UCP government continuing to play the blame game
By Lethbridge Herald on October 6, 2020.
The blame game is always on the lips of those that are currently in power (re: “Throne speech missed the mark: Kenney,” Sept. 25 Herald). This Conservative government has no defence to offer for the mismanagement of the Heritage Fund since the retirement of Premier Lougheed in 1985. Mr. Kenney is very good at passing the buck to the federal government; in my opinion, the buck stops at his desk, with the Conservatives’ poor governance over the last 35 years.
How often do voters have to remind the Alberta government by “letters” of their mismanagement of the fund? In my case this may be the third letter since January 2013.
I will not enumerate again what the Conservatives have done and not done. Alberta, you know it well. I will say this: we have approximately, by the last count in 2019, $18.2 billion in our Heritage Fund started by Premier Lougheed in 1976. He then retired in 1985. There was, in 1987, $12.7 billion. So we have managed to up our fund by about $6 billion in 35 years.
I will say this “again” for all you die-hard Conservatives “at any cost” — Norway’s fund through oil and gas royalties, started in 1990, sits at $1 trillion.
Mr. Kenney, don’t blame the federal government for not helping the oil and gas industry. They are trying their best to help all Canadians through this pandemic.
The Alberta government has the responsibility of their own province’s industries. Booms and busts have always been an occurrence in Alberta. The Conservatives were not ready with a plan nor the money needed.
Josephine Aristone
Lethbridge
-1
I won’t argue about the mismanagement of the Heritage fund because it is, but what I will argue about is this “norwhalin” there is a lot of difference between us. 1 Norway is a country, we are not. 2 they have access to tidewater, we don’t. They have control of their federal taxation, we don’t. If you want someone to blame,look in the mirror. We voted these people into power(except for a brief period) for the last 30+ years. Prentice had that right.
Everyone loves low taxes and we’ve had that thanks to our oil and Canada as a whole benefited greatly. Was that a bad decision? Probably, but we can’t turn back the clock. Now is the time we have to live within our means and the only way thats going to happen is raising taxes both provincially and federally. Provincially, I might get grief for saying this but a PST is our best way out of this mess and then we might actually be able to put something away for a rainy day.
Maybe you should get your head out of the sand and stop believing what these phony conservatives have been feeding you. Those of us who had ties to the oil industry aren’t that stupid.
Why would you want to raise taxes on average Albertans and create a sales tax when we are being cheated out of what is legally ours? What part of my previous letter don’t you understand. Albertans were cheated out of $575 billion and it has nothing to do with tide water.
How do you explain why Alaska has $66.3 billion in it’s Alaska Permanent Fund, and every man, woman and child has received some $45,000. each since 1982, in dividends , they pay no state taxes and their property taxes are next to nothing, yet they copied what Peter Lougheed had setup for us. Norway has over a Trillion and they followed Lougheed also. I have been to Norway and Alaska and talked to the people.
Maybe you had better read the following which former MLAs from the Lougheed era and oilmen have referred us to over the years.
” Royalties down 32% Billions in Federal Revenues Lost”
“Misplaced Generosity: Alberta Government set to Forgo $55 Billion over next the next three years”.
We are in this “Horrific Mess” as Lougheed called it because of Ralph Klein and his Reform Party politics of looking after his rich friends while forcing the average Albertans to pay a lot more out of their own pockets and the facts prove it. Too bad so many ignorant Albertans allowed it to happen, while we got called all sorts of names for trying to stop it. Even Klein’s own daughter Angie and his father Phil tried to help us. In other words members of the Klein family were a lot smarter than his supporters.
biff is right it this letter is spot on. Josephine knows what she is talking about.
the letter is crack on the mark. the continuing problem is that sooo many that identify as “conservative” are stuck. the irony is that they behave counter to democracy. how many cons know that in the old ussr, there were regularly held elections. the caveat was that you got to vote only for a red party candidate. only and always voting cons amounts to the same. these hardcore and always cons voting robots supported harper’s majority even as he prorogued to thwart what little remains of our democracy, and even as he skillfully manipulated his way around our weak checks and balances such that he was able to behave exactly as a dictator; his mps, exposed as the puppets of the pmo they have too long become, acquiesced to the party whip without fail. never was the riding an mp represented put ahead of the runaway pmo, and almost never did an mp stand up to their role as being one of the integral checks and balances in our rickety, decrepit system.
i wonder what whipped cons would have to say about why we are now a bust province had the pc record here, post lougheed, come on the heels of a liberal or ndp uncontested dynasty over the last 40 years. rather than have an honest look, those folk blame 40 years of waste, corruption, utter oil dependence, toxic land and water – that we are on the hook for, not the oil cos – and gutted infrastructure…on 4 years of cash strapped ndp. it is laughable: but only in the ironic way that extreme stupid is laughable.
I’m constantly being reminded of what our MLAs from the Lougheed era taught me, thanks to the stupidity of these phoney conservatives. You can’t trust a member of the Reform Party was their comments and boy were they ever right.
Watching what Reformer Harper did to us. Klein using their Reform policies, Reformer Kenney being investigated by the RCMP and now Reformer Rod Anders being charged with tax evasion. You certainly didn’t see any of this during our conservative hero Peter Lougheed’s days, did you?