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When stuck in a rainstorm, people are always looking for the nearest umbrella.

Sometimes, a newspaper over the head is the best you can do.

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Alberta’s economy is sputtering today. Unemployment is up, private investment is down and the oilpatch is sideways, waiting for higher commodity prices.

Under such an economic deluge, the new federal budget offers a smattering of help, from bolstering employment insurance (EI) benefits to ramping up infrastructure spending.

It’s all welcome. Just don’t expect it to reverse the course of a provincial economy sputtering through a second year of recession.

On Tuesday, the first budget from Justin Trudeau’s government arrived with a whopping $29.4-billion deficit.

That’s a lot of red ink, and there’s more where that came from: another $29-billion deficit is projected in 2017-18.

In return, it is ramping up spending in areas such as indigenous education, affordable housing, clean energy and the child tax benefit.