Meanings
- CanadagovernmentA one-time payment of $400 paid to Albertans in 2006 to commemorate a 2005 provincial budget surplus.
The Tories have basically treated oil and gas revenues as their own private slush fund. When they need votes, they buy them. The $1.3 billion in "Ralph Bucks" dished out in 2005 to Albertans in $400 cheques is only the latest example.
2010, William Marsden, Stupid to the Last Drop: How Alberta Is Bringing Environmental Armageddon to Canada (And Doesn't Seem to Care), Knopf Canada, →ISBN, retrieved 23 Mar 2022, page 1581 more example
The so-called Ralph bucks, named for then-premier Ralph Klein, though much derided by critics as an attempt to buy the electorate with their own money, could also be read as a populist attempt to include the population in the windfall profits the government was then reaping from the sale of oil leases and royalties.
2016, Jon Gordon, Unsustainable Oil: Facts, Counterfacts and Fictions, University of Alberta Press, →ISBN, retrieved 23 Mar 2022, page 205
Origin
Named after Ralph Klein, who was premier of Alberta when the payment was issued.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Ralph bucks. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Ralph%20bucks
“Ralph bucks.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Ralph%20bucks. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Ralph bucks,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Ralph%20bucks.
Source: Ralph bucks on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.