Government spends while Albertans struggle to make ends meet
By Lethbridge Herald on May 22, 2024.
Editor:
I simply could not remain silent after reading the column by Lethbridge East MLA Nathan Neudorf dated May 1, “Empowering Albertans to take control of their finances”.
In this self serving column, one can clearly see through Mr Neudorf’s disingenuous concern for Albertans in his announcement therein of a government created website generously offering free handy tips on how we Albertans can do more for ourselves in cutting corners, limiting expenses and living within our financial means.
Easy for him to say; Neudorf currently earns approximately $120,000 per year in his capacity as an MLA, and here he is telling us struggling worker bees to simply avail ourselves of some handy tips in personal and individual financial management…for our own good don’t you know.
From all indications, this attitude is entrenched in the current provincial UCP government as a whole. While this government pursues projects that are massively expensive, self serving and generally against the best interests of the people who elected the UCP to govern, they want to use this Affordabilty minister to deflect our attention away from any government overreach and overspending and make us feel like we the people need to be more fiscally responsible and frugal in our daily lives.
Just off the top of my head, here are but a few examples of the UCP vision for Alberta that have already cost Albertans millions of dollars:
The dogged pursuit of a Provincial Pension Plan.
The persistent and ongoing roadblocks placed by this government for any energy project that doesn’t include oil, gas or coal resulting in the cancelling of and/or the endless delaying of environmentally friendlier alternative energy projects. This of course only serves and curries favor with the oil,gas and coal industries that support the UCP party financially through huge donations.
The recently announced plan to ramp up regional airport developments that will likely primarily be useful to energy sector executives in their private jets also seems like a prioritygenerally unimportant to the average Albertan.
The list goes on.
One might sum up Neudorf’s column thusly: Albertans should tighten their belts so that we, your government, can continue to be able to pick your pockets of any money you may have saved using these handy free tips on financial austerity. With the money you’ll save using the ideas and suggestions found on the Affordable Advice for Life website, we, your trusted servants, can simply tax you more and then use your money to finance our pet projects – the projects you never asked us to initiate and that generally go against the best interests of you, the voters.
Meanwhile,some serious issues important to a majority of Albertans continue to receive not much more than lip service from Danielle and her people.
The biggest example I can think of is the broken health care system in this province, but I suspect because the medical profession are not generally considered to be huge donors to a certain political party,any efforts to provide any real solutions to the health care crisis in this province go unaddressed.
The idea that this column would be well received by Herald readers speaks volumes about how twisted Mr .Neudorf’s and his government’s thinking is about his actual mandate and that of the UCP government. The attitude conveyed in this column is insulting to every Albertan struggling to make ends meet, while the UCP government continues to spend our tax dollars like drunken sailors on shore leave on outlandish initiatives without any regard for the will of the electorate.
Chris Rawlinson
Lethbridge
17-16
Wow, Chris Rawlingson! Please take off your “”NDP focused” blinders. MLA Neudorf’s column was not “self serving” rather common sense and informative with direction to aids (web site) information to help us through these difficult “inflationary times” largely created by the current Liberal-NDP government with their “the budget will balance itself” mentality. Back to Alberta and Albertans, how did we get to where we are today????? Uncontrolled spending (increasing Alberta’s debt from 13 Billion to over 60 Billion…through NDP’s uncontrolled spending) by the Rachael Notley, NDP (thankfully brief) term in office, we are, by the actions of the responsible UCP government paying down the NDP created debt, funding (once again) our Heritage Fund, improving roads, infrastructure, schools, health care along with welcoming 250,000 new residents to the province! Responsible government spending is important for the betterment of the Albertan’s. If you, Chris Rawlingson, take issue with MLA Neudorf’s common sense information/comments, that is up to you, perhaps you will find your solice in the babbel and rhetoric of Mrs. Shannon Phillips and her leaderless NDP cronies.
