"Under Kenney, program spending has stopped in its tracks. In fact, it’s better than that. Kenney is on track to reduce annual program spending in Alberta by just over $650 million by the end of his term. If you convert that to real spending per person, Kenney is on track to reduce spending in Alberta by 15 per cent per person." - Super convenient not to mention that these cuts come on the backs of the poor, the disabled, students, doctors, nurses, education in the province as opposed to say...... large scale handouts to rich conservative corporate donors (conservatives tend to despise the poor even though many of them aren't exactly rich), a war room spending ridiculous money and being cartoonishly bad at what they do, way over paid MLAs and their staffers who double as twitter trolls; tax cuts to oil companies that in turn laid off thousands of people. I mean really, I know this writer is a conservative fan boy but at some point, you have to admit that this is a shit show of a government. I haven't even gotten to the entitlement and science denial yet.
The poor, the disabled, students, doctors, nurses, education in the province still receive significantly more funding per capita than they do in any other province. Given that AB's cost of living is middle of the pack, what is the justification for this over funding? Has it bought any measurable over-performance in terms of outcomes?
You get to a point where people resent everyone looking for a handout. You can only squeeze the pig so much. What's worse is when people feel entitled to those hand outs.
Sorry, I hit post before I responded to your "stole" comment. Nope. Those companies paid and operated within the utterly shoddy royalty framework of the royalty program. They didn't steal anything and accusing the Cons of stealing money is not only untrue but silly.
1) It was changed under Stelmach and investment fled the province. The government largely restored the previous regime and investment returned
2) The NDP campainged on the premise that the energy industry should pay more. It conducted a study which concluded that the existing regime was largely competitive and fair and made only minor changes
3) The land sales process is via auction, meaning that companies bid on exploration permits based on perceived business cases. If expected royalties are higher, the auction bids will be lower
Oh look, a conservative here to talk to me about how oil companies didn't get tax breaks in the millions and still lay people off. A single Google search would net you the answers but here we are. I'm on my phone so I can't do it right this second but I promise to come back to you with details. Also, in regards to science denial.... have you heard/seen the behaviour of several mlas from the ucp party during this hellscape pandemic? Airdrie MLA comes first and foremost to mind followed swiftly by Drew Barnes (who got booted for challenging dear leader). That isn't even mentioning the climate change denial. As for the Liberal party you mentioned, I'm not the person to defend them. Sorry. I'm not their biggest fan. In fact, I'm pretty much an issues voter and hold absolutely no affiliation with any party. No membership etc.
All companies pay the same tax rate, which is fair. Language suggesting that only "oil companies" received tax breaks is highly misleading, but would oviously play well on Twitter or through political or union communications strategies as it would tend to confirm people's pre-existing biases.
Would you prefer the government pick winners and loser and offer differential tax rates?
My concern, as you’ve pointed out here, is that either party, UCP or NDP, could have achieved the balanced budget that now appears possible. Although money, taxes and the economy are central to any good conservative politician and voter, the ideological differences between the parties have solidly come to the forefront now and overshadow any budget accomplishment. If Kenney is planning to use this as something that boosts his popularity with Albertans, he may be surprised that Albertans want more than a balanced budget from him, especially if, as you suggest, Notley could have done the same. The ideological differences between the UCP and the NDP have significantly diminished, and he’ll have to become more conservative in his speech and actions than he currently is. The difference isn’t palpable enough for more conservative Albertans. He could start by addressing the sad state of AHS’s ability to meet the needs of the elderly and those requiring long awaited surgeries, and the harassment, undermining, and muzzling of Alberta doctors. He could also address the other money pit that exists in education. In both areas, front line workers are far outnumbered by levels upon levels of unnecessary administrators. And he could be the voice of freedom and choice, and respect Albertans as individuals who will make their own decisions in every part of their lives. Conservative Albertans don’t want Daddy Kenney telling them what to do, or not do. It’s time he brought back respect and autonomy. That’s what will bring him back to true Conservatism in Alberta.
