UCP budget a mismanagement of public funds

By Lethbridge Herald on April 14, 2023.

Editor: 

The United Conservative Party (UCP) has embarked on an epic waste of taxpayer’s money. Anyone who pays taxes should be up in arms over the Alberta government’s new advertising campaign called Budget 2023. 

While spending millions of dollars on an information campaign, for which there is no need or demand, is a gross mismanagement of our public funds, there’s a worse reason behind this campaign besides simple incompetence. While the citizens of Alberta don’t benefit from this advertising blitz, that repeats something they can easily look up online if they’re so inclined, there is someone who benefits greatly. 

There’s a provincial election about to take place where one of the parties will be running on a platform of Budget 2023. That entity is the UCP. This campaign is a partisan spending spree on behalf of the United Conservative Party. Anyone with a moral compass should be up in arms over the use of public dollars for what amounts to election advertising for the UCP. 

In mailouts, on radio, on TV, the UCP are making vague claims about the wonders of their budget, using partisan colours. To be sure, the shade of blue is slightly different, no doubt to give their lawyers something to defend. “Creates jobs” postcards litter my mailbox.

 No study is quoted to back up that claim. Would the contractor doing a government project be otherwise unemployed, or would they just be working on something else? 

Would workers move from a different job, or would a job employ someone who was not working at all? Previous party claims that corporate tax cuts create jobs were proven false. 

Yes, the UCP are good fiscal managers.

 Not for the public, but, it seems, for finding ways to direct your money to their own party. For the rest of us, it might be better if Budget 2023 was managed by a different set of hands.

Tom Moffatt

Lethbridge