[Dion]

UCP unveils full election platform

It also included a costed budget which includes $700 million in new spending over four years and with provincial debt projected to hit $86.1 billion by 2022-23 (compared with the NDP’s projected $101 billion). It also aims to move Alberta closer to the provincial average in program spending through a “rigorous evaluation of all programs and services.”

Stokes Economics assessed the platform and concluded it would lead to a balanced budget by 2022-23, but — like the last NDP budget — relies on two out of three pipelines being built to do so. It also banks on 2.2-per-cent economic growth and employment growth of 1.4 per cent.

The current large emitter tax would be replaced with a new Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) program. The first $100 million of TIER would fund new technologies to reduce carbon emissions (the party cited improved oil sands extraction technology and carbon capture as examples) and $20 million would go to the energy “war room.” The rest will fall into general revenue. That change would likely sound a death knell for both Energy Efficiency Alberta, which oversees projects solely funded by the carbon tax, and Emissions Reduction Alberta, an arms-length agency established in 2007 and recognized world-leader funding research technology with carbon tax dollars.

The UCP would retain the NDP government’s capital plan from 2019-20 to 2022-23, and bring back public-private partnerships (like the P3 school build scheme slammed in a Deloitte review under the former Progressive Conservative government). The UCP would also create a 20-year strategic capital plan for the province and pass an Alberta Infrastructure Act to provide transparency around capital project funding.

It would reduce the business general income tax rate from 12 to 8 per cent over four years in the hopes of creating jobs, cut red tape by one-third and replace farm safety Bill 6 with a Farm Freedom and Safety Act. However, the party would maintain some employment law changes made under the NDP, including provisions around long-term, bereavement, domestic violence and child illness leave.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/polit...6-a8931cf397d0