Bell: Kenney takes aim at Notley budget
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This budget stuff would be a lot easier if the province had just slapped $1.30 more in taxes on a dozen beer.
Years ago, the government of Eddie Stelmach did just that, the $1.30 was a quite a topic of chatter and, with nudging from a pot-stirring scribbler, it didn’t take long for the extra tax to get the heave-ho.
This Notley NDP budget starts with a huge number. Almost $100 billion in Alberta government debt before the NDP plans to balance the books.
Jason Kenney, the United Conservative leader, calls the budget a fiscal trainwreck, a spectacular failure, a plan where interest payments on all the borrowing will eat up more and more of your tax dollars.
“I actually thought the NDP was going to change course. Instead, all we got was a fiscal blowout,” says Kenney.
But then the opposition leader casts his mind back to about a quarter-century ago when he was a fighter against high taxes and big spending.
The PC government spent money they didn’t have. They spent and spent and borrowed and borrowed. Then they hit the brick wall in the early 1990s.
They were in a deep hole.
They had to cut and no minor scissors work would do.
“In those circumstances there were deep cuts because we had the biggest provincial debt in the country,” says Kenney.
“Sadly, we’re on track for that.”
The United Conservative leader insists Alberta doesn’t have to go there.
“If we stop this, following next year’s election, there is still time to get our finances back on track without deep cuts.”
If he’s in charge, Kenney says there will have to be restraint. He would hold the line on operating spending if the Alberta economy was growing about three percentage points a year.
If the economy grew slower, then Kenney would have to find “a penny or two on the dollar in savings.”
He adds …
“That’s not difficult in the most expensive provincial government in Canada.”
Kenney also paints another picture, where the carbon tax will go up twice in an NDP second term. Where the NDP is “doing a happy dance” for a recovery no one is feeling.
On Friday, Kenney talks to drillers in Calgary.
“They’re moving rigs as we speak from Alberta to west Texas and Colorado and North Dakota.”
And he points to a future day under the NDP where spending will finally be squeezed as the government has to start paying back the dough it’s borrowed plus a whole lot of interest.
“If you rack up the credit card, sure you get a few vacations and maybe you get a new flatscreen. But you end up having to pay for all of that with huge interest down the line,” says Kenney.
“This crowds out your bill for groceries the next year.”
It doesn’t hit like a hike in the beer tax but when it hits the tab is way more than $1.30 a dozen.
Earlier in northeast Calgary, the school kids and their parents get ready for a photo-op. Premier Notley announces cash for new schools. The kids and their parents are part of the scenery.
It’s an old stunt from the days of Toryland. I didn’t like it then. I don’t like it now.
Notley says the net debt to GDP ratio in Alberta is the lowest in the country and will still be the lowest net debt to GDP when the province is in a $100 billion hole.
Hands up. How many want me to use the rest of this column to discuss the ins and outs of the net debt to GDP ratio?
Thought so.
Can’t imagine what the little kids were thinking.
Notley says the $100 billion in debt is a reasonable number, a healthy number, a manageable number.
Don’t want the $100 billion in debt and you sacrifice the new cancer centre for Calgary, the new schools.
“We are confident we are making the right choices and striking the right balance,” says the premier.
And that carbon tax you’re paying.
All of it is not going to be swallowed up into the provincial government pot, just the dough from the next two carbon tax hikes coming our way.
While she’s at it, Notley seems to shrug off those pesky bean-counters and their credit ratings. They haven’t been kind.
“The people of the province didn’t elect credit-rating agencies. They elected a government.”
So they did and the NDP government made the decisions they made.
People bought the ticket, now they’re taking the ride.
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