Alberta Politics Thread v2

[DJones]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

And there was the whole we're not getting our fair share and we'll review royalties, essentially putting new investment on hold waiting for the governments review. Then to have them come back and say, yeah, well, I guess we are actually getting our fair share.
All at the cusp of the downturn.

Guess it depends on his definition of short term. No, nothing either party do will affect economic metrics within a month or two. But six months is certainly possible with a different direction.

[CaptainCrunch]

Leonardo DiCaprio opens his mouth again.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1093998640392220673

[8 Ball]

If I'm Leo, I would park a huge yacht off the coast of BC, and helicopter my ass to protests. Do what I say, not what I do style.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by 8 Ball

If I'm Leo, I would park a huge yacht off the coast of BC, and helicopter my ass to protests. Do what I say, not what I do style.

I wonder if the name of his yacht is hypocrisy.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by DJones

Guess it depends on his definition of short term. No, nothing either party do will affect economic metrics within a month or two. But six months is certainly possible with a different direction.

Two months after the election, "see, I told you nothing would change." two years after the election, "see, I told you things would change regardless..."

[GGG]

Originally Posted by DJones

That's nonsense.

Tax increases, coal shutdown, mortgage stress test, minimum wage increase, pipeline blockages, increased regulations, interest rate hike, messing with the balance pool. Hell, an idiot involved in approving permits can screw everything up.

Governments affect the economy in countless ways.

Sorry I should have said the government has little ability to have a positive affect on the short term economy. Your are correct you can #### with it.

But even then in the Alberta Oil Market the price - not taxation, royalty review, etc is what caused the current situation. All of the things you listed above had a minuscule affect on where we are today.

What is the best case right now with perfect governance 20 billion less debt and 1% less unemployment? Even that is likely overstating it.

[CliffFletcher]

No doubt it's just a coincidence that Alberta separatist sentiment tracks inversely to the price of oil.

https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/cru...-history-chart

Reform Party: 1987 - 2000.

[8 Ball]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

I wonder if the name of his yacht is hypocrisy.

HMS Holier Than Thou

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GGG

Sorry I should have said the government has little ability to have a positive affect on the short term economy. Your are correct you can #### with it.

But even then in the Alberta Oil Market the price - not taxation, royalty review, etc is what caused the current situation. All of the things you listed above had a minuscule affect on where we are today.

What is the best case right now with perfect governance 20 billion less debt and 1% less unemployment? Even that is likely overstating it.

I don't know if I agree with you, the NDP came in and unleashed almost like a flurry of punches. Changed tax rates, minimum wage, royalty reviews, carbon taxes, combined with a sluggish slow approval system for projects that became cloudier.



It might take time for it to peculate through the economy, but it did kick the legs out of investor confidence in Alberta, and while it might take some time, its like pulling bricks out of the bottom of a Jango tower, it might wobble and shake and hold up for a while but eventually its going to collapse.


Investor confidence is a fundamental load bearing beam in any economy. Eventually we're going to see it collapse. On a Federal Level we're starting to see the same kind of issues and economic wobbliness happening.


It might have taken 4 years, which economically is a short period of time, but that flurry of punches that the NDP landed were an example of too many too quickly. The problem is that the recovery from that loss of investor confidence takes a lot longer to recover from, they're not just going to flood back in with a UCP government, that's where people are fooling themselves. The other problem with investor confidence in Alberta is its now heavily tied to the Federal Governments policies and programs because the Federal Government basically made it that way with things like touting Bill C-69 and Bill C-48 and their records on pipelines.


When we lost that flood of foreign investment it went elsewhere and its going to take years to get it back.


Yes a Government can do fundamental Damage in a short period of time, it just takes years for it to come to the surface.

[GGG]

Sask didn’t have the NDP government and are they measurably better?

$50 WTI is a bigger reason for the lack of investment along with the pipeline problem which further depresses price. The rest of it doesn’t really matter. Neither of those to issues are NDP faults nor things the UCP can solve.

