Canadians aren't too optimistic about what the country's economic future holds, that is, unless those Canadians live in Alberta. The latest RBC Can...

The Alberta government is facing a deficit in the area of $4 billion. By now we have all heard the discussions regarding the recommended courses of action that the government should take to make sure that Alberta's finances get back into the black; reform Alberta's taxation system (although the budget saw no such reforms), cut government spending, and diversify Alberta's energy export markets.

There might be a thousand reasons why people hate sales taxes. Here are three: First, they're visible; second, in Alberta, where no provincial sales tax exists, there is justifiable pride that people have escaped at least one tax applied elsewhere in Canada; third, many Albertans rightly fear that if a government introduced a new tax, it would be just another way to separate taxpayers from their money and to spend more and inefficiently so.