Dear Gary, re your comment that no party would have the audacity to make the kind of deep cuts required to bring the budget in balance quicker than the NDP - this is total garbage and shame on you for such a shallow analysis.  Klein made the deepest cuts in history and won three elections. 

I worked in the SK government during the difficult Romanow years.  There was a hiring freeze, whether it was announced or not.  Alberta's deeply ideological NDP gov't is entirely different.  Even a hiring freeze is publically sneered at.

Dear Gary, it may surprise you, but there are many in AB that call for everything, including a sales tax, to be on the table.  However, no one except the AB NDP and it's public sector union supporters think more taxes are the answer before expenditure cuts, even though AB continues to spend more per capita than any other province