[Dion]

Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel ineligible to run, plans to take issue to court

Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel is ineligible to run for election until 2023, but he says he will take the matter to court.

Mandel, who plans to run in Edmonton-McClung, is listed on the Elections Alberta website as being ineligible to run in an election for five years.

The list generally includes candidates who have failed to file their financial statements on time, said Elections Alberta spokesman Drew Westwater.

Mandel and five other Alberta Party candidates who are listed as ineligible can go to court and ask for a waiver, he added.

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/pol...issue-to-court

Update on Mandel

Alberta Party Leader Stephen Mandel says he only recently learned that his paperwork hadn’t been filed on time with Elections Alberta after missing a September deadline that resulted in a five-year ban from running. He plans to take the issue to court.

“My CFO was sick,” Mandel said at a Saturday news conference, adding he learned of the problem on Jan. 30. “He missed some of the dates. That’s part of the reason we’re here today.”

In a July letter sent to Mandel, Elections Alberta spelled out a Sept. 12 deadline for him to file his campaign expenses for his nomination contest in Edmonton-McClung. The paperwork was filed on Sept. 27.

The party has taken issue with the deadlines outlined in legislation, arguing that Mandel’s paperwork was filed within four months of the end of his nomination contest.

“Mr. Mandel’s contest closed two months after he was selected,” said a letter sent from Mandel’s lawyer to Elections Alberta, arguing that it would mean the campaign statement was due in November.

Elections Alberta said the nomination contest was held May 12, 2018, which set out the September deadline.

When reporters asked Mandel what he’ll do if he can’t resolve the issue in court, Mandel said other options will then be considered.

“We will deal with a Plan B at that point in time,” he said. “Right now our plan is to go to court.”

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/pol...r-election-ban

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GGG

Sask didn’t have the NDP government and are they measurably better?

$50 WTI is a bigger reason for the lack of investment along with the pipeline problem which further depresses price. The rest of it doesn’t really matter. Neither of those to issues are NDP faults nor things the UCP can solve.

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/co...rtas-young-men

University of Calgary associate economics professor Trevor Tombe has crunched Statistics Canada’s latest numbers released Friday and discovered that in January the share of young men employed reached the lowest level on record. Ever since records have been kept, starting in 1967, the number of young men without a job has never been higher.

Outside of the oil price collapse, Alberta’s woes, however, really started, he says, when Rachel Notley first announced upon becoming premier in May 2015 that she would review Alberta’s royalty rates for the province’s energy sector, which “created great uncertainty and spooked investment.” Ultimately, Notley, to her credit, didn’t raise royalty rates, but in the almost one-year review period, investment interest just dried up, says Mintz.


“Raising the corporate taxes in Alberta didn’t help and then the carbon taxes were a big negative, as well as the personal tax hikes,” he said.
Then comes the regulatory quagmire for energy projects. While most regulatory issues for pipeline projects are federal, even provincially regulated projects take much too long, added Mintz, who sits on the board of Imperial Oil.


“You talk to Imperial Oil and it took five years for the Aspen in situ oilsands development project near Fort McMurray to get approved by the Alberta government and you talk to people in the sector and they’ll talk about the slowness of the Alberta regulatory system whereas in Texas you can get a drill approved in a month or two. So some of those things were inherited from the past, but it’s been death by a thousand cuts,” said Mintz in a telephone interview Friday.

Mintz says even if all of the above provincial issues are addressed in the next few months, either by a change in government in the coming spring election or with radical policy changes, investors are well aware of federal issues, particularly Bill C-69, is going to be “disastrous” for the sector.


“Then there’s the tanker ban on the West Coast, and even if Trans Mountain Pipeline does get built, the concern is Alberta is still not a good place to invest even if there’s a better and more accommodative provincial government,” said Mintz.


