UCP jobs plan isn’t working
By Letter to the Editor on February 13, 2020.
Good news/bad news: Lethbridge Herald, Saturday, Feb. 8, Business page. Canadian economy adds 34,500 jobs in January; Alberta’s fell by 18,900. It won’t take a climate-change scientist to tell us which is which!
Question: Where are the expected jobs that were to be fuelled by the UCP tax cuts to big business?
Not working as planned, eh! No surprise there; the trickle-down effect is a figment of bad governance. Now injury added to insult, the UCP is going to nickel and dime Alberta workers, communities and teaching institutions to their knees.
UCP Fantasia 101 … tax cuts = job/wage cuts. Question: How will this get us out of debt? Revenue is the only thing that works. Get on with it!
In my opinion, the end result is that nothing good comes from the old or the new Conservative party. It’s too bad the majority of Albertans haven’t figured out that this party, when in government, only thrives during a boom scenario.
Looks like a long wait, Alberta. Hurry up with that pipeline!
Josephine Aristone
Lethbridge
10-9
Agreed, except for the pipeline. More pipelines are not going to get us added value on diluted bitumen, let alone investors shying away from what surrounds fossil fuels, and let alone the depressed price on a barrel of oil.
Because AB revenue will not come from fossil fuel booms anymore, again, take note that the right wing Saskatchewan government recently increased their PST from 5% to 6% because, as was stated, they needed more revenue.
We were getting more revenue with the AB NDP carbon tax, in lieu of, a PST. Our carbon tax was being reinvested back into Alberta, and rebating only the very needy. Now, with the federal carbon tax which is scheduled to rise, and which will be proven legal in the courts, rebates individuals. We should have kept our own carbon tax.
Again, will the Kenney UCP austerity program push Alberta into recession? Remember, recessions are when deficit budgets should be used, not austerity budgets. Alberta was in recession when the AB NDP was elected in 2015, after, global oil prices crashed in 2014. But, we still have this mentality of blaming everything on the AB NDP and Justin Trudeau. The AB NDP was on the same timeline to deal with the deficit as the UCP, but, without cutbacks. As was said by a prominent local area surgeon when the Klein health care cutbacks were implemented, “People need to decide what they want.”
excellent letter – thank you. agree completely, and nice poke at the pipeline fools that think this is the difference maker. the money wasted on that white elephant (aside from the environmental and indigenous land rights debate) will never be recouped. that is why kinder sold out – they knew it would be belly up; our feds just did what govt always does: they used public money to line private pockets on that deal. and please note: it is not because the feds are libs – this is the kind of stuff that both libs and cons have done to us forever, at each level of govt. the thing is, it just keeps getting more frequent and more brazen.
insofar as alberta, perhaps the best point of the letter is that the cons only appear to be successful in alberta when there is an oil boom…and those days are gonzo. yes, we will still use oil for some time still, but that will wane; but, compounding the situation for alberta is that our oil is not needed or wanted as it was. the usa is mining its vast reserves, which it had sat on for decades. they did so partly to ensure they would have reserves in a time of war, but also because they could use/own foreign oil more cheaply. given the lack of decent environmental standard on fracking, and technology that makes mining american oil cheap, they are now the world’s leader in oil. alberta has no basis on which it can be competitive…unless there is a major war that would interrupt movement from the middle east.
alberta has consistently failed to diversify its economy over many decades of cons, and we know all too well that our govts let the robber barons steal our wealth, leaving us a few crumbs in the cupboard and houseful of toxins that we are on the hook for. our property is not too unlike a meth house right about now.
what would help alberta now is to have the feds stop imports from the decrepit saudis, and use alberta oil instead.
what would help alberta now is to have the province develop hemp, and recreational and medicinal cannabis. it needs to step into the void and lead the way in growing, manufacturing, and research and development. the jobs this market will create is enormous, and will far exceed what oil was able to do. sustainable and long terms jobs. this is not just about smoking and edibles etc, it is about clothing/cloth (a great cotton replacement), oils, health products, plastics alternatives, construction materials, food (exceptionally high in protein)…. moreover, it is relatively easy to grow, it grows exceptionally well in our climate, and it is easy on the environment (unlike cotton, which sucks away water, and synthetic materials that are borne of and spilling plastics into our water and land and are killing the planet). but typical of cons – typical of politicians – no vision outside of what lines the pockets of the present establishment of parasites. for it is those parasites that own govts – doesn’t matter the name the party gives itself.
agree also, so.ab (i guess harold is now going to think we are the same).
Biff said:
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it just keeps getting more frequent and more brazen.
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Ain’t that the truth….right to the extreme of even breaking the law with impunity.
Also, hemp and medicinal cannabis? You crazy hippie! Think of the children! lol
seth – 🙂 the hysterical what about the children always gets me!
I see no evidence that our 10 month old provincial government is responsible for your noted job losses. The purest of twisted conjecture. Congrats. Once we get a tax year behind the staged-in start of planned tax cuts we can start to assess their effects intelligently. Until then you can continue your way. I do like the comments about Alberta needing to “diversify” from its blessing of natural resources transformed by (obviously nobody related to you) performing hard work and risk-taking into financial reward and a good quality of life for Albertans. Diversify from that to what? We built on our natural assets – grain croplands, cattle, pigs, chickens, high intensity farming in the southern irrigatable regions, lumber in the foothills, coal mining, oil and gas exploration & production. You suggest we take the latter off the table and replace it with some magical activity. Perhaps you want Albertans to become poor, just so you can signal your self-inflicted victim virtuehood to your ecoterrorist social media friends. But you will not be able to afford your phone, pc, power or even the time. You will be out scrubbing for some twigs to cook the gophers you trapped for a diverse tasty treat. No California veggies for you either since they would have to travel on long-forbidden trains or trucks. Only taters, carrots and parsnips have the shelf life to last. Electricity will soon be history as the fragile, shortlived, exotic heavy metal- requiring, solar panels and wind turbines blot the horizon with their dead hulks. Diversify! Fools. Give me some reasonable action or plan not just a destruction of our quality of life. Waiting.