CCI Response to the 2023 Alberta Budget

Today in Edmonton, Alberta Finance Minister Toews delivered his 2023 budget, entitled “Securing Alberta’s Future.”

In response, on behalf of CCI’s members, CCI Vice-President of Strategy and Advocacy Dana O’Born issued the following statement:

“In today’s budget, Finance Minister Travis Toews and Premier Danielle Smith presented a provincial balance sheet in strong fiscal shape, reflecting a strong economy. Scale-up tech companies headquartered in Calgary and Edmonton take pride in being important contributors to Alberta’s 21st century economic growth, and want to create good-paying jobs and meaningful wealth effects for years and decades to come.

“In the 2023 budget we were pleased to see significant additional funding for the Alberta at Work program, which is taking steps to address the skilled labour shortage so many of CCI’s members are experiencing. We were also pleased to see $120 million for digital modernization projects within government, and we hope that the government makes an effort to work with local companies to procure digitization services, for maximum economic benefit while also making service delivery more efficient.

“With such a large surplus, we would have liked to see the government provide additional capital funding for high-growth local companies, to ensure they can maintain their momentum at a time when the global capital markets are challenging for technology companies, and many firms are being forced to cut back.

“The funding earmarked for the Alberta Technology and Innovation Strategy comes at a time when the province’s technology sector is growing faster than almost anywhere else in Canada. The government should use this funding to accelerate work on the province’s intellectual property commercialization framework, leading to significant downstream economic benefits. It is vitally important for future prosperity in the knowledge-based economy for Alberta companies to generate IP out of the province’s innovations.”

Media contact:
James McLeod
jmcleod@canadianinnovators.org