Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Slava

This is an excellent example of (l)iberals who think they're right and have no care actually to get elected. Reading this kind of thing is so hilariously naive. Do you remember the last election where the NDP announced their tax increase on the day of the debate, and it essentially cost them the election?

It's this kind of complete lack of awareness that sets us up for four more years of wondering why people could vote for the UCP, and how in the world we end up with a separatist-pandering government.

It also shows a (not surprising) complete lack of familiarity with the broader Alberta O&G industry, which is fairly unique in the world.

See, in most regions, companies set capex budgets and use that money to hire workers and drill wells... rinse and repeat as new discoveries are made and new wells drilled... You need this many people to find the oil, this many people to drill the well, etc etc

With the oil sands in Alberta, enormous capex budgets are set in order to design and construct facilities (by hiring many, many people) that are many magnitudes of scale larger than your typical single rig well... This front loads the vast majority of the expense (capex) of the projects to get things up and running, but after that the ongoing opex is relatively minimal and unfortunately, a lot of the personnel required to get things up and running are no longer needed.

Alberta oil is now some of the lowest cost per barrel out there.

I'm not saying the royalty formula is perfect (and would welcome a review), but decrying the job losses and "doing more with less" belies a (again, not surprising) lack of basic familiarity of the business structure some are so keen to attack.

[Duruss]

More newspapers running articles about how bad ADAP is. This legislation is going to kill people.

Jason Nixon, the Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services, calls ADAP modernized and employment-focused and has dismissed claims of cuts as “misinformation.”

https://www.stalbertgazette.com/loca...verty-11554988

https://medicinehatnews.com/news/loc...rovinces-mind/

[Slava]

Wow, now the new CEO of AHS is out also. He was there for 10 months, and it's pretty clear that not only is this government enacting terrible policies and doing entirely disgusting things, but they're also incompetent.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Duruss

More newspapers running articles about how bad ADAP is. This legislation is going to kill people.

Jason Nixon, the Minister of Seniors, Community and Social Services, calls ADAP modernized and employment-focused and has dismissed claims of cuts as “misinformation.”

https://www.stalbertgazette.com/loca...verty-11554988

https://medicinehatnews.com/news/loc...rovinces-mind/

I'd like Mr Nixon to explain to all of us why disability supports should be "employment-focused" as a priority, and why that is important enough to foist unnecessary costs(Dr's forms aren't free) on people already in poverty. Must be a good Jesus sourced reason, because it's gonna be mental hell on a lot of people.

Oh, right. The cruelty IS the point.

“The Ministry of Assisted Living and Social Services has not acknowledged the harm that Albertans with disabilities will face,” Ney said. He pointed out that the changes stem from reduced benefits, the removal of inflation indexing, tighter eligibility rules, added stress and costs from new adjudication and repeat assessments, as well as the elimination of appeal rights. “No mitigation strategies for rural communities have been made public,” he added.

https://www.stalbertgazette.com/loca...verty-11554988

How the #### do they eliminate your right to appeal? So what, you have trouble with the forms, get denied, can't appeal, so just get told you must work if you want disability supports, and if you can't because, oh, ####, I dunno, your DISABLED, you what, just go live on the streets until you die?

Gillian Petit, a senior research associate at the University of Calgary’s economics department, most people on AISH or ADAP will receive lower personal benefits than before the changes were implemented.

“Purportedly, they’re doing this on behalf of the disability community, but they haven’t talked to the disability community, and no one I’ve talked to have said this is a benefit to them. Part of the difficulty here is they’re leading with legislation, and there’s still a lot of details unknown. So I think they’ve created a lot of fear and anxiety about the future,” he said.

https://medicinehatnews.com/news/loc...rovinces-mind/

"The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats it's most vulnerable members." -Mahatma Ghandi.

I guess that tells us that we are a bunch of Cuuuuuunts

[Eric Vail]

This afternoon, the Alberta Government announced they will be directing more money towards mental health supports in schools. This is funding that had already been promised in Budget 2025. In response, Alberta Teachers' Association president Jason Schilling has released the following statement.

"Today’s announcement of more money being directed to mental health supports in schools is nothing more than the government polishing up an old funding commitment that was made almost a year ago in Budget 2025. This is not new money. It’s money that was promised nine months ago but that has not been acted upon.

These budgeted funds should have been available to the school boards at the beginning of the school year, not in December. This is nothing more than an attempt to make it look like the government is doing something about an education issue that was thrust into the spotlight during the teachers’ recent job action."

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Slava

The GST is already removed from household essentials.

But overall, I’m so glad you’re not running the policy for the NDP, because I’m pretty sure that a bunch of those ideas would be politically suicidal, and I really want the UCP out ASAP.

Not charging PST and hiring Auditors to backcharge tax cheats?

Those are the only two ideas I said.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by #-3

Not charging PST and hiring Auditors to backcharge tax cheats?