In true Reform Party fashion you prove how ignorant you are just like your ignorant pal Buckwheat. As my conservative friends say “He is all mouth and no brains”. While all the former Conservative MLAs I knew had nothing but praise for Notley and what she was doing you show absolutely no proof for the millions she wasted as you claim she did and are going to look like a damn fool if someone decides to give you an opportunity to prove it in court, aren’t you? Where is your proof?
The conservatives in my world agree with Lougheed’s former MLA Allan Warrack when he said “Rachael Notley Led Like Lougheed”. What part of that aren’t you smart enough to understand ?
quite right
Fedup Conservative, “former this and former that….” you are apparently severly stuck in the past! Get with the times, today is today, yesterday and yesterdays are gone. History and learning from it is indeed important! NEWS FLASH…. Your idol, Rachael Notley, has resigned, Shannon Phillips claims she suffers “post-traumatic stress syndrome”…Shannon Phillips filed a legal suit…seeking approximately $400K in “damages” from former and current Lethbridge City Police….. Shannon Phillips…remember, was herself caught “red handed” in her fabricated story regarding her lying regarding RCMP ..
Oh yes, this too is true NDP history,
What I and Albertans do understand, is NEVER AGAIN will we foolishly elect an NDP government in our province…” one and done” we learned our expensive lesson the hard way!
In the real world that you want to ignore it’s the past that put us in this “Horrific Financial Mess” as our family friend Peter Lougheed called it . It was your pal Ralph Klein who created it. The same guy Danielle Smith constantly praises for the mess he created.
I had known Klein personally since 1961 when I was 19 years old and he was 7 months older than me . It didn’t take long for me to realize what jerk he was. When he was trying to become premier his mother Flo told my mother she didn’t think he was capable of running this Province properly. Mom told her that no one in her family was going to support him and mom said Flo wasn’t surprised.
When he was closing hospitals, closing 1,500 hospital beds, and cutting 5,000 nursing positions his father Phil said to me “Al what in the hell is the matter with that son of mine? While he gives away Billions in Royalties he forces us to try to live without a proper healthcare system. This will cost people their lives “and it did. The lawsuits launched Klein prove it.
In 2015 Klein’s daughter Angie in a TV interview proved what she thought of how he managed this province and the fact that he always called himself a Liberal. She urged Albertans to vote NDP. Somewhere in my family we have pictures of our mother holding Angie when she was a new baby.
Would you like to try to prove that I am a liar in court, when Lougheed’s Energy Minister Bill Dickie was a brother in law of one of my uncles and our family were heavily involved with the Conservative MLAs and a brother in-law voluntarily flew the government plane for them, and never got paid a dime? Can you prove we weren’t?
We knew how disgusted Lougheed, Getty and the Conservatives MLAs were with what Klein did to this province and the idiots who supported him. In 2003 Don Getty told me that inviting Liberal Ralph Klein into the Conservative Party was the dumbest thing he had ever done and I certainly agreed.
Keep up with your stupidity and I can assure you, that someone who is as disgusted as I am ,will likely haul your ass into court to make you look like a damn fool. The lawyers that I have know over the years have encouraged it. There are too many facts that prove you are dead wrong and you better wake up and start learning them, don’t you think?
Oh my, here you go again, looking at old picture albums and ancient news stories! Come on, face the facts, Did Rachael Notley and her NDPers increase Alberta debt from $13 Billion to over $60 BILLION in her short 4 year term in office? If Rachael Notley was such a champion at the head of the NDP, why did she and her party go down in utter defeat to the UCP? Secondly, if Rachael is/was such an outstanding leader, why did she resign? Ever think about that one? Reminder, today is Thursday, May 23, 2024, even Wednesday, May 22, 2024 is past and nothing can be done to alter what happened on that day. What IS important and relevant is today and tomorrows, when we usher in a Federal government with common sense! Your memories of your “family friends” obviously mean a lot ti you however don’t hold stake in the current game!
