Alberta Politics Thread v2

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

He's achieved more than he has broken or not yet started working on. "Most" is dishonest.

https://trudeaumetre.polimeter.org/

Are we looking at quality or quantity?

Going through that list and looking at the major things that were being discussed during the campaign the following stuck out to me.

Promises kept:
Gender balanced cabinet
Long form census
Cancel Northern Gateway
Legal pot

Promises broken:
Deficits
Electoral reform
Blood ban
Postal delivery
Omnibus bills
Transparency
Veterans benefits
I guess we all might remember certain things more than others but most people don't study the party platform for promise #214. I think most people remember the major promises that they talk about in stump speeches and in the debates.

That's not even taking into account the multiple ethics breaches by senior ministers including Trudeau himself.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Are we looking at quality or quantity?

It should be self-evident if you read the post I quoted and are fluent in English.

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Trudeau abandoned most of his campaign promises[…]

Quantity. There is no way to insist that was a statement about quality.

It is dishonest to claim that 'most' promises were 'abandoned' when that is demonstrably false. If someone wants to criticize what things were accomplished or prioritized over others, go nuts, but at least approach the subject honestly.

[Jacks]

I think it's possible for someone to say "most" and have been referring to the major promises but apparently you are sticking to the exact wording so you are right, congratulations. Carry on, I won't bother you anymore.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

It should be self-evident if you read the post I quoted and are fluent in English.
Quantity. There is no way to insist that was a statement about quality.

It is dishonest to claim that 'most' promises were 'abandoned' when that is demonstrably false. If someone wants to criticize what things were accomplished or prioritized over others, go nuts, but at least approach the subject honestly.

The problem with that site is that they count each statement in each category with equal weight and then just provide a count.

For example if I asked you did Trudeau keep his promises around electoral reform the answer should be a clear NO. Whereas that site would argue he has only broke one promise on electoral reform, kept two and is in progress on 8 others so should get a passing grade. That’s not a reasonable way to assess if a politician kept his promises. If you fail to keep the headline item of a category you fail that category.

The data the way it’s presented is me telling my boss 19 of 20 items came in on budget for my project so the project was mostly on budget when the last item accounts for 50% of the cost of the project and was double the expected amount.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

I wonder if the "2,300 new agriculture jobs; there were 1,800 new jobs in utilities; and there were 1,300 new jobs in construction." are result of the legalization of cannabis.

"From Oil & Gas, to puff and pass!"

I am a mechanical contractor can can certainly vouch that we are seeing RFQs for quite a few cannabis related projects. Visited a sizable local HVAC package manufacturer last week to discuss one, and his floor was full of units going to a grow operation in Chilliwack, a bunch of crazy huge custom units going to a nuclear power plant in Washington state, and apparently they just got an order for the LNG camp buildings.

[corporatejay]

1. I view Nenshi as a fiscal conservative. Taxes have gone up but that's because business taxes and value of commercial property in the downtown core has gone down. That has to be made up somewhere. Calgary still has relatively low property taxes compared to any major city.

2. Cowboy's summary of the carbon tax is spot on. I thought it would buy social license, it didn't.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

1. I view Nenshi as a fiscal conservative. Taxes have gone up but that's because business taxes and value of commercial property in the downtown core has gone down. That has to be made up somewhere. Calgary still has relatively low property taxes compared to any major city.

2. Cowboy's summary of the carbon tax is spot on. I thought it would buy social license, it didn't.

Nor has it dont anything to actually curb Carbon use or emissions.

The Carbon Tax has been nothing but an enormous boondoggle from start to finish.

Scrap it.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

1. I view Nenshi as a fiscal conservative. Taxes have gone up but that's because business taxes and value of commercial property in the downtown core has gone down. That has to be made up somewhere. Calgary still has relatively low property taxes compared to any major city.

A key tenet of fiscal conservatism is low taxes and small government with limited public spending. Under Nenshi, Calgarians have seen the largest tax increases of any municipality in Canada.

Calgary's 'low' property tax rates have been offset by having separate business taxes, provincial top-ups, and utility rates. As a measure of spending, Calgary is near the top of Canadian cities.

[SeeGeeWhy]

[Lyle Lanley, Host]: So you're saying the UCP has your back?
[Chorus of hens]: You betchya!
[Straggler Hen]: SCRAAAAP THE CARRRRRRBONNNNN TAAAAAAAXXXXX. BUCKAW!

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

A key tenet of fiscal conservatism is low taxes and small government with limited public spending. Under Nenshi, Calgarians have seen the largest tax increases of any municipality in Canada.

Calgary's 'low' property tax rates have been offset by having separate business taxes, provincial top-ups, and utility rates. As a measure of spending, Calgary is near the top of Canadian cities.

We just talked about this. Then you don't get stuff built. That can't be fiscal conservativism.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

We just talked about this. Then you don't get stuff built. That can't be fiscal conservativism.

