Alberta finance minister Travis Toews will be speaking about the province's finances in a public meeting at the Cochrane RancheHouse, this Wednesday (Aug. 19) at 2 p.m.

In about a 30 minute speech, Toews will be speaking of Alberta's recovery plan, says Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie. He'll then take questions for 15-20 minutes.

Due to COVID-19 health protocol, only 100 people will be able to attend. Physical distancing will be practiced and face masks and hand santizer will be available at the door.

Airdrie-Cochrane Peter Guthrie says he may also give those in attendance a broader view of our fiscal situation. In the least week of August, a fiscal update is scheduled to be provided.

"I don't expect that he'll be giving us any sort of inside look at that, but I suppose he'll probably track on it and talk a little bit about where we're heading and what that might look like."

Guthrie says he's delighted Toewes choose his riding as one of his stops on his tour across Alberta.

"We're in a tough situation here in Alberta. We're doing what we can on the infrastructure side of things to try to stimulate the economy and get it going again. We've had a massive increase on the expense side, along with at least a 25 per cent decline on the revenue side. This is a very tough fiscal situation that we're going to be looking at, so I'm really happy that the minister's going to be coming to Cochrane to address it this week."

Toews has served as finance minister and president of the Treasury Board since Apr. 16, 2019. He's the MLA for the Grande-Prairie-Wapiti constituency.