Alberta finishes fiscal year with soaring bottom line

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jacks

I can see it now, they introduce a PST, raise the budgets for services by 5-10%, that gets eaten up by wages in the first union dispute. Then what?

We'll be told that if we want to keep services that we need to pay more tax.

Alberta already spends plenty, it's not as though we are scraping by.

The unions are going to be asking for more money regardless of whether there is a PST though. These increases don't go away just because we choose to rely on the revenues from resources.

[Senator Clay Davis]

I'd imagine a PST would only be 5%, and I guess I could live with that....but I'd like that money to go right back to the cities so they can decide what to do with the money.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Slava

The unions are going to be asking for more money regardless of whether there is a PST though. These increases don't go away just because we choose to rely on the revenues from resources.

Redford should be trimming the fat in the health care system as opposed to throwing dollars at dollars. Also the 30% pay increase they awarded themselves should be trimmed as well as thier gold plated pensions.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Slava

The unions are going to be asking for more money regardless of whether there is a PST though. These increases don't go away just because we choose to rely on the revenues from resources.

Maybe they should abolish the unions then.

Would be a great way to go out.

[ranchlandsselling]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

I still can't help but feel guilty I spent a part of some nurses wage on golf clubs.

Don't worry about it - they've milked everyone else out of far more money than you could imagine.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Dion

Redford should be trimming the fat in the health care system as opposed to throwing dollars at dollars. Also the 30% pay increase they awarded themselves should be trimmed as well as thier gold plated pensions.

Wait a second....two weeks ago we had a thread here where Alberta Health Services was under fire for food that wasn't tasty enough. I didn't pull it up and take a look, but weren't you on the "they deserve better" side? You can't have it both ways here. I wonder how much fat there is to trim, really. I can tell you its not the billions needed though. We have some soul searching to do as a province (and country, if not society in general) regarding the level of service we expect and how it will be funded.

There is no pension, it makes a good soundbite, but its just not true. MLAs have no pension plan at this point. They will address this in the fall, but who knows what they'll decide.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Slava

Wait a second....two weeks ago we had a thread here where Alberta Health Services was under fire for food that wasn't tasty enough. I didn't pull it up and take a look, but weren't you on the "they deserve better" side? You can't have it both ways here. I wonder how much fat there is to trim, really. I can tell you its not the billions needed though. We have some soul searching to do as a province (and country, if not society in general) regarding the level of service we expect and how it will be funded.

There is no pension, it makes a good soundbite, but its just not true. MLAs have no pension plan at this point. They will address this in the fall, but who knows what they'll decide.

I would imagine he's talking about the ridiculous administrative costs.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Slava

Wait a second....two weeks ago we had a thread here where Alberta Health Services was under fire for food that wasn't tasty enough. I didn't pull it up and take a look, but weren't you on the "they deserve better" side? You can't have it both ways here. I wonder how much fat there is to trim, really. I can tell you its not the billions needed though. We have some soul searching to do as a province (and country, if not society in general) regarding the level of service we expect and how it will be funded.

There is no pension, it makes a good soundbite, but its just not true. MLAs have no pension plan at this point. They will address this in the fall, but who knows what they'll decide.

How about starting with the multi levels of management within the system. Both in health care and education. Danielle Smith adressed that in her last debate before the election.

As for the pensions, I suspect whatever they vote on will be alot better than what the working person gets after 30-35 years in the workforce. Funny how the PC's tune changed 3 times in the election on the no meet comittee.

The PC Government continues to mismanage health care. They have squandered millions of dollars on executive health salaries and bonuses for chronic underperformance. They have centralized control of health care in a massive Health Superboard bureaucracy that has been unresponsive to local needs.

http://www.wildrose.ca/policy-text/health-care/

[Mr.Coffee]

these results are not all that surprising. Last year AB net $3.5B in landsales thanks to the hype of the Duvernay and Montney (particularly at the first June 2011 sale). It was the largest year in history for AB landsales. 2010 wasn't too shabby either.

Unfortunately for AB, most of these mega dollar parcels were sold into 4 year term licences, not set to expire until 2015 unless grouped and/or validated. So most of the rights are now spoken for in these deep prolific zones, and what we'll see is that this year and next year will likely not be close to as big.

http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/Tenure/834.asp

Also heard from the rumour mill that the Crown intends to amend existing tenure on licences this fall. Shocker. Also anyone know where you can find out net AB royalty revenue from oil and gas operations??

