[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Right, but was this not occurring prior to them coming to power, and was it not also predictable regardless of who was elected due to the price of oil?

Yes. It was. I will go out on a limb and speak on behalf of all PC/WRP supporters in this thread and state the following:


Capital was fleeing from the oil sands prior to the spectre of an NDP government. This was occurring because of cost overruns these investments were continually demonstrating, a shift in global sentiment against carbon intensive crudes, and then finally the GCC crashing the price of oil. This is out of the control and mandate of any governing party, including the new NDP.


That being said, changes implemented or proposed by the NDP such as increased corporate taxes, royalty reviews and anti-pipeline sentiment will directionally harm the O&G business environment and create an incremental flight of capital.


I welcome any PC/WRP supporter on here to quote that, notably the first paragraph, and rebut it. Assuming a bunch of people don’t, you can forever put to rest this false idea that PC/WRP supporters are pinning the current troubles exclusively on the NDP and recognize that there is a difference between “already bad” and “making it worse”. It makes us look silly to the uniformed and you look silly to the informed.

Originally Posted by rubecube

Either way, even if the NDP are guilty of economic mismanagement, it's still interesting to me that posters aren't willing to call a spade a spade when it comes to the federal party in power. Obviously that's also not a rebuttal to the charges against the NDP.

First, regarding the mismanagement of Alberta finances, I will also go out on a limb and state the following:


The PC's mismanaged our finances leading to smaller surpluses / larger deficits over the last few years. This was partly because they became fat, lazy and entitiled, and partly because they had two successive absolutely terrible leaders. They made us more unprepared to handle this current downturn (i.e. similar to the above concept, I’m not trying to pass off the PC’s failings on the global economy. They made a bad situation worse). At the end of the PC reign, Alberta had both a revenue problem and a spending problem. Fixing this is something any governing party has within their mandate and ability to correct.


That being said, the NDP have taken steps towards fixing the revenue problem, notably with a steeper progressive tax system as compared to the PC’s proposal. They should be commended for that. However some of their other proposed revenue ideas such as raising corporate taxes and “reviewing” royalties create concerns highlighted above. For that they deserve a healthy debate. Furthermore, they have done absolutely nothing to fix the spending side of the ledger, and in fact want to dramatically increase it. For that they absolutely deserve criticism of mismanaging of our finances.


Once again, I welcome any PC/WRP supporter on here to quote that, notably the first paragraph, and rebut it. And once again, assuming they don’t, hopefully that can also put to rest any notion that PC/WRP supporters will lay blame for upcoming deficits entirely on the NDP and recognize that once again there is a difference between “already bad” and “making it worse”.



Now finally, onto the CPC mismanaging our federal finances and cognitive dissonance as it relates to PC/WRP supporters’ view of the NDP. Could you give some examples of similarities between Alberta NDP and federal CPC economic policies and how PC/WRP supporters are holding these similarities to a different standard? Serious question, not some loaded “I don’t think there are any and already have a rebuttal prepared” question. I’m genuinely interested in the topic. Then we can have a mature conversation about issues instead of just throwing out broad and false perceptions of a group of people.