$12.95 - print
$4.99 - ebook
Published
Pages
144
Binding
Softcover
Dimensions
6x9in
ISBN Print
9781550594355
ISBN eBook
9781550594362
Browse Inside
Available
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Follow the Money

Where is Alberta's Wealth Going?

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Alberta’s most insightful political commentator is back with another essential book. Kevin Taft, together with economists Mel McMillan and Junaid Jahangir, follows the money to uncover why Alberta—one of the richest places on earth—still talks poor when it comes to public services.

Do we really spend more than we can afford, more than we can sustain, on health care? On education? Why doesn’t Alberta have enough hospital beds? Why have our schools faced teacher layoffs? Why are our city streets potholed, and why are rising numbers of Alberta children living in poverty?

Where is all our wealth going? Follow the Money uncovers the truth behind the government’s austerity slogans and cutbacks. The hard-hitting evidence of Follow the Money challenges Albertans to rethink the past and remake the future.

Table of Contents

1. Where is the wealth going?
2. The stunning wealth at stake
3. The big picture evidence on government spending
4. Fact: A shrinking share of wealth for public services
5. Numbers as evidence
6. The prime suspect: Health care
7. A diagnosis of chronic crisis
8. Education by the numbers
9. Tracking public money for housing and social services
10. It's time for a human services index
11. Tracking transportation and other spending
12. Tracking money into savings funds
13. Tracking personal incomes
14. The answer tracked down
15. Hard truths
16. A Future to build
Afterword: Dominion and destiny
Facts found on the money trail
Data tables and supplementary information

Additional Information

Follow The Money on YouTube

Kevin Taft

Kevin Taft, PhD, has spent most of his career working on public policy in government, in the non-profit sector, and in private practice.  He served three terms as an MLA in the Alberta legislature, including almost five years as Leader of the Opposition. He has a Ph.D. in business.

Mel McMillan

Mel McMillan, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Economics, and a fellow of the Institute of Public Economics, at the University of Alberta. McMillan’s research and teaching interests are in public economics and public finance.

Junaid Jahangir

Junaid Jahangir completed a PhD in economics at the University of Alberta in 2011. His dissertation explored the impact of electricity market restructuring on residential consumers in Alberta.