So you note that Kenney could benefit from Notley's tweaks to our royalty system. Notley could make all kinds of hay about that in the next election, all while pointing out that Kenney's corporate tax cuts didn't actually create any jobs.
And Kenney might have a better case for getting re-elected if he didn't seem determined to score ever political own goal he could. Getting caught violating social distancing guidelines with his ministers during a meal at the politically radioactive Sky Palace. Ministers vacationing out of the country when the rest of us were told to stay put. Fighting the carbon price when Teck Frontier specifically cited our lack of a carbon tax as one of the reasons they decided not to build that big mine (with Preston Manning saying this is what he was warning about for years). Pissing off some of the most reliably conservative voters in the province with coal mining in the Rockies. A revised curriculum no school district wants to touch with a forty-foot pole. Seemingly not knowing that his Justice Minister called a police chief about the Minister's own traffic ticket until the CBC broke the story 10 months later.
Except that, from everything I've seen, Notley's gotten a lot of heat from NDPers elsewhere in the country for her support for pipelines and oil and gas development. And Notley's tax inceases gave us a more stable source of revenue than the constant ups and downs of oil prices affecting how much royalty money we got every year.
Ken, I like and respect what you write, but… GOD, I hope you’re wrong here. I’m afraid the UCP is bankrupt, both morally and from a policy standpoint, too…
Still better than the alternative. The NDP talent pool consists mostly of union reps, former school trustees and inexperienced university students. Even worse, the NDP is too beholden to public sector unions to have any incentive to improve delivery of public services or drive economic growth
That says nothing. The Alberta government of 2004 - 2014 was drunk on natural gas royalties and aggressive projections on bitumen. It grew spending from what was already by far the highest in Canada to nose bleed levels.
A better comparison would be where the NDP took spending vs. where Prentice might have gone. Prentice was pushing for across the board 5% salary rollbacks.
The Notley government was constrained by a poor economy. I fear what a re-elected NDP might spend given the resurgence in non-renewable resource revenues. The only prudent course of action at this point would be to continue down the austerity path towards balancing the budget at current levels of taxation and the assumption of no resource revenues. Even with the progress made under Kenney, Alberta still significantly over-funds public services. All resource revenues should be viewed as windfall and directed towards paying down Alberta's insane $100B debt.
The doubling of the personal exemption meant large tax breaks well up into the income distribution. That tapered off at family income around $200k. Very high income earners also benefitted… but so many of them moved their principle residence to Alberta in the wake of the tax change that total tax revenue from high income individuals went up. Way up. Win. Win. Win. Win. (Full disclosure: I was hired in 1998 by the Alberta government to make this tax change happen.)
Good ideas pioneered by one province often get copied by others, like Saskatchewan and medicare. And yet, the last time we had a flat tax none of the other provinces, not even the likes of Mike Harris's Ontario, decided to copy us.
Oh, and by 'tightening the screws' on conventional tax revenue, we paid for our later binges by blowing through oil royalty money as quickly as it came in, using the Heritage Fund to paper over any deficits and leaving it stagnant...and then when oil prices tanked we brought back the bumper stickers pleading for another oil boom and promising that we wouldn't piss *this* one away.
I can live with them, provided they're done right. Ralph Klein had the right idea 25 years ago...but then once he balanced the budget and paid off the debt he didn't seem to have any idea what to do next. Hence he started pissing away the oil royalties on silly things like 'Ralph Bucks'.