[SebC]

Originally Posted by shermanator

IMO, a PST / sales tax is the only way to fairly tax all income brackets. I'm all for it, and unless it is a big purchase, the extra few percent shouldn't make a huge difference. If this is what Alberta needs to do to provide better services and infrastructure, let's get on with it already.

I like PST in theory, but it sure doesn't help that a lot of Canadian prices are already brutal compared to the US ones.

[GP_Matt]

Whenever I hear that there isn't that much waste in the government I think of Paul Champagne. The guy who was able to steal $100 million dollars from DND over a few years. The entire reason he was able to steal the money was because he became know as the guy who could help people spend any money that they had left over as year end approached. Departments would come to him and say that they had $40 million left in their budget and they were worried that they would lose the money next year if they didn't spend it this year. At first he would find something for them to buy but eventually he figured that if he was just wasting the money anyway he might as well benefit from it.

I know that is federal and not provincial, but that is one man in one department and the money he stole is a small fraction of the money he wasted.

I don't know what the solution is and yes, I know that this happens in private businesses as well but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be fixed. Blowing a budget at year end is the height of irresponsibility. I would rather see them tell departments that half the surplus at the end of the year could be handed out as performance bonuses.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

Whenever I hear that there isn't that much waste in the government I think of Paul Champagne. The guy who was able to steal $100 million dollars from DND over a few years. The entire reason he was able to steal the money was because he became know as the guy who could help people spend any money that they had left over as year end approached. Departments would come to him and say that they had $40 million left in their budget and they were worried that they would lose the money next year if they didn't spend it this year. At first he would find something for them to buy but eventually he figured that if he was just wasting the money anyway he might as well benefit from it.

I know that is federal and not provincial, but that is one man in one department and the money he stole is a small fraction of the money he wasted.

I don't know what the solution is and yes, I know that this happens in private businesses as well but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be fixed. Blowing a budget at year end is the height of irresponsibility. I would rather see them tell departments that half the surplus at the end of the year could be handed out as performance bonuses.

I agree with what you're saying here, and obviously like anyone else, I don't want money to be wasted. I just get cynical and basically tune out when I hear politicians talk about "finding efficiencies", "creating synergies" or other buzzword flavour of the day phrases that amount to nothing. We've had the healthcare debate for nearly twenty years in the province of Alberta (if not longer). Where are the concrete proposals for how to structure and reduce the spending? Where are the innovations in delivery that make things more effective and efficient yet cost less?

Its a sad realisation, but I do think that these are comments that politicians make just to get elected and have no real way to make them happen. Its a hard realisation, but what if we actually don't have a spending problem here in the province? What if when someone ripped apart the books and system they came to the conclusion that they really couldn't save money without cutting services? I wouldn't be surprised; politicians are wrong all the time!

The view that we have some egregious spending issue while playing catch up on infrastructure and services just seems to fly in the face of what we see everyday when we go to use these services and infrastructure pieces. Our revenue problem though is easy to document and easy to see. We don't pay enough in taxes. We spend more than we take in as a province, in the lowest taxed jurisdiction in the nation and the political courage to rectify this isn't there.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

Whenever I hear that there isn't that much waste in the government I think of Paul Champagne. The guy who was able to steal $100 million dollars from DND over a few years. The entire reason he was able to steal the money was because he became know as the guy who could help people spend any money that they had left over as year end approached. Departments would come to him and say that they had $40 million left in their budget and they were worried that they would lose the money next year if they didn't spend it this year. At first he would find something for them to buy but eventually he figured that if he was just wasting the money anyway he might as well benefit from it.

I know that is federal and not provincial, but that is one man in one department and the money he stole is a small fraction of the money he wasted.

I don't know what the solution is and yes, I know that this happens in private businesses as well but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be fixed. Blowing a budget at year end is the height of irresponsibility. I would rather see them tell departments that half the surplus at the end of the year could be handed out as performance bonuses.

I know for a fact that Manitoba Education allocates a certain amount of money to the various schools, and its often more than needed, so they splurge it on useless crap.