With no proof of where she spent it, you would rather believe the lies you have been fed like a good little well trained Reformer. I had lunch today in Vernon B.C. with friends from Alberta who were driven out by Klein and they agree with me that many of their family and friends still in Alberta are so fed up with what these Reformers are doing to their children’s future they are considering a class act lawsuit against anyone who blindly supports them and helps them spread their ignorant lies.
I refuse to be part of it I enjoy watching fools like you make a an ass of yourself and to date my wife and I haven’t been hurt by anything they have done. It’s our children’s future we are concerned about , so why aren’t you?
You need to change your name! To fed-up Leftoid! That would be more appropriate!
My name was created by a Conservative Lawyer friend who said to make certain you show these fools what a strong Conservative you are and how disgusted you are with what these phoney conservatives, Reformers, and the idiots who support them have done to this Province so why would I change it when every conservative, including former conservative MLAs I have known agree with me?
Can you explain why you call yourself a Conservative when there is nothing conservative about you, or don’t you know what a Conservative really is?
So, in other words, an original name!
re healthcare system (today’s story The Star):
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/danielle-smiths-revamping-of-alberta-health-care-system-is-a-prescription-for-chaos/article_5bf91dae-1777-11ef-8fcc-033f774f2c8a.html
First of all the star article is an opinion. Second it is a Trudeau funded hit machine against anything that may be conservative in nature. I suggest there would be massive amounts of funds available for healthcare if governments cut out all the unnecessary funding of things such as bike lanes, windmills, solar panels, funding 10 jobs in a pasta parlour in Ontario to the tune of 1.7 mil, funding things such as WE (has anyone missed it) You now, all the unnecessary things. Is it so hard to believe that once you pay down the mortgage and reduce interests costs that you have more money in your pocket. Precisely what this current government is doing. Turf them and you set up another spending spree. Benefit??? Something to whine and cry about every day.
While the Toronto Star is considered to be left of centre to appeal to its market place, the paper receives HIGH grades for factual ratings and High Credibility ratings. Compared to your rhetoric filled rants that bounce off the walls of your skull with inconsistent outlooks much akin to Governor Smith’s, I am thinking that Kal Itea’s linked article’s contributor’s reporting and writing are worthy to consider… especially because the content is pretty much wonderfully accurate and astute. Harold and I believe you do as well, pan CBC regularly, which is simply hilarious based on decades of international recognition for quality journalism and recent awards in several categories for CBC content, production, and journalism. So much more could be said regarding your regular factually unsupported opinions, but heh, it’s dinner time.
“Trudeau funded hit machine” this is the kind of paranoid crap bucktweet and his ucp clowns thrive on. Can’t wait to vote them out!
Ahh! a almost intelligent comment loser! With more practise and one more brain cell to keep the one and only company you might put together something worth reading!
I happily wake up every day thankful I’m not an illiterate a-hole like j57.
He’s truly dumber than a stick.
Agreed…as has been said before this high-spending, authoritarian, big UCP/TBA government is tone deaf. We’ve listed, for example, the cap removal, by the UCP, on electricity and insurance rates, and the underfunding to municipalities generating an increase in our property tax rates….NOT, the Alberta advantage.
Here’s another example:
“Danielle Smith thinks there are too many managers at AHS? Pay attention! Now she says it needs ‘thousands.’ If you were looking for a good career in Alberta, who’d have thought health care management would be the ticket?”
http://www.albertapolitics.ca
Again, this stuff just cannot be made up, and we have 3.5 more years to see how much more damage the UCP/TBAers will do. As the saying goes, it will have to get worse before it gets better, sadly.
And, apparently Calgary has the highest rate of inflation in the country, 3.something % as opposed to 2.something %, due to, as thought, ever increasing rent rates.
