Municipalities of Alberta receive a clear message from the province

Cold Lake is a municipality in Alberta that was formed a number of years back by the province bringing a number of communities together and making them into one larger municipality. (Sounds familiar?)
Over the last ten years the community as grown substantially incurring added demands on its infrastructure and making it more difficult year after year for its leaders to balance the books.
In a nut shell the communities revenue base as not grown as fast as its added burdens. While around the community are a number of Municipal Districts whose tax base as grown tremendously due to increased industrial activity but most of the people that work in those areas live in Cold Lake.
Cold Lake as attempted to gain financial assistance from those surrounding communities to assist with its growth issues a satisfactory resolve could not be achieved so in an unusual move last year the Council requested the province to dissolve their municipality and merge them into the surrounding wealthy MD problem solved, right?
The province understanding that this issue would be watched closely by many municipalities in the province, commissioned George Cuff to do a study on the sustainability of Cold Lake which he did, that report was presented to their council last week. (Available at the link below all 206 pages of it)

http://municipalaffairs.gov.ab.ca/documents/msb/ReportColdLakeFinal_30_04_10.pdf

Summed up in Layman terms with out any sugar coating the report basically says the following:

The municipality will not be dissolved, (so why would the province allow it elsewhere? addresses one of the craziest ideas I have heard around here recently)

Get along with your neighbours and try to workout an arrangement with them to share revenues if they are willing, with no legal requirement for them to assist you, (kind of like going cap in hand and hoping your neighbours will bail you out)

Improve your financial situation by raising taxes, or reducing spending. (Cutting services)

In one part of the report it talks about the wisdom of the city building a new arena when its facing serious financial difficulties.

The point of this post and I believe the message the province as just given to Cold Lake and more importantly every other community watching this situation is?
Solve your own financial problems, there is no easy way out, do not expect your neighbours or the province to do it for you.

Get your financial house in order.

Alberta Posts $6.9 Billion Deficit, Should we be concerned?

Are we spending too much money? Should we be bringing in more revenue? Should our government be tightening its belt?

Think about the following information Alberta spent $10,513 per person in the 2008-09 fiscal year, how does that compare to other provinces?

Nfld-$10,232
PEI-$9,083
NS-$7,867
NB-$7,987
Que-$7,384
Ont-$6,761
Man-$7,949
Sask-$8,043
BC-$8,087

In 1996-1997 we were the fifth highest at $4,592 per person. In twelve years it as increased a whopping 129% that's an average of 10.75% per year. Is it realistic to maintain that kind of growth in expenditures?

What kind of trouble would we be in, if it wasn't for those whopping Surpluses?

Alberta Surpluses 2000-2008. All of the following are in the Billions

2000-2001-$6.57
2001-2002-$1.08
2002-2003-$2.13
2003-2004-$4.14
2004-2005-$5.18
2005-2006-$8.55
2006-2007-$8.51
2007-2008-$4.58
A total of $40.74 billion dollars in eight years

$17 Billion in the Sustainability Fund at this years level of deficit that will be gone sometime in 2011.

Should Albertans be concerned, what does Stelmach and his government need to do?