Sure we were debt free in 2015 after years of $100+/bbl of oil but what happened to the war chest built up earlier called the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund. Established in 1976 by Peter Lougheed it was supposed to get 30% of revenues generated by oil. Instead it was used up by the Cons during their 44 year reign to bail out their own fiscal screwups.
Had the Cons used some of that money to invest in refining our oil here BC wouldn't be so worried about a pipeline carrying those products and we'd all be better off. They dragged their feet on building infrastructure while Alberta's population tripled so profits could be used to make themselves and their rich buddies richer.
Notly took over as the price of oil took a nose-dive to less than $30bbl of which Alberta only gets from 1/3 to 1/2. The price of oil people hear about in the news is for Texas Sweet Crude of which there is very little left but the benchmark for the best quality oil. Bitumen is not the best quality by any stretch of the imagination so we almost had to pay to get that sludge to market after factoring in transportation costs to move it by rail and road. Our gasoline prices aren't as bad as BC's but would be a lot less if we made it here. As it is we have to pipe our oil to Burnaby to be refined then have it brought back here to use.
Sure the NDP has borrowed a lot of dough but the money has been used to to upgrade needed infrastructure long neglected by the Cons and improve the average Albertan's lives. She inherited a mess and gets blamed for it all and it sure as hell wasn't her fault that oil prices tanked.
Personally I think we should leave all that oil in the ground and wait for the next oil shortage to cash in but thanks to the Cons lack of vision about diversifying our economy we don't have much to sell but our oil. Some huge pot factories being built here so maybe that will save us or at least a lot of people will be too stoned to care.