Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[StickMan]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Do you believe that Danielle Smith wouldn't tell a lie to get elected? She's got a pretty #### record so far, but if you want to prove yourself gullible...

I know that Rachel Notley will lie to get elected. Last time she won she froze non-union public sector pay and implemented a carbon tax. Then proceeded to screw up the oil industry and break electricity contracts costing us billions, pissed off farmers. She doesn't do what is best for Alberta, she just implements her extreme left-wing playbook until the end of her term and then pretends to care just before the election. She got voted out with a vengeance, and none of you can even remember why. Such short memories people have, which I guess is good for politics.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by StickMan

I know that Rachel Notley will lie to get elected. Last time she won she froze public sector pay and implemented a carbon tax. Then proceeded to screw up the oil industry and break electricity contracts costing us billions. She doesn't do what is best for Alberta, she just implements her extreme left-wing playbook until the end of her term and then pretends to care just before the election. She got voted out with a vengeance, and none of you can even remember why. Such short memories people have, which I guess is good for politics.

All of us remember exactly what she did. Are you faulting her for negotiating a union contact at 0%? Seems good fiscal management given the time(and strongly goes against a lot of Conservative talking points about the NDP, so probably best you don't bring it up again, lest you look a little daft). She implemented a carbon tax because we were getting one no matter what. And we did, once Kenney bailed, the Federal one was implemented. So you can't fault her on that, either. She didn't screw up the oil industry, that was global. Go look it up, if your memory isn't great. The PPA's were a mistake. So you are 1/4.


Oh, and she didn't get voted out with a vengeance, the right united to form crazy town, and rural Alberta and Calgary capitulated, not knowing the extent of Kenney's ####ery before the election.


Work on your memory, it is deeply flawed.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Work on your memory, it is deeply flawed.

He’s just a liar. Did the same thing in the federal election thread. Which, honestly was even crazier because he didn’t have to lie to criticize Trudeau and still did it anyway.

Like a Yoho with opinions instead of retweets. Ugly stuff.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Do you believe that Danielle Smith wouldn't tell a lie to get elected? She's got a pretty #### record so far, but if you want to prove yourself gullible...

Technically she won't even have to lie, it's all in the wording.


"we are committing to all Albertans that under no circumstances will any Albertan ever have to pay out-of-pocket to see their family doctor or to get the medical treatment they need

a UCP government, under my leadership, will not de-list any medical services or prescriptions now covered by Alberta Health Insurance. No exceptions."

You see, lets just say for arguments sake that 85% of our healthcare is publicly funded and available for all. If she changes that to 40% and the other 60% available privately at extra cost to us all..... technically that 40% is still there if you want it, don't have to pay out of pocket either..... but you may now have to wait 6 years for a specialist instead of 2. And she didn't lie, promise kept.

Future Danielle Smith: "See, I didn't say you probably would have to, I only said you didn't absolutely have to."

[Muta]

Also, remember when the NDP wanted to move oil by railcar, ensuring our product gets to market in absence of any pipeline, and the UCP cancelled that, at the taxpayers' expense no less, just because 'NDP bad'?

Fiscal stewards, the UCP are not.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Muta

Also, remember when the NDP wanted to move oil by railcar, ensuring our product gets to market in absence of any pipeline, and the UCP cancelled that, at the taxpayers' expense no less, just because 'NDP bad'?

Fiscal stewards, the UCP are not.

That contract was for way more than the value of the oil transport though. So the choices were "lose this money over time" or "pay a fee to get out of it". The UCP has enough bad fiscal choices without blaming them for the bad fiscal choices of the NDP as well

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Technically she won't even have to lie, it's all in the wording.


"we are committing to all Albertans that under no circumstances will any Albertan ever have to pay out-of-pocket to see their family doctor or to get the medical treatment they need

a UCP government, under my leadership, will not de-list any medical services or prescriptions now covered by Alberta Health Insurance. No exceptions."

You see, lets just say for arguments sake that 85% of our healthcare is publicly funded and available for all. If she changes that to 40% and the other 60% available privately at extra cost to us all..... technically that 40% is still there if you want it, don't have to pay out of pocket either..... but you may now have to wait 6 years for a specialist instead of 2. And she didn't lie, promise kept.

Future Danielle Smith: "See, I didn't say you probably would have to, I only said you didn't absolutely have to."

Damn!
Danielle has spent the last couple months using “Imprecise Language” as a ruse to cover up when she is using incredibly precise language.
Bravo Danielle. You almost deserve this one!

[DFO]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That contract was for way more than the value of the oil transport though. So the choices were "lose this money over time" or "pay a fee to get out of it". The UCP has enough bad fiscal choices without blaming them for the bad fiscal choices of the NDP as well

I don’t recall much transparency with regards to the UCP’s number crunching and rationale behind the decision. What would be the economics of the rail contracts in today’s oil price & differential environment?

[bagofpucks]

Orange lawn sign is officially up, I think the over/under for vandalism is probably 4 days, but we’ll see.

[LanceUppercut]

Former PC supporter here:


Anyone who is pro-plague rats, pro-trucker convoy, pro-De Santis, pro Trump deserves to be nowhere near public office. These fringe lunatics like Take Back Alberta should be no where near the levers of power.


