Quebec Picks Up Fiscal Mantle That Alberta Drops

[Anonymous]

Shame on Prentice for selling out fiscal conservatives and kudos Premier Cool Aid in Quebec. ac_dance

TORONTO - Two provinces tabled budgets last week and they happen to be the two provinces that most Canadians would think of as being opposites in every way.



Alberta — the land of a low, single-rate tax, where former premier Ralph Klein paid off the province's debt and conservative political dynasties are replaced by conservative political dynasties.



Quebec — the "progressive" province of chronic fiscal imprudence, where social programs like universal daycare are considered a sacred form of entitlement that is far more important than sound economic policies.



That said, if Canadians were to read the budgets these two provinces tabled last week, without knowing which one was which, they could well come away very confused.



Alberta Premier Jim Prentice, a member of Klein's party, raised taxes — lots of them.



He is making small but precedent-setting changes to the province's beloved single tax rate, increasing user fees on everything from camping to court costs and hiking speeding fines.



Sin taxes are going up on alcohol and tobacco (a great way to push more consumers into buying contraband cigarettes), as is the province's fuel tax, which will increase prices on basically everything for Alberta families.



Tearing a page from former Ontario Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty's playbook, Prentice has also introduced a health care tax.



With declining oil prices resulting in less revenue for the Alberta government, Prentice faced tough decisions in this budget.



But it will be a hard pill for Albertans to swallow, seeing both taxes and spending go up.



The province's debt now sits around $11 billion, the deficit at just over $5 billion.



A few weeks ago, Prentice told voters they needed to look in the mirror as to why Alberta has a fiscal crisis.



Perhaps he should look at his own party's spending problems instead.



When oil prices were high, not enough money was put aside into the Heritage Fund former Conservative premier Peter Lougheed created to deal with the very situation Alberta faces today.



Successive PC governments also raided the Sustainability Fund that Klein created.



Prentice is likely to dissolve the Alberta legislature and go to the polls for an early election.



After Danielle Smith sold her political soul and basically killed the opposition Wildrose Party — the only real opposition to the spendthrift PC government — by joining the Prentice caucus, the PCs are almost guaranteed victory.



But, with no viable alternative to the present government anywhere on the horizon, it's Alberta voters who will lose.



In traditionally left-leaning Quebec, however, we saw a very different story.



Premier Philippe Couillard's Liberal government actually tabled a balanced budget, a stark contrast from what Couillard's friend Kathleen Wynne is doing in Ontario.



The Quebec government has introduced a positive, forward-looking, balanced budget, which will go a long way to restoring fiscal sanity in that province.



It is cutting spending and lowering many personal and corporate taxes to stimulate growth, the sort of budget Albera's Klein would have approved of in his heyday.



Cutting spending in a province that is proud of its social programs may be a hard sell, but it is the right thing to do.



Premier Wynne in Ontario should pay attention.



Voters may not like the short-term consequences of the Quebec budget — but they will be rewarded in the long run with a far stronger economy.



For Albertans, who could forget the famous picture of a grinning Klein holding a sign with the words "paid in full", referring to Alberta's debt?



Unfortunately, the "Alberta Advantage" that Klein and Lougheed before him helped to create, has been slowly eroding over the past decade.



But it was last week's provincial budget that spelled the beginning of the end of the once-mighty Alberta Advantage.



Perhaps Quebec is ready to pick up the mantle.



Ontario certainly isn't.

http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/28/alberta-and-quebec-trade-places-on-fiscal-policy">http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/28/al ... cal-policy">http://www.torontosun.com/2015/03/28/alberta-and-quebec-trade-places-on-fiscal-policy

[Anonymous]

Mr Prentice, you lead us to believe you would slash spending by 9% and get rid of or at least lower the exorbitant salaries and perks of lazy snivel serpent union slugs like fashionista?



Sir, you lied to us. acc_angry

Over the next four years, the typical Alberta family will pay about an extra $13,000 in provincial taxes thanks to last Thursday's budget. At the same time, the Prentice government will grow the size of government by more than seven per cent.



Do you have an extra $13,000 to spare so Premier Jim Prentice doesn't have to make meaningful spending cuts?



The more I dig into last week's provincial budget, the madder I get at the opportunity the Prentice government blew to get public spending and the size of government under control.



They had the perfect opportunity. The public — even some public-sector unions — understood the decline in oil revenues made real cuts in government spending and wages necessary.



An obvious example of how timid and weak last week's budget was can be seen in the relationship between the new "health care contribution levy" and the rising cost of servicing the growing provincial debt.



First of all, let's call the health care levy what it is: a progressive, left-wing income tax.



It kicks in once you have taxable income of over $50,000. Since it is income based, it's an income tax pure and simple. And since it rises and rises with each additional $20,000 until your taxable income hits $130,000, it is a progressive income tax.



Now consider this: Prentice and Finance Minister Robin Campbell are continuing the habit of former Premier Alison Redford of borrowing money to cover the high cost of their spending dreams.



Indeed, Prentice and Campbell are racking up the largest debt in Alberta history — $5 billion in the coming year. In fact, the Prentice government is borrowing so much money this year that by next year the interest paid on the provincial debt will have grown by 61 per cent over Redford's last full year in office.