But aren't we supposed to milk the rich to pay for entitlements? You mean the rich will move and bring their wealth with them according to where it is most friendly for them? Crazy
"Under Kenney, program spending has stopped in its tracks. In fact, it’s better than that. Kenney is on track to reduce annual program spending in Alberta by just over $650 million by the end of his term. If you convert that to real spending per person, Kenney is on track to reduce spending in Alberta by 15 per cent per person." - Super convenient not to mention that these cuts come on the backs of the poor, the disabled, students, doctors, nurses, education in the province as opposed to say...... large scale handouts to rich conservative corporate donors (conservatives tend to despise the poor even though many of them aren't exactly rich), a war room spending ridiculous money and being cartoonishly bad at what they do, way over paid MLAs and their staffers who double as twitter trolls; tax cuts to oil companies that in turn laid off thousands of people. I mean really, I know this writer is a conservative fan boy but at some point, you have to admit that this is a shit show of a government. I haven't even gotten to the entitlement and science denial yet.
The poor, the disabled, students, doctors, nurses, education in the province still receive significantly more funding per capita than they do in any other province. Given that AB's cost of living is middle of the pack, what is the justification for this over funding? Has it bought any measurable over-performance in terms of outcomes?
You get to a point where people resent everyone looking for a handout. You can only squeeze the pig so much. What's worse is when people feel entitled to those hand outs.
Sorry, I hit post before I responded to your "stole" comment. Nope. Those companies paid and operated within the utterly shoddy royalty framework of the royalty program. They didn't steal anything and accusing the Cons of stealing money is not only untrue but silly.
How is the royalty framework shoddy:
1) It was changed under Stelmach and investment fled the province. The government largely restored the previous regime and investment returned
2) The NDP campainged on the premise that the energy industry should pay more. It conducted a study which concluded that the existing regime was largely competitive and fair and made only minor changes
3) The land sales process is via auction, meaning that companies bid on exploration permits based on perceived business cases. If expected royalties are higher, the auction bids will be lower
Oh look, a conservative here to talk to me about how oil companies didn't get tax breaks in the millions and still lay people off. A single Google search would net you the answers but here we are. I'm on my phone so I can't do it right this second but I promise to come back to you with details. Also, in regards to science denial.... have you heard/seen the behaviour of several mlas from the ucp party during this hellscape pandemic? Airdrie MLA comes first and foremost to mind followed swiftly by Drew Barnes (who got booted for challenging dear leader). That isn't even mentioning the climate change denial. As for the Liberal party you mentioned, I'm not the person to defend them. Sorry. I'm not their biggest fan. In fact, I'm pretty much an issues voter and hold absolutely no affiliation with any party. No membership etc.
All companies pay the same tax rate, which is fair. Language suggesting that only "oil companies" received tax breaks is highly misleading, but would oviously play well on Twitter or through political or union communications strategies as it would tend to confirm people's pre-existing biases.
Would you prefer the government pick winners and loser and offer differential tax rates?
The most "vulnerable" are also the most needy. That's how it works. Canadians aren't shy about holding their hand out.
My concern, as you’ve pointed out here, is that either party, UCP or NDP, could have achieved the balanced budget that now appears possible. Although money, taxes and the economy are central to any good conservative politician and voter, the ideological differences between the parties have solidly come to the forefront now and overshadow any budget accomplishment. If Kenney is planning to use this as something that boosts his popularity with Albertans, he may be surprised that Albertans want more than a balanced budget from him, especially if, as you suggest, Notley could have done the same. The ideological differences between the UCP and the NDP have significantly diminished, and he’ll have to become more conservative in his speech and actions than he currently is. The difference isn’t palpable enough for more conservative Albertans. He could start by addressing the sad state of AHS’s ability to meet the needs of the elderly and those requiring long awaited surgeries, and the harassment, undermining, and muzzling of Alberta doctors. He could also address the other money pit that exists in education. In both areas, front line workers are far outnumbered by levels upon levels of unnecessary administrators. And he could be the voice of freedom and choice, and respect Albertans as individuals who will make their own decisions in every part of their lives. Conservative Albertans don’t want Daddy Kenney telling them what to do, or not do. It’s time he brought back respect and autonomy. That’s what will bring him back to true Conservatism in Alberta.