It is fiscal conservatism though. Fortunately, there are alternatives.

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

We just talked about this. Then you don't get stuff built. That can't be fiscal conservativism.

Or you just don't build stuff that you can't afford.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

We just talked about this. Then you don't get stuff built. That can't be fiscal conservativism.

You can't just change accepted definitions to suit your personal preference. And it's not zero spending, nobody is arguing that, but it's minimized spending.

You can call Nenshi many things, but fiscal conservative certainly isn't one of them.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

[Lyle Lanley, Host]: So you're saying the UCP has your back?
[Chorus of hens]: You betchya!
[Straggler Hen]: SCRAAAAP THE CARRRRRRBONNNNN TAAAAAAAXXXXX. BUCKAW!

I dont know what kind of nonsense this is supposed to be but the Carbon Tax has been an abject failure.

It didnt acquire Social License for pipelines and it hasnt and wont curb Carbon usage, it further degrades our ability to compete for external investment.

Further, nearly half the Provinces in this Country are telling Trudeau to shove it and are abolishing their Carbon Taxes because, quite frankly, it was a stupid idea in the first place.

But continue your nonsensical rambling and imitation of chickens. Thats working well.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Originally Posted by Locke

I dont know what kind of nonsense this is supposed to be but the Carbon Tax has been an abject failure.

It didnt acquire Social License for pipelines and it hasnt and wont curb Carbon usage, it further degrades our ability to compete for external investment.

Further, nearly half the Provinces in this Country are telling Trudeau to shove it and are abolishing their Carbon Taxes because, quite frankly, it was a stupid idea in the first place.

But continue your nonsensical rambling and imitation of chickens. Thats working well.

I'm referencing the crappy pro-UCP ads that run non-stop on the Fan960. Paid for by our local car dealers (Shaping Albertas Future)

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Locke

I dont know what kind of nonsense this is supposed to be but the Carbon Tax has been an abject failure.

It didnt acquire Social License for pipelines and it hasnt and wont curb Carbon usage, it further degrades our ability to compete for external investment.

Further, nearly half the Provinces in this Country are telling Trudeau to shove it and are abolishing their Carbon Taxes because, quite frankly, it was a stupid idea in the first place.

But continue your nonsensical rambling and imitation of chickens. Thats working well.

It’s from the pro-UCP radio commercial. Be thankful you haven’t heard it. No actual chickens, but there might as well be. It’s horrendous even if you’re in favour of scrapping the carbon tax.

[woob]

Oh man.. that's an awful ad lol.

[SeeGeeWhy]

I don't know... foreign investment was already on a pretty bleak downward trend with Harper in charge. Telling Sovereign Foreign National companies they aren't allowed to transact on deals negotiated in good faith on the basis of "national interest" will do that. So they're out of the "investing in billion dollar mega projects" game here. Not going to get better being lectured on their lack of gender parity in leadership roles, I'd guess as well. Nothing to do with carbon pricing.

Trillion dollar fund managers are refusing to back CEOs that are not supportive of Paris accord measures, and that trend is accelerating. So our incumbent producers that have billion dollar price tag projects are going to lick their taints and call it ice cream until the sun goes down to keep in their good graces. This is playing out globally and is not just a Canadian issue.

Globally integrated majors have plenty of options and Canada is not attractive for one reason. You have no certainty when cash flows come on should you commit.

Having a very opaque and risk heavy federal project approval process that is also frought with underlying First Nations rights uncertainty is in my opinion THE reason investment is going to pass on Canada until we can sort it out. Bickering about carbon pricing feels like a red herring to me... because it is VERY effective at polarizing people into Conservative/Non-conservative divisions. Changing it back isn't going to open the floodgates of external investment when those bigger trends are at play.

Certainly our dear leaders and their visions of a globally integrated planned economy have not helped, and the way they're rolling out a carbon price is not how I would do it... but

[GGG]

Originally Posted by crazy_eoj

You can't just change accepted definitions to suit your personal preference. And it's not zero spending, nobody is arguing that, but it's minimized spending.

You can call Nenshi many things, but fiscal conservative certainly isn't one of them.

He’s held operational spending below pop growth plus inflation. So on the operational side I think he has been a fiscal conservative. He implemented continuous review processes and zero based budgeting procedures to cut and contain costs. Lost in the tax increases is that the operational side has been flat.

On the capital side I would agree that fiscal conservatism does not describe his approach.

[crazy_eoj]

Originally Posted by GGG

He’s held operational spending below pop growth plus inflation. So on the operational side I think he has been a fiscal conservative. He implemented continuous review processes and zero based budgeting procedures to cut and contain costs. Lost in the tax increases is that the operational side has been flat.

I don't think that's true unless you are willing to take the City's own explanation of why they count inflation as double (or more) the rest of Canada. (answer: their inflation rate is mainly higher from self-negotiated raises in salary and compensation)

If you use CPI data the spending has far outpaced pop+inflation.