday night.
The fund is expected to be worth $17 billion by the end of 2008, Evans said, and continues to grow at a steady rate of return.
"We've had 4.5 per cent real rate of return. That's our target, but over the last five years, 11.1 per cent has been the average, so we've done exceptionally well," Evans said.
The fund was created more than 30 years ago by then premier Peter Lougheed during a period of high oil prices to help pay for government programs when energy revenues ran out.
But the Alberta government has faced criticism from opposition parties and business groups for not putting enough of its surplus, which has ballooned because of resource revenues, into the fund.
Liberal finance critic Laurie Blakeman, who attended Thursday's meeting, told CBC News she's especially frustrated with the government now that the economy has taken a bad turn over the past month, after months of record high oil prices.
"We may have missed our chance. That may have been it. Our boom time, our golden years, may have come and gone if we don't pull out of this pretty quickly," she said. "So it's very frustrating for me to have seen that opportunity, to have tried to get the government to go there and they just wouldn't."
The Alberta Liberals have long called on the province to put at least 30 per cent of its surplus into the Heritage Fund, and Blakeman said the fund should be triple the size it is right now.
Calls to release reportThe meeting came on the same day Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said a report that looked into the government's policy on saving money won't likely be released until November.
The report, which was written by University of Calgary professor Jack Mintz, was given to the government in January.
Evans has faced repeated calls from opposition politicians and other groups to release it publicly.
Many people believe the report's recommendations are highly critical of the government's savings strategies.
But Stelmach insisted on Thursday that his government is sticking to a timetable by having MLAs review it and by discussing the savings policy at the party's annual general meeting in Jasper two weeks ago.
The premier said he believes the report will be released after the finance minister reports her second quarter results, which means the public should see it by the end of November.
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