By Kris Sims 

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is applauding the Alberta government for giving Albertans a huge income tax cut in Budget 2025, but is strongly warning against its dive into debt by running a deficit.

“Premier Danielle Smith keeping her promise to cut Alberta’s income tax is great news, because it means huge savings for most working families,” said Kris Sims, CTF Alberta Director. “Families are fighting to afford basics right now, and if they can save more than $1,500 per year thanks to this big tax cut, that would cover a month’s rent or more than a month’s worth of groceries.”

Finance Minister Nate Horner announced, effective this fiscal year, Alberta will drop its lowest income tax rate to eight per cent, down from 10 per cent, for the first $60,000 of earnings.

The government estimates this income tax cut will save the average Alberta worker about $750 per year, or more than $1,500 per year for a two-person working family.

Albertans earning less than $60,000 a year will see a 20 per cent reduction to their annual provincial income tax bill.

The budget also contained some bad news.

The province is running a $5.2 billion deficit in 2025-26 and the government is planning to keep running deficits for two more years.

Total spending has gone up from $73.1 billion from last budget to $79.3 billion this year, an increase of 8.4 per cent.

“If the government had frozen spending at last year’s budget level, the province could have a $1 billion surplus and still cut the income tax,” said Sims. “The debt is going up over the next few years, but we caught a lucky break with interest rates dropping this past year, so we aren’t paying as much in interest payments on the debt.”

The province’s debt is now estimated to be $82.8 billion for 2025-26.

Interest payments on the provincial debt are costing taxpayers about $2.9 billion, about a 12 per cent decrease from last year.

Sam Cooper

In a stunning move just days before the Trump administration is set to impose sweeping tariffs over Mexico’s role in America’s fentanyl crisis, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum engineered the largest single-day extradition of cartel leaders in history, delivering 29 top-level traffickers—including one of the most notorious figures in modern drug war history—into U.S. custody.

Among those flown north on Mexican military aircraft Thursday was Rafael Caro Quintero, the infamous cartel boss accused of ordering the brutal 1985 torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena, a crime dramatized in the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico. Other high-profile extraditees include Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, alleged brother of Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) leader “El Mencho,” as well as key leaders from the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi hailed the mass extradition as a turning point in the war on cartel violence. “As President Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,” Bondi said in a press release. “We will prosecute these criminals to the fullest extent of the law in honor of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers—and in some cases, given their lives—to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels.”

DEA Acting Administrator Derek S. Maltz declared, “Today, 29 fugitive cartel members have arrived in the United States from Mexico, including one name that stands above the rest for the men and women of the DEA—Rafael Caro Quintero. This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena.”

The defendants are collectively accused of importing massive amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin into the United States, along with a litany of violent crimes including murder, money laundering, and illegal weapons trafficking. The Justice Department noted that many of these cartel leaders had long-standing U.S. extradition requests that were not honored during prior administrations but were accelerated following direct White House pressure.

As the Mexican delegation, including Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente and security chief Omar García Harfuch, met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, the mass extradition signaled Sheinbaum’s readiness to make dramatic concessions to avert Trump’s threatened tariffs. The unprecedented handover also coincided with the State Department formally designating six cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

Award-winning Mexican journalist Ioan Grillo, reporting on Sheinbaum’s transformative move, cited comments from Mike Vigil, former head of the DEA’s international operations, saying, “This is the highest number of extraditions [in one day] in the history of Mexico, without question. This is historic. … These guys unleashed a river of blood… Everybody is elated with the extraditions.”

However, the decision has ignited controversy within Mexico’s legal community, Grillo reported, noting longstanding criminal defense stances were “bulldozed.”

Juan Manuel Delgado, lawyer for Miguel Ángel Treviño, one of the most feared Zetas leaders, called the move an assault on Mexican sovereignty. “My client’s extradition tramples on due process and demonstrates that Mexico is bending entirely to U.S. will,” Delgado reportedly told CrashOut magazine.

Notably, while Mexico typically secures agreements that extradited criminals will not face the death penalty, the U.S. statement made no such assurances, raising the possibility that figures like Caro Quintero could face capital punishment.

While Mexico is in the crosshairs of Trump’s fentanyl crackdown, attention is also turning to Canada’s underreported role in the continent’s cartel problem. Organized crime experts say that over the past 15 years, cartel networks have deeply infiltrated Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec, using Canada as both a fentanyl production hub and a gateway to launder cartel proceeds. It’s a little-known fact that the cartels started to gain presence in Canadian narco-trafficking cells almost 50 years ago, one expert told The Bureau.

However, it remains unclear whether Canada’s newly appointed Fentanyl Commissioner, Kevin Brosseau, has made any significant progress in responding to Trump’s demands for tougher action. An expert who could not be named due to the sensitivities of investigations and political discussions said cartels have thrived under Canada’s lax enforcement and weak financial crime controls. The question now is whether Brosseau will have any real impact on the concerns or simply be part of “performative” meetings run out of Ottawa, they said.

With Trump’s administration signaling that Canada will be hit next week with economic penalties if fentanyl production and money laundering continue unchecked, the Trudeau government faces growing pressure to show concrete results in combating cartel expansion within its borders.