So you note that Kenney could benefit from Notley's tweaks to our royalty system. Notley could make all kinds of hay about that in the next election, all while pointing out that Kenney's corporate tax cuts didn't actually create any jobs.
And Kenney might have a better case for getting re-elected if he didn't seem determined to score ever political own goal he could. Getting caught violating social distancing guidelines with his ministers during a meal at the politically radioactive Sky Palace. Ministers vacationing out of the country when the rest of us were told to stay put. Fighting the carbon price when Teck Frontier specifically cited our lack of a carbon tax as one of the reasons they decided not to build that big mine (with Preston Manning saying this is what he was warning about for years). Pissing off some of the most reliably conservative voters in the province with coal mining in the Rockies. A revised curriculum no school district wants to touch with a forty-foot pole. Seemingly not knowing that his Justice Minister called a police chief about the Minister's own traffic ticket until the CBC broke the story 10 months later.
Except that, from everything I've seen, Notley's gotten a lot of heat from NDPers elsewhere in the country for her support for pipelines and oil and gas development. And Notley's tax inceases gave us a more stable source of revenue than the constant ups and downs of oil prices affecting how much royalty money we got every year.
Ken, I like and respect what you write, but… GOD, I hope you’re wrong here. I’m afraid the UCP is bankrupt, both morally and from a policy standpoint, too…
Still better than the alternative. The NDP talent pool consists mostly of union reps, former school trustees and inexperienced university students. Even worse, the NDP is too beholden to public sector unions to have any incentive to improve delivery of public services or drive economic growth
Not in my view … In Ken’s article he even made the point that Notley was arguably the most fiscally responsible Premier in the last decade or longer
That says nothing. The Alberta government of 2004 - 2014 was drunk on natural gas royalties and aggressive projections on bitumen. It grew spending from what was already by far the highest in Canada to nose bleed levels.
A better comparison would be where the NDP took spending vs. where Prentice might have gone. Prentice was pushing for across the board 5% salary rollbacks.
The Notley government was constrained by a poor economy. I fear what a re-elected NDP might spend given the resurgence in non-renewable resource revenues. The only prudent course of action at this point would be to continue down the austerity path towards balancing the budget at current levels of taxation and the assumption of no resource revenues. Even with the progress made under Kenney, Alberta still significantly over-funds public services. All resource revenues should be viewed as windfall and directed towards paying down Alberta's insane $100B debt.
If the flat tax was "a massive tax cut to low and modest income Alberta families," what effect did it have on middle and high income Albertans?
The doubling of the personal exemption meant large tax breaks well up into the income distribution. That tapered off at family income around $200k. Very high income earners also benefitted… but so many of them moved their principle residence to Alberta in the wake of the tax change that total tax revenue from high income individuals went up. Way up. Win. Win. Win. Win. (Full disclosure: I was hired in 1998 by the Alberta government to make this tax change happen.)
Good ideas pioneered by one province often get copied by others, like Saskatchewan and medicare. And yet, the last time we had a flat tax none of the other provinces, not even the likes of Mike Harris's Ontario, decided to copy us.
Oh, and by 'tightening the screws' on conventional tax revenue, we paid for our later binges by blowing through oil royalty money as quickly as it came in, using the Heritage Fund to paper over any deficits and leaving it stagnant...and then when oil prices tanked we brought back the bumper stickers pleading for another oil boom and promising that we wouldn't piss *this* one away.
Lose. Lose. Lose. Lose.
I'm sure you'd prefer spending cuts so that we finally lived within our means, no?
I can live with them, provided they're done right. Ralph Klein had the right idea 25 years ago...but then once he balanced the budget and paid off the debt he didn't seem to have any idea what to do next. Hence he started pissing away the oil royalties on silly things like 'Ralph Bucks'.
But aren't we supposed to milk the rich to pay for entitlements? You mean the rich will move and bring their wealth with them according to where it is most friendly for them? Crazy