That disqualifies our current premier and her party from my consideration.. and since there is only one alternative I have to vote NDP.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That contract was for way more than the value of the oil transport though. So the choices were "lose this money over time" or "pay a fee to get out of it". The UCP has enough bad fiscal choices without blaming them for the bad fiscal choices of the NDP as well

Do you by chance know how much more per barrel it would have cost under that deal in comparison to the current costs of shipping oil by rail?

[cral12]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1653527665033486338

https://twitter.com/user/status/1653571274424356865

[cral12]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That contract was for way more than the value of the oil transport though. So the choices were "lose this money over time" or "pay a fee to get out of it". The UCP has enough bad fiscal choices without blaming them for the bad fiscal choices of the NDP as well

I question the accuracy of this. Detailed analysis of this that I saw (from close friends who consult in this area) show otherwise, that this was yet another dud UCP decision. I'd like to see proof otherwise.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That contract was for way more than the value of the oil transport though. So the choices were "lose this money over time" or "pay a fee to get out of it". The UCP has enough bad fiscal choices without blaming them for the bad fiscal choices of the NDP as well

The analysis would have to go a lot deeper, but on the surface, if oil by rail facilitates more production you get:

- more royalties
- more labour hours --> more income taxes (and perhaps less EI/other social services demanded)

So the 'lose money over time' scenario you may still more/less break even...especially on the royalty side once prices rebounded?


This is the big thing - NDP "mistakes" tend to have a silver lining, because they are actually well intentioned. I think it was GGG who made the point earlier that even though GoA took a financial loss on the PPAs, many/most Albertans ended up having this offset on their electricity bills. And some Albertans likely mitigated deleterious health impacts from living near coal generation, likely meaning reduced healthcare costs over time.

Indirect and difficult to quantify, but I struggle to imagine any silver linings to things like the war room or Keystone debacles.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That contract was for way more than the value of the oil transport though. So the choices were "lose this money over time" or "pay a fee to get out of it". The UCP has enough bad fiscal choices without blaming them for the bad fiscal choices of the NDP as well

Also it was sold to the private sector rather than canceled so takeaway capacity didn’t really change. That said once we were losing money I would have kept it as it would have provided competition against CP/CN for space once we have excess takeaway so should have reduced price for rail takeaway vs the oligopoly

Once it was a sunk cost I think it should have been kept.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by StickMan

I know that Rachel Notley will lie to get elected. Last time she won she froze non-union public sector pay and implemented a carbon tax. Then proceeded to screw up the oil industry and break electricity contracts costing us billions, pissed off farmers. She doesn't do what is best for Alberta, she just implements her extreme left-wing playbook until the end of her term and then pretends to care just before the election. She got voted out with a vengeance, and none of you can even remember why. Such short memories people have, which I guess is good for politics.

Said unironically in a democracy that elected a single party for 45 straight years, and may do so again in spite of the ridiculous farce that is currently underway.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

The analysis would have to go a lot deeper, but on the surface, if oil by rail facilitates more production you get:

- more royalties
- more labour hours --> more income taxes (and perhaps less EI/other social services demanded)

So the 'lose money over time' scenario you may still more/less break even...especially on the royalty side once prices rebounded?

Rail capacity existed before, during, and after the contract ended. So it doesn't really affect any of those things except to the extent Alberta producers couldn't economically bid for that capacity, and when differentials are high that isn't an issue, its more that when differentials are low and there is enough pipeline egress they don't want rail. So keeping them wouldn't make any difference to royalties because the same amount of capacity exists either way, just now its privately owned vs publicly owned.

The price of the contract ended up being higher than the long term cost of rail capacity, because they locked in for a long time when prices were high.

As an analogy, the NDP locked into a long term fixed rate when interest rates were high.

Like I said before, if Muta wants to pick on the UCPs fiscal record I'm 100% there and ready to pile on. Keystone XL and the war room are both uncontestable fiscal disasters.

But the oil by rail contract was an NDP fiscal mistake not a UCP one, so trying to hang it on them isn't reasonable.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by StickMan

"we are committing to all Albertans that under no circumstances will any Albertan ever have to pay out-of-pocket to see their family doctor or to get the medical treatment they need

Family doctor…

How about a specialist? Are they part of this “commitment”?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Spurs

It is pretty crazy that on CP there isn't a single reasonable UCP supporter that has spoken up to give even one kind of non-ridiculous reason to vote for UCP over NDP. It shows the state of the party and its supporters that it has finally turned into what it was accused of being for so long and that is a party based solely on voting for team colors over anything else.

I am sure there are many here that are otherwise considered rational posters that are keeping quiet because they can see how easy it is to rip apart any of the flimsy reasons they came up with but you would think they would at least have something to hold on that couldn't be ripped apart easily and that clearly isn't the case.

I would argue that politics and religion are 2 topics that many people don't like to talk about. Like what's the point when people have already made up their minds on which party they support. For example I have a couple of friends who are die hard Trump supporters and no amount of discussion on my part is going to change their minds. It's waste of time so I don't bother. Maybe there are UCP supporters on this forum who feel the same way.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Do you believe that Danielle Smith wouldn't tell a lie to get elected? She's got a pretty #### record so far, but if you want to prove yourself gullible...

All politicians will lie or do whatever it takes to get elected.