April 23 2012: Alberta Provincial Election

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by kn

I'm not seeing any WRP presence in Calgary-Varsity. Just judging by signs, it seems to be a race between the PCs and Liberals.

Rob Solinger was one of our latter candidates. Here is his website.

Originally Posted by AnybodyButPC

Would anyone be kind enough to point in the direction where I can find info about Dredford allowing the government to overrule my last will and testament please? I found mention of it in Hansard but no meat That is too scary...

I believe Troutman has posted about this. I will try to find the link.

Found this http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ghlight=estate

Not sure if it is exactly what you are looking for, but I know changes were recently passed. Troutman would really be the CP "go to" person on this.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by kn

I'm not seeing any WRP presence in Calgary-Varsity. Just judging by signs, it seems to be a race between the PCs and Liberals.

I noticed a Liberal sign at Dalhousie station the other day. I glanced up from the platform and saw a sign to elect a Bruce _ayne. The first letter from the last name was obstructed by a post in the way from my vantage point. Needless to say I was very excited at the prospect of voting for Batman, until I walked around to get a better look at the sign and realized it said Bruce Payne. Oh well back to the Wildrose for me . . .

[Notorious Honey Badger]

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by SebC

From the Edmonton Journal platform tracker First Lady posted:
I see big problems with this item. First, population alone doesn't drive infrastructure requirements. Population growth is a very important factor in infrastructure demand in it's own right. A growing population needs higher per-capita spending than one that is stagnant. That alone makes indexing Alberta's spending to the Canadian average a very dangerous thing.

And yet, we've been doubling the Canadian average for over a decade with very little to show for it. Poor planning. Mismanagement and waste.

Perhaps some restraint and time to actually do a proper assessment of need instead of playing politics would be justified?

Now throw in higher construction costs (thanks to strong private industry) and you're compounding the problem. If we spend the Canadian average, we will have less-than-average infrastructure construction.

Right now we spend double and certainly dont have twice as good infrastructure than anyone, so your simplification isn't necessarily true. Why is it our closest neighbors (BC and SSK) can spend significantly less than us and still have comparable returns on their investments? Are they just that much smarter than Albertans?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

I quite like the flat tax. And in a previous post I broke down pretty clearly that it isn't exactly a flat tax because of the personal exemptions. If I recall right Slava, you responded to my post with the statement that you didn't really want the tax to go up as it would cost you more money personally.
Raising taxes might make sense if we had a revenue problem but I think we have a spending problem. And for those advocating that we need to raise taxes to build a nest egg for the future that sounds way too much like you think the government should be taking our money and putting it away for the future because we are incapable of doing it ourselves.

Of course I don't want to pay more tax! Who does? That said, just because I personally don't want to pay more doesn't mean that its not the right thing to do.

Its not only about collecting a bunch of money and saving it though, its about using the money we get from a one-time non-renewable resource for something longer term than reducing my tax bill for the next decade. The fact that we can't figure out anything better to do with that money is actually rather disappointing.

[zuluking]

Originally Posted by Slava

Of course I don't want to pay more tax! Who does? That said, just because I personally don't want to pay more doesn't mean that its not the right thing to do.

Its not only about collecting a bunch of money and saving it though, its about using the money we get from a one-time non-renewable resource for something longer term than reducing my tax bill for the next decade. The fact that we can't figure out anything better to do with that money is actually rather disappointing.

Broken record here. The fact that we can't figure out better ways to do things meaning we have to either raise taxes or spend resource revenue to maintain status quo is rather disappointing.

[Tinordi]

Raising taxes might make sense if we had a revenue problem but I think we have a spending problem. And for those advocating that we need to raise taxes to build a nest egg for the future that sounds way too much like you think the government should be taking our money and putting it away for the future because we are incapable of doing it ourselves.

This kind of line of thinking just kills me. You do have a revenue problem, a very big one. You're using the rents from non-renewable resource development to fund general operations and entitlements.

So you're dependent on one industry, prone to boom and busts, for propping up the level of service your government provides. The problems with this type of model should be self-evident.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by zuluking

Broken record here. The fact that we can't figure out better ways to do things meaning we have to either raise taxes or spend resource revenue to maintain status quo is rather disappointing.

Welcome to policy making. This may not be self-evident but it's not a field prone to breakthroughs. Policy making is by definition incremental. There are no "Aha!" moments where we can magically provide all of the services that everyone thinks they are entitled to without traditional means of revenue raising. The fundamental dynamics largely remain unchanged. Providing services is expensive, outsourcing them to the private realm is also expensive, paying for them is done by collecting more taxes or achieving high levels of growth. That's about it.

Nobody is going to come along and say, "here's a brand new model that checks off all the boxes." Why? Because the model isn't necessarily the problem. The problem is that we all demand things we don't want to pay for and instead of holding ourselves accountable we hold governments accountable.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

This kind of line of thinking just kills me. You do have a revenue problem, a very big one. You're using the rents from non-renewable resource development to fund general operations and entitlements.

So you're dependent on one industry, prone to boom and busts, for propping up the level of service your government provides. The problems with this type of model should be self-evident.

Perhaps you misread the original quote. If you don't spend so much, there's no need to use resource revenue to fund spending.

I think that's the entire point, actually.

[GP_Matt]

Originally Posted by Slava

Of course I don't want to pay more tax! Who does? That said, just because I personally don't want to pay more doesn't mean that its not the right thing to do.

Its not only about collecting a bunch of money and saving it though, its about using the money we get from a one-time non-renewable resource for something longer term than reducing my tax bill for the next decade. The fact that we can't figure out anything better to do with that money is actually rather disappointing.