Oh? Surprise surprise, rent and housing costs have risen? Let’s bring in 5 million more immigrants (Trudeau/Singh mandate) don’t worry where they will live… but to be sure they will migrate to urban centres… Southern Albertan, have you looked past your nose? Do you even know the amount of rental increases in Vancouver. Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax??? In some cities, thanks to Trudeau/Singh, there is zero vacancy rentals, people are resigned to living in the vehicles and RV/tent! This is reality today, but there is a “common sense” change a comin! But for now, grin and bear it, pay your carbon tax, listen to CBC for quality news and “woke” agenda updates.
Incredibly biased/partisan tunnel vision from Harold once again. Do you constantly bump into walls and lamp posts Harold? Those blinders you have glued to your head are only fooling your own brain. You have completely ignored the fact that Danielle has been strongly encouraging immigration to Alberta, and we do have massive immigration to the province, yet the province currently has one of the highest unemployment rates in Canada, the only “boom” is in population not in job creation, and we are experiencing a terrible lack of housing issues for people already here. Lethbridge itself has had the largest rental pricing increase in the province. So again, your lack of critical thinking skills and over-sized blinders have you clearly focused on the tip of your nose and your muddy facts and statistics.
Not to mention a huge shortage of doctors, nurses, and hospitals along with a horrific mess our education system is in. My two youngest grandsons have seen their school, grade 1 to 9 , forced to convert one of there two gyms into two classrooms and add 7 portables to their school grounds because that’s how bad it is.
Road workers tell us that they estimate that it will cost taxpayers $20 billion just to bring our roads back to the state they were in under Lougheed. Our out of province relatives can’t believe the horrible mess our roads are in when they come to visit Alberta. But these fools supporting these Reformers don’t care what it’s doing to our children’s future, do they? I wonder what it’s like to be that stupid?
Yes, ReallyReally, the only explanation for buck and HP’s lapdog behaviour is that they are lapdogs. That would also ecplain there speeling.
The following spending numbers from the Fraser Inst. folks:
hey, just another over-spender here. perhaps an addicted one, but seems the reason the likes of me overspends is because the cost of everything has leapt dramatically, while my income has not nearly kept pace…thus, i am addicted to overspending. yup, just cannot help that i need to pay ridiculous prices for food basics, let alone even able to consider gourmet items; just cannot help pay ridiculous prices for energy – even keeping the house pretty much dark and very cool barely shaves a couple bucks off costs, which are mostly comprised of sundry fixed fees that account for several times whatever my actual energy consumption costs.
thank you ucp – and, for that matter, every sleazy govt whatever their name, provincially and federally, that has come to power. always loads to give over to the wealthiest oligopoly corp entities, to lavish elected and mandarin salaries and golden parachutes and pensions. i guess that is why the tax rates go up ever so much, and why the likes of me are so awash in overspending.
how longer will the masses keep legitimising the scam with their dutiful endorsement each election via their sign-off with the proverbial illiterate “x”? the most powerful message one could send, and the least upsetting to the social order, would be to run an “x” through the entire federal and provincial ballots. unlike the illiterate signature, it will say i no longer accept corruption, nepotism, criminality, crony capitalism, non-democracy….
You still getting your information/intelligence from the comics section of the newspaper Biff? Your example/suggestion of putting an “X” through the entire ballots is definety not representative of a responsible citizen in a democratic society, rather Gen X-er on crack! Go for it Biff, huddle with your pitiful NDP left wingers and remember the “good ol’ days” when Notley was generating billions in debt for Alberta!
By now, you and buck should have amassed enough UCP-points (with your efforts to deceive and defend) to redeem them for a MAGA cap and Trump bible.
Seriously? How bout just waiting to vote in the Fed Election and helping to usher in “common sense” Government with an outstanding leader, Mr. Pierre Poilievre! Can’t wait!!!
