Aw, geeze! Just when you thought it was safe to say something nice about Alberta's Progressive Conservative government and bury the phrase "culture of corruption" once and for all, another shoe drops in the apartment upstairs.

This time it was yesterday's report by CBC investigative journalist Charles Rusnell that a senior executive at the old Calgary Health Region used public money earmarked for health care to make donations to PC Party fund-raisers in the mid-2000s with more than a little help from her generous expense account.

Oddly enough, there actually was a lesson that could be learned from the first budget of Alberta Premier Alison Redford's government.

While the Budget Speech read yesterday by retiring Finance Minister Ron Liepert was self-evidently an election-year creation designed to offend no one who might wield influence, one ox was gored: post-secondary education.

While the media were reporting a 2.7-per-cent increase to post-secondary operating funds, they weren't saying anything about the effects of inflation, huge population increases and big cuts to maintenance budgets that critics estimated would put the system back $80 to $100 million.

No one can say the Alberta Liberals don't have movement. The trouble is, it's all downhill.

That the slow-motion implosion of the Alberta Liberal Party is gathering speed was evident on two fronts yesterday, as one of the party's veteran MLAs skedaddled for the government benches and a new poll by Environics Research Group confirmed the party is mired in third place among the province's opposition parties.