Jim Prentice, the Alberta Premier, will hold a televised address to reach out to Albertans, but some critics contend that the address is an $80,000 Progressive Conservative government pre-election commercial instead. The televised address is expected to last 24 minutes and it will be broadcast on March 24 before the presentation of the provincial budget on March 26. Prentice held a news conference and confirmed that the cost of the televised address was actually $80,000, but pointed out that this was less than half the cost the last time a premier address Albertans. Prentice said “I will be making a televised presentation to the citizens of Alberta about the financial circumstances that we face as a province, you know, the economic climate that we’re in, the consequences for the fiscal position of the government of Alberta, both in terms of the current budget and, on a go-forward basis, future budgets. I’ll let the message speak for itself, but those are the circumstances, broadly speaking, that I will be dealing with.”

When discussing criticism of the televised address Jim Prentice denied that there was any effort to campaign with the spot. Prentice stated “This is not campaigning. This is speaking to Albertans about the most serious fiscal circumstances we have faced as a province in a generation and the economic circumstances that we are in, which we will get through. We’re tough, we’re resilient, we will manage this, but Albertans need to hear from their premier, in terms of what is happening, in terms of how we are going to respond and in terms of fiscally, how we intend to deal with it.” The Wildrose opposition was offered the opportunity to make an address as well but this offer was turned down.