Yesterday, Travis Toews<\/strong>, president of the Alberta Treasury Board and the minister of finance, recommended to the lieutenant governor<\/a> that he be authorized to do the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n The lieutenant government approved the recommendation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week, I broke a story<\/a> about a similar approval for $1.25 billion. That borrowing was specifically for an oil refinery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This newborrowing is for an undetermined purpose. Which is odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the $1.25 billion that Toews was approved to borrow last week for the refinery, he was approved for up to $7 billion in November<\/a> for securities of ATB Financial and Alberta Capital Finance Authority, which was changed to $9 billion last month<\/a>. In February, he filed for another approval\u2014$2.8 billion for securities from Agriculture Financial Services Corporation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These three orders in council are the only ones authorized by the Lieutenant Governor since the UCP government was elected, and every one of them expressed an explicit purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday\u2019s announcement had no purpose listed. It\u2019s just requesting the approval of $25 billion, the largest approval yet. In fact, it\u2019s more than all the other approvals combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are certainly plenty of places they could spend it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Making up for the loss of $4.7 billion from the corporate income tax cuts implemented last February and this past January (and every January until the election), for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Or perhaps covering up for the $2.7 billion shortfall in healthcare<\/a>, the $2.5 billion shortfall in K\u201312 education<\/a>, or the $6 billion shortfall in postsecondary funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n