UCP making life more unaffordable for Albertans
By Lethbridge Herald on August 3, 2022.
GUEST COLUMN
Shannon Phillips – Lethbridge MLA for Lethbridge West
Albertans are facing a cost-of-living crisis not seen in decades.
Grocery prices have risen astronomically, gas prices are verging on $1.90 per litre, and utility rates are nearly triple what they were under the NDP Government.
As well, as a direct result of UCP policy decisions, Albertans are paying hundreds of dollars more in income tax, property tax, school fees, tuition, student loans, camping, utilities and car insurance.
And still, despite all of this, UCP Finance Minister Jason Nixon recently claimed that life is already affordable for Albertans, that we aren’t feeling the impacts of inflation, and that all is well – or even better – because of choices his government has made.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Finance Minister — the entire UCP Government for that matter — have lost touch with the challenges facing everyday families. They don’t understand the reality of Alberta families trying to put food on their kitchen table or small business owners struggling to keep the lights on with utility bills that are hundreds more dollars than they used to be.
They don’t understand the stress of parents trying to afford costly back-to-school bills come September or the reality facing future leaders who want a post-secondary education but are facing massive increases in tuition and increased interest on the student loans they may turn to.
This UCP Government has proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted to help Albertans during this time and certainly cannot be trusted to care about the struggles of an ordinary family when they worry more about themselves than others.
Jason Nixon may not see any of these things as a problem, but while he brags about how affordable life is, Albertans are drowning in additional costs.
Albertans don’t need their government to be denying the reality they are facing. They need an urgent action plan to deal with their current struggles and worries.
I hear every single day from people who feel that they are a little further behind each month. Facts are facts — there is an affordability crisis in this province. Denying it disrespects people who are facing tough decisions about buying a house, starting a family, or expanding their business, who are seeing the cost of everything go up.
Albertans deserve a government they can trust to make decisions that put money back in your pocket. A government who will get up in the morning and work hard on their behalf, fighting to make life better for people across the province, rather than fighting each other in increasingly dramatic fashions.
An Alberta NDP government will have a plan for the challenges of today and a plan for the surplus that sets us up for tomorrow. We’ve all seen the bumper stickers: “Please God, give me one more oil boom. I promise not to piss it all away next time.”
Our commitment to you is that should Alberta’s NDP form the next government we will fight every day to make life more affordable for you and your family.
Shannon Phillips is is the NDP Finance Critic and Lethbridge-West MLA.
17-16
Being handed a 70 billion dollar debt, 60,000 new hires, stalling a royalty review and changing nothing had nothing to with it. In Shannon’s wind mill world and shuttering coal the high cost of energy has nothing to do with it either. How about you represent all of West Lethbridge instead of those you just think who voted for you. Anyone can be a critic
“Please God, give me one more oil boom. I promise not to piss it all away next time”. Phillips posting this pretty much sums up what kind of a person she really is. Remember not to lie again as you have done in the past. YOU can’t be trusted.
She didn’t post that ya lying dirtbag.
As usual she is oblivious
A new study published by the Fraser Institute today finds that from 1965 to 2020, the highest level of per-person provincial government spending (adjusted for inflation) in Alberta occurred in 2017 under Rachel Notley’s tenure as Premier.
Yes, three years before the pandemic.
Despite COVID-related spending in 2019 and 2020, Rachel Notley continues to hold the record for the highest level of spending per person over the period of analysis.
After removing COVID-related spending, per-person spending decreased by an annual average of 2.9% during Jason Kenney’s period as premier.
When you inherit a jalopy, you have to spend some money to get it on the road.
A better measure than money spent is what you got for your money – putting your car back on the road or a pipeline to nowhere. Normal people call it ‘value’.
Regarding the F-Institute, funny how they dodged talking about revenues by shifting to spending. Those pointless UCP corporate tax cuts were purely largesse to the rich. (And I love the removal of ‘Covid-related expenses’ – like the $5 billion of federal grants that disappeared into their budget balancing illusion).
I might be out of line but I’m going out on a limb by saying, “Ms. Phillips is genuinely interested in the well-being of Albertans and not just another political huckster willing to say anything just to get her party elected.”
Unfortunately a suitcase full of good intentions, a grab bag of platitudes, and a fountain of misinformation is neither inspiring nor worthy of leading hardworking Albertans into dangerous uncharted waters.
The World increasingly needs Alberta for its resources and its resourcefulness including its ethical energy and safe food. We do not need a return to the watered-down version of the federal NDP and their Liberal disaster masters.
All one needs to do is look back at the damage done to Alberta the last time Notley and her cohorts were in power and it becomes clear why we are in the mess we are in. Look at the Billon$ wasted on a social license to get our energy desperately needed by world markets. Look at the Million$ transferred to their cronies at the Pembina Institute. Let’s not overlook how the NDP/Liberal cabal is determined to contribute to global famine by cutting the amount of fertilizer farmers can use by 30%. If further proof is needed as to how much the NDP hate family farmers look no further than their attempts to corporatize the owners and unionize the workers. Ms. Phillips and her ilk would do Stalin proud.
No, the UCP did not create inflation as anyone who can read at a Junior High school level can tell you this is a global phenomenon. Instead of just insulting our intelligence, why doesn’t Thelma Notley’s sidekick, Louise Phillips tell us exactly how the Non-Democratic Party would lower inflation and long term debt? The answer is because their playbook is filled with nothing but hoary old cliches.
UCP are sleazy racist scumbags. Anybody who votes for those creeps is a traitor to democracy.
Do you think your comment attracts potential voters to the NDP or loses them for life?
If I make some ignorant, insulting comment about those who vote NDP, will that influence people to not support them? No. I voted NDP once, voted Liberal several times. Guess that makes me only “sorta” a traitor to democracy, huh?
Liberals, NDP, Greens.. in a democracy, their voters are all my friends and neighbors. I just disagree with them in some respects.