Alberta's economy was the hot topic at the Okotoks and District Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday.

As part of their speaker series the chamber hosted Todd Hirsche, Chief Economist at ATB Financial.

Hirsche says after two years of recession, 2017 will begin to see a bit of a rebound for the province's economy. He's expecting to see about 2-2.5% growth which will feel modest particularly for the first half of the year.

He adds the job market will likely remain a challenge with an unemployment rate of about 9% until maybe the second half year when employers could start to hire back a few more people.

Hirsche says Okotoks is sitting in a good economic position.

"I think a community like Okotoks should do very well. The two sectors that I think are set to do extremely well in 2017 are tourism and agriculture/agri-foods and I know Okotoks is kind of in the centre of a lot of that activity," he says. "So even though the oil and gas sector is stable, not a lot of growth there, the tourism and agri-foods sectors I think that's where we'll see more interesting growth and I think Okotoks is situated nicely."

He says there's little in the way of options when it comes to managing the province's $10 billion deficit.

"You can either raise taxes significantly, cut spending significantly, or borrow significantly but the borrowing doesn't really solve the problem it just delays the problem and delays action. We need our economy to start growing again but if the economy stays relatively weak we still end up with a giant deficit we have to fill somehow and it's going to be a tough choice."

Hirsche adds it's a tough hole to climb out of and if the economy doesn't really pick up and grow strongly Alberta could end up with a structural deficit that one way or another we'll have to eliminate.