In 2016, the provincial government will be throwing $891 billion down the drain in debt-servicing costs. That's nearly a billion that will go to lenders and investors rather than public services or taxpayers.



Now consider that the new lefty-inspired health care income tax will raise only $532 million next year. That's less than the amount flushed down the drain on interest on the provincial debt. So really, you could say that the new health tax is merely helping cover off the cost of all the money the Tories are borrowing.



And how about roads and public-sector employment?



The Prentice government is about to let highways (the lifeblood of commerce in this province), deteriorate to a substantial degree.



In 2014, the province spent $434 million "maintaining and preserving" highways and secondary roads. In the coming year, that will fall to $381 million — a cut of more than 12 per cent.



Never mind that as potholes grow and shoulders crumble, road transportation slows, delays increase and the economic costs far outweigh the savings. Think about it this way: At the same time roads are falling apart, the Prentice government is doing virtually nothing to make the public sector smaller.



Public sector wages in Alberta are far and away the largest expense the government has — at least 50 per cent of total spending. Yet while the Prentice government is prepared to let the rest of us bump along on poor highways, it is cutting the civil service by a measly one per cent.



Since between four and six per cent of public-sector workers resign or retire each year, the Prentice government isn't even cutting the civil service by the amount of annual attrition.



Prentice is letting highways fail so he doesn't have to hear public-sector workers protest job cuts on the eve of an election. This is political and cowardly at the same time.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/03/30/gunter-budget-was-opportunity-missed">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/03/30/g ... ity-missed">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/03/30/gunter-budget-was-opportunity-missed

[cc]

Shes Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!!!!!!

[RW]

And the villagers rejoice!

[Anonymous]

Written off as dead with the takeover, Alberta is getting an opposition again.



BTW, I am not a fan of health care levies. Yes, they bring in over a million bucks, but too many Albertans were in arrears before Stelmach dropped them. We used to spend money trying to collect. It was stupid.

I know, I know, just 10 days ago I predicted the upcoming spring election would be as exciting as vanilla pudding.



But then Thursday's budget happened. The budget that Premier Jim Prentice insisted would be "bold," even "game-changing," turned out to be a budget that Alison Redford's government might have introduced.



Instead of 5% in cuts to help deal with the collapse of oil and gas revenues, the budget contained a cut of just 0.7%.



Worse yet, it contained 59 new or higher taxes and fees that will cost the average Alberta family as much as $2,500 in the coming year.



Equally troubling, the budget brought down by Finance Minister Robin Campbell contained the largest deficit in the province's history — $5 billion.



Moreover, spending will return to Redford levels by next year even though revenues are not expected to recover for at least another four years. That means that by 2020, the province will have taken on so much debt the government will be throwing away nearly $2 billion on interest — every year!



When I planned last week to drive to Calgary to cover the Wildrose party's announcement of its new leader last night (Saturday), I gave the winner almost no hope even of holding onto official opposition status in the election expected in the next two weeks. But then the Thursday budget happened.



After spending three months prepping Albertans for a tough, no-nonsense budget Premier Prentice blinked. After talk of wage rollbacks for public-sector workers and "pain that will be shared by all Albertans," the premier stepped to the edge of the budget cliff, then backed away — ran away, actually.



Sources inside both the NDP and public-sector unions confirm that had Prentice pushed for a 5% cut in teachers', nurses' and civil servants wages, they would have had very little choice but to go along or risk looking greedy at a time when most Albertans are struggling economically.



Prentice blew the perfect chance to get provincial spending under control because for some reason at the last minute he couldn't pull the trigger.



Instead of getting government's wage bill under control, instead of reforming health care and cutting the bloat out of education (just how many assistant deputy superintendents for diversity does the province need?), Prentice opted for a budget that squeezes working Albertans hard, just so government doesn't have to make hard decisions about where to cut.



On Saturday, Wildrose members selected former Fort McMurray MP Brian Jean as their new leader with 55% support on the first ballot. But 48 hours before Jean (who had been Prentice's caucus-mate in the Harper government for six years) was selected, the Prentice government handed Jean the biggest gift he or any Wildrose leader could have asked for: a cowardly, high-tax, low-cut budget that has reignited the right.



Since Thursday, both Tory MLAs and Wildrose campaigners have noticed the same trend: small-c conservative voters are mad at Prentice's weak-kneed spending plans. Indeed, while distaste with former Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith's perceived betrayal of her party was probably the major factor in her losing her bid for the Tory nomination in her Highwood riding, disgust by right-wing voters with her part in Prentice's gutless budget may also have contributed.



Before Thursday's budget, Alberta's conservative voters had hope the Prentice government would be the new right-of-centre administration they wanted. They saw no particular reason to consider Wildrose.



But Prentice and Campbell's failure to make government even a tiny bit smaller means the articulate, presentable Brian Jean and Wildrose now have a decent chance of retaining opposition status.



Can they win the coming election? I still doubt it. But 12 to 15 seats are definitely possible.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/03/28/gunter-wildrose-gaining-on-pcs">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/03/28/g ... ing-on-pcs">http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/03/28/gunter-wildrose-gaining-on-pcs

[Anonymous]

Shes Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak!!!!!!

CC, how's my partner in crime? ac_drinks