Interesting how the expression of belief as ‘common sense’ is predominantly by uneducated, white, right wing christians with an inclination to the irrational. Why hide your prejudices behind such terms? Tell us what you really want from Poilievre.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/database/sources-of-guidance-on-right-and-wrong/common-sense/political-ideology/conservative/
And your standards are? Or do have any standards at all, only “woke” imagination?
um, no, i have lived through the usual flip-flopping from one corrupted lib-named govt to the other corrupted con-named govt, with the masses ever getting the more fleeced, democracy ever the more eroded, transparency ever the more snuffed out. and then, the wealthiest corp entities getting ever the more richer and pockets lined, thanks to their puppet govts that are supposed to represent all the people. you are a big part of the problem, because there are many like you that do not know what is freedom or democracy or fairness or freedom or decency or compassion.
indeed, ruining the ballot is exactly the way to say i am no longer a sucker.
Well, Biff that describes anarchy to the “T” congratulations.
While ritualistic voting describes totalitarianism to the “T”.
Actually, spoiling a ballot is the true test of democracy: one has made the effort to vote, but expresses the inability to find a candidate that represents one’s values. It demonstrates a democratic spirit based on informed principle (as opposed to the robotic performance of voting for one’s team).
Your explanation is deeply flawed.
1- If one is an eligible voter and takes the effort to go and vote, wouldn’t he/she/thing/it already know who is on the ballot and therefore already know they had no one or Party to vote for?
2- Nobody will ever know that you spoiled a/your ballot. (Election Officials are sworn to secrecy, and will not disclose how or why a ballot was spoiled.)
3- It does not serve any purpose intentionally spoiling a ballot, it is actually a waste of paper (for you “green protoypes”) wastes Election Official and Scrutinier time.
4- Psychologically, such an action as spoiling a ballot intentionally might serve to substantiate mental incompetence and/or psychotic tendencies.
5- Are intentional ballot spoilers of the same nature and character as those who deface public/private property and/or draw graffiti?
Something to think about huh?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1456947/russian-presidential-election-results-2024/
wow, you are a lot less wise than i ever could imagine. do you know that good old soviet union held elections – you could vote, but only for red party candidates. i guess you getting to sign off on that is just great use of your “right” to vote. as i noted earlier, you have no idea about freedom, democracy….
Biff, and your “idea of freedom democracy” aligns squarely with Anarchism.! You have proven this, unequivocally, in this and your other posts in various discussion groups in the venue. This is either “Rah Rah Biff” or “Shame on you Biff”, I suggest/agree, the latter.
Do anarchists believe in God?
Anarchists “are generally non-religious and are frequently anti-religious, and the standard anarchist slogan is the phrase coined by a non-anarchist, the socialist Auguste Blanqui in 1880: ‘Ni Dieu ni maître! ‘ (Neither God nor master!)…
Jesus was an anarchist, Harold.
No master but god, says the anarchist Jacques Ellul. Matthew 6:24
Oh was He now? I assume you know Him well and He told you this?
By the way, the Scripture Matthew 6:24 ….The Lord Jesus Christ is instructing, “You can not serve two masters, God and Mammon (money).” This is a “Kingdom principle” and definetly not an anarchistic position.
Not being a christian yourself, I can understand your confusion, HP.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2011/05/was_jesus_an_anarchist.html
Go ahead, read your “blogs” but have you ever considered reading the Holy Bible for proper revelation? By the way, who is Jesus of whom you speak?
Back to the bible quoting , pulpit thumping religious (Christian version) mantra!
perhaps the greatest anarchist ever, to date. he could have fallen into line like the fearful masses, but, he took a stand in the name of true freedom.
harold’s freedom, ditto the brunt of the masses, is to not part from the social conditioning of whatever society one is conditioned by and into. here, it is toe the line, be a zombie, and pretend that uttering “jesus is my saviour” as opposed to living like a jesus will get one an eternal heaven.
Sorry, there is only one way, confessing and believing that Jesus Christ is Lord.
… I would disagree soundly. Tearing up a ballot as biff suggests is absolutely a right provided by a democratic state; a right to publicly dissent within the structure of the governance.
And, totally ingnorant and useless! Like punching your fist trough a wall….but go ahead.
you are entirely concrete it appears. thus, you are a wall.
Well said Chris, well said.