Fall legislature session starts Monday

The NDP government is expected to get down to business today as the fall session gets underway this afternoon at the Alberta legislature.

Premier Rachel Notley and her government will table its first budget Tuesday and introduce five orsix pieces of legislation. The sessionis scheduled to end in thefirst week of December.

House leader Brian Mason said Friday that the government will focus on measures to diversify the economy and create jobs.

He said there are also plans to expand the sunshine list, which discloses salaries of government employees making over $100,000 a year, to Alberta boards and committees.

The report from former Bank of Canada David Dodge will be released Tuesday along with the budget. Notley asked Dodge to determine how Alberta should finance capital projects and the order in which they should be built.

The list of unapproved projects will also see daylight this session.

Mason said the government will start holding morning sittings at some point during the sessionto reduce the number of evenings MLAs have to work at the legislature.

As for the tone, Mason wants debate to be respectful.

"I hope that the Wildrose will focus on issues and focus on policies instead of trying to attack the integrity of individual members based on what they put on Facebook when they were in high school." he said.

"I think that we need to raise the level of debate and questioning in the house and focus on the things that matter to Albertans."

Creditrating worries

Discussion in question period will likely focus on the government's financial situation. The ongoing drop in the price of oil is affectingthe government's revenue streams.

Earlier this week, Finance Minister Joe Ceci said the NDP promise to balance the books by 2018 would have to be postponed a year.

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean suspects the government may try to change legislation limiting how much it can borrow.

An increase in debt could put the province's Triple A credit rating at risk. Wildrosefinance critic Derek Fildebrandt said that would be a "rude awakening" to the NDP government.

"A downgrade will mean that every dollar we borrow in the future will raise the cost of building every road, every hospital and properly funding the core services Albertans rely on," he said.

Jean said the government needs to hold the line on the spending, but he tried to counter the NDP accusation that his party wants to cut all public service jobs. He argued the government can freeze wages and leave non-essential jobs unfilled.

"We can't control the revenue or the price of oil right now. What we can do is control the expenditure side," he said.

Jean and Fildebrandt are frustrated that their party will only get to look at the budget documents for an hour and a half before the embargo is lifted Tuesday.

Fildebrandt noted that when Premier Rachel Notley was in opposition last March she complained about that time limits when looking over the previous government's budget.

Mason said he didn't know who made the decision about limiting the time to 90 minutes.He said the opposition will get extra time on their choice of four ministries during a review of the government estimates.