I don't think that any party is running to reduce taxes. The PC platform is to maintain taxes for the next 2 years and then evaluate, the Liberals want to raise taxes and the Wildrose wants to reduce the deficit and start increasing the value of the Heritage Trust Fund. I am not sure what the NDP position is.

And for the record, I can think of several things to do with the money saved through Alberta's low tax regime. Investing in my company being one such idea.
As for the argument that everything costs more, under TILMA companies in B.C. have equal opportunity to bid on government projects so the Alberta cost increase won't be more than the cost to mob/demob from B.C.

[GP_Matt]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Perhaps you misread the original quote. If you don't spend so much, there's no need to use resource revenue to fund spending.

I think that's the entire point, actually.

That is exactly it, Revenue has and continues to grow faster than is prudent. The amount of money that we pull from revenue in Alberta is staggering and should be more than enough to augment taxes to maintain adequate government services and put money into a trust fund.

Tinordi, you seem to be arguing that we should save the resource revenue and run the government solely off of the tax base. This may well be a great plan but the fact is that none of the parties are proposing it. The Liberals want to increase taxes to balance the budget and provide additional services, the PC's want to maintain taxes and spending for now and the WRA wants to maintain taxes and slow the growth in spending putting money away for the future.
None of those ideas involve saving all of the resource revenues in fact the Wildrose is the only party who proposes saving some of it.

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

Perhaps you misread the original quote. If you don't spend so much, there's no need to use resource revenue to fund spending.

I think that's the entire point, actually.

Non-renewable resource revenue accounted for nearly 28% of the province's income last year. If you can figure out a way to reduce government spending by over 1/4 while still providing a decent level of service to the population, I'd love to hear your ideas.

[Cowboy89]

Although simplistic and federal while not provioncial, here's a illustrative example of how cutting a deficit while leaving taxes alone is rather difficult.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2371543/

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

That is exactly it, Revenue has and continues to grow faster than is prudent. The amount of money that we pull from revenue in Alberta is staggering and should be more than enough to augment taxes to maintain adequate government services and put money into a trust fund.

Tinordi, you seem to be arguing that we should save the resource revenue and run the government solely off of the tax base. This may well be a great plan but the fact is that none of the parties are proposing it. The Liberals want to increase taxes to balance the budget and provide additional services, the PC's want to maintain taxes and spending for now and the WRA wants to maintain taxes and slow the growth in spending putting money away for the future.
None of those ideas involve saving all of the resource revenues in fact the Wildrose is the only party who proposes saving some of it.

Wow, talk about selective. The Liberals have been arguing to save some of this money for years, and during the 2008 election were the one party doing so.

As for the comment about revenues continuing to grow, its just a bad way to look at things. Does this mean that there is effectively no possible ceiling? Just because spending has gone up over the past decade doesn't mean it will continue to rise exponentially. It might make a political position look better to extrapolate the data that way, but its not really valid.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Non-renewable resource revenue accounted for nearly 28% of the province's income last year. If you can figure out a way to reduce government spending by over 1/4 while still providing a decent level of service to the population, I'd love to hear your ideas.

This is the main point. Its easy to say "just stop spending", but its not sensible in the least. I think that this is exactly why the Wildrose hasn't laid out the full platform with costs yet; its either an unknown to them as well or a huge reduction in services.

[First Lady]

Originally Posted by Slava

Wow, talk about selective. The Liberals have been arguing to save some of this money for years, and during the 2008 election were the one party doing so.

Incorrect. The Wildrose (and previously the Alberta Alliance) has always supported having a healthy savings plan. With the ultimate goal of the interest generated replacing the reliance on resource revenue.


Raj was on QR one afternoon this week. Two main items he was pushing...

- Increase in personal taxes to those who make over 100K
- Increase taxes to all businesses

[Slava]

Originally Posted by First Lady

Incorrect. The Wildrose (and previously the Alberta Alliance) has always supported having a healthy savings plan. With the ultimate goal of the interest generated replacing the reliance on resource revenue.


Raj was on QR one afternoon this week. Two main items he was pushing...

- Increase in personal taxes to those who make over 100K
- Increase taxes to all businesses

Those increased taxes are to fund programs, and aren't just willy nilly.

While I think that taxes should be increased don't assume that its for the same reasons. I just think that tax fairness should be considered for reasons I've already outlined.

I do agree that the social credit/alberta alliance/wildrose has supported increased savings. The point of divergence is that we can't get a handle on where this is coming from. We know that the GreenTrip grants would be slashed, but can only guess at the rest. Oh, and they would save $7 Million from the communications budget....so that should should sustain the increased spending for both health and education combined I suppose!

I do wonder though, between the grotesque image and slashing GreenTrip what the Wildrose has against buses? (I hope that doesn't need green text to recognize that I'm kidding....)

[GP_Matt]

No one is saying to stop spending, just to slow the increase in spending.

As for the Liberals planning to save money that reminds me of the John Kerry clip that went around a few years ago. Something along the lines of, "I actually did vote for it, before I voted against it" The Liberals may have suggested it in the past but it is not in their 2012 election platform. The one that shows increased taxes coupled with found savings applied to new program spending.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Although simplistic and federal while not provioncial, here's a illustrative example of how cutting a deficit while leaving taxes alone is rather difficult.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle2371543/

That is pretty interesting. There are some hard decisions there and its not simple to get rid of that deficit without increasing taxes.

[GP_Matt]

Originally Posted by Slava

We know that the GreenTrip grants would be slashed,

Can you let me know what the issue is with removing the restrictions on the green trip money. The plan is to give Calgary the same amount of money as before but remove the strings and allow them to decide what they need. Do you have so little faith in the mayor and council?

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

We know that the GreenTrip grants would be slashed, but can only guess at the rest.

Hasn't this already been debunked?
Didn't they already state that the funding would be the same but the money would go directly to the cities without the strings attached?