Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Lets be real about the Wildrose: They are true not fiscal conservatives. In fact of all the party platforms I've looked at, amazingly the Liberal platform is probably the most fiscally conservative (save the tax increase).
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No real party in this election can actually claim the podium of being actually fiscally prudent. Those who put a lot of credence in the 'Infrastruture spending' arguement have a romaticized view of the job the government does at being able to correctly identify and execute on which projects should go ahead for the good of the Province. Also laughable is the thought that the government can be pro-active on the economy and enact stimulus spending ahead of slowdowns, and effectively pull back on stimulus through recovery phases. (I'm not arguing that Kaynesian economics is an utter failure, it's actually effective in stabalizing an economic panic, it's just that the institution of government lacks the dicipline to withdraw spending in the recovery phase). It's a formula to create layers of waste on the alter of good intentions.
The Tories have just been blindly building stuff for the past 5 years. Perfect example is the South Hospital. They have bungled the execution of it's construction with out of control cost overruns and delays, and now that it's opening is on the horizon it's well known to AHS staff that they have no means of properly staffing it due to administrative errors taken over the last 5 years. Turns out that opening a bed at the South hospital actually would take away a bed at an existing facility. In the end all that's been achieved is capital spent inefficiently. Just because Allison Redford is clearly smarter than Ed Stelmach doesn't mean this approach will change.
On the Wildrose side, it's also laughable to think they can achieve their high level fiscal goals (I say high level because as Slava correctly pointed out their platform clearly identifies that they lacked the capacity to get under the hood of the numbers and do a reality check on their fiscal goals). Ultimately a potential Wildrose majority government would find that balancing the books is going to be more difficult than just moving the curser to the left (like in Sim City!) or just simply make a capital plan 4 years instead of 3 years for the same level of funding . They will realize that despite being full of bloat and excess the civil service won't do the same job they do now for 5-10% less money. Ultimately something will have to give, either they run a deficit longer than anticipated, or services will have to be hacked to some degree to get there.