“This is what happens when policy is made for ideological reasons and you don’t want to listen to the experts,” added Mintz.
Yes, folks, policy matters — a lot. In five short years, Canada has gone from one of the best places in the world to invest capital to one where capital is fleeing.

[Manhattanboy]

We are so $&@!ed it’s just unbelievable.

[Dion]

Mudslining taken to another level

The writ hasn't been dropped and it's all ready getting nasty. Looks like the UCP have gone off the deep end.

Twitter list of NDP staff launched by UCP-affiliated account draws criticism

A list of NDP staffers created by a Twitter account associated with UCP Leader Jason Kenney’s office drew criticism Saturday, while comments posted with the list defended it as a way to point out partisan tweets made during government hours.

The Twitter account Unite Alberta shared the list Friday, along with the message: “Since many NDP staffers seem to spend their days (and nights) tweeting, have attempted to create a Twitter list using public data. Some openly disclose that they work for the NDP Govt, but others do not reveal (trying to look organic?).”

The list included more than 70 people as of Saturday evening, including communications staff and constituency employees. Some Twitter users criticized the action as an “enemies list” that could invite harassment, while others made light of it and thanked the account for creating a list of NDP supporters to follow.

The Unite Alberta account posted a follow-up tweet to its initial post that read: “For those asking, yes, Alberta NDP Govt staff tweeting partisan tripe by day is relevant to the public. Especially true when NDP staff don’t reveal their partisan affiliation. Twitter is a public forum. It’s not like we revealed where someone’s mother lives.”

Mount Royal University policy studies professor Lori Williams said the question “can certainly be raised” about whether people are doing partisan work on government time.

“The proper expenditure of government funds might be an issue related to this,” she said.

However, she added, it could be hard to establish whether a substantial amount of work time is being devoted to partisan tweets and taking away from the obligation to do work for Albertans generally, rather than on a partisan basis.

“(Due to) devices that we carry with us everywhere, the delineation between work for your employer and other activities — those lines are very much more blurred now,” Williams said.

“I think it would be harder to establish that those folks, just because of the time at which they access social media, that they were actually taking time away from taxpayers.”

Williams said she does worry about “the potential for weaponizing Twitter.”

https://calgaryherald.com/news/polit...raws-criticism

[Dion]

The twitter account for the above.

https://twitter.com/UniteAlberta

https://twitter.com/user/status/1093988067151470592

[Locke]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/co...rtas-young-men

So....the obvious.

Raising taxes, raising minimum wage and the royalty review while facing an economic downturn was just stupid.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Locke

So....the obvious.

Raising taxes, raising minimum wage and the royalty review while facing an economic downturn was just stupid.

But...social license baby!!

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by transplant99

But...social license baby!!

Wasnt that for the carbon tax only?

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Wasnt that for the carbon tax only?

To get pipelines built actually.

Epic fail and that's being generous.

One of my favorite opinion pieces on it.

In the belief that it would somehow bring the enemies of her province’s prosperity onside, she took aim at the economy, already reeling from the collapse in oil prices, and laid on hefty new climate regulations and a carbon tax. Coal-fired power is to be phased out and everyone in the province will have to swallow a hike in energy costs. None of this will make any difference to the global climate, of course, nor will it have more than a minuscule effect on air pollution. But that was never the point. A display of provincial self-flagellation and adoption of the boilerplate alarmist climate rhetoric was the apparent fee for a social licence for new pipelines and continued expansion of the oilsands.

We know how that worked out. Days after Notley’s announcement, President Obama killed the Keystone XL pipeline. Then, newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau banned tanker traffic along B.C.’s north coast, killing new west-coast pipeline proposals, including Northern Gateway. B.C. Premier Christy Clark continues to drag her feet on supporting Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to Vancouver. And eastern mayors, led by Denis Coderre of Montreal, launched a PR offensive against the Energy East pipeline.

https://business.financialpost.com/o...n-actual-thing

[Ozy_Flame]

Yes, the carbon tax was a new tax, but why is the social license being applied to the minimum wage and royalty review?