Those are the only two ideas I said.

I was responding to Wolven and didn’t quote them because it’s a lengthy post and I was right under theirs.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Slava

Do you remember the last election where the NDP announced their tax increase on the day of the debate, and it essentially cost them the election?

I call bull#### on this. It's just a convenient excuse for deplorable ####s who voted for evil ####s.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I call bull#### on this. It's just a convenient excuse for deplorable ####s who voted for evil ####s.

Well you can take that approach, but that’s plain naivety. The entire concern was that the NDP would be detrimental financially, so they being the platform out with a tax increase the morning of the debate. That definitely cost them votes and gave Smith a ton of ammo for the debate.

[Major Major]

Originally Posted by Slava

Well you can take that approach, but that’s plain naivety. The entire concern was that the NDP would be detrimental financially, so they being the platform out with a tax increase the morning of the debate. That definitely cost them votes and gave Smith a ton of ammo for the debate.

OK. But they need to build a tax base. Any mention associated with this is poison. Just ask Jim Prentice. So what do you do? Lie about it? That's a terrible idea. Be up front and hope people are getting smarter? Seems to be the only path to sustainable success.

[calf]

Originally Posted by Major Major

OK. But they need to build a tax base. Any mention associated with this is poison. Just ask Jim Prentice. So what do you do? Lie about it? That's a terrible idea. Be up front and hope people are getting smarter? Seems to be the only path to sustainable success.

I'd choose gaslighting.

During the campaign "we don't plan to increase taxes"

Soon after winning the election "the UCP left the province in worse shape than we realized due to their incompetence/corruption. Services are already bare-bone with no room left to cut, so we have to raise taxes to dig ourselves out of the mess they left us in, but we will still.be the lowest taxed.province in the country". Four years later it's a distant memory

[Mr.Coffee]

My wife, a RN, has decided to instead pursue a career in teaching (lol).

Here’s some anecdotes from her shift today for a little lens into the state of Alberta healthcare:

- Children’s hospital @ 155% capacity
- they ran out of sheets for kids, so some admitted kids don’t have blankets or sheets
- the new hospital was made too small. Calgary / AB population has obviously exploded so it’s woefully inadequate. There’s room for expansion, but the gov won’t do it because they’re ####ing brutal.
- before she can start her shift she needs access to a computer so she can see the meds her assigned patients are on. There aren’t enough computers, because of the 14 on shift nurses there’s only 8-9 functioning computers. Apparently each nurse must have their own for a variety of reasons. So she went off scouring the hallways and managed to find one but it needed IT support that didn’t exist. By the time she cobbled one together in a hallway and got it working she was well over an hour into her shift so some patients went missing meds. There are no people around to help them with this task and apparently this is a huge issue, causing a large risk for health care on her unit.
- in her experience (20 yrs at Children’s) they’ve never been this full. The Nurse manager is supposed to go call in nurses to help cover (it’s called being “mandated” and you must come in- it isn’t optional) but the nurse manager refuses to do it because it costs too much money (or the nurses off shift are resting because they literally just finished a shift).
- patients in hallways, one patient in a closet

Extremely busy place, not the best care going on. Doctors stressed to the max too. Sounds like a real #### show for sure. Hope your kid doesn’t get sick.

[Fuzz]

If healthy Albertans that have never really experienced our healthcare system knew just how common stuff like that is, and how it feels to be on the receiving end they might just stop voting for the most incompetent, vindictive, failure to function as a governing party. They'd be ashamed of what they made. Sick kids in closets with no sheets and late meds. That's what your voting has done over decades. Wake THE #### UP.

And yes, I remember this same sort of situation back in 2010 when my wife was stuffed at the end of a hallway in the birthing ward with care instructions to be kept in a calm quite location(no, she wasn't pregnant). And me having to porter her through the basement tunnels to see a heart specialist because we had no $15 an hour porters to bring patients to high paid specialists wasting time wondering where the #### their patient is. But hey, they probably saved some big dollars by short staffing the cheapest part of the process.

The fact it's still happening today is a great commentary on the same ####ty ideas leading to the same ####ty results by the same ####ty people elected by the same ####ty voters.

[CliffFletcher]

It’s happening in every province under every government. Your wife would have had the same experience in Manitoba, Ontario, or Quebec. Alberta actually has shorter wait times than most provinces.

https://www.iedm.org/canadians-are-w...mergency-room/

The root problem is demographics and under-capacity. We’ve seen this coming for decades, but no party in any province has been able to address it, because the electorate hates every possible remedy (higher taxes, means-testing, private insurance, etc).

[Fuzz]

The same bull#### excuses we hear for decades. The same garbage lies spewed by our media and particularly radio show hosts like Danielle ####in' Smith who go on and on about taxes being too high, taxed to death, all that nonsense that convinces people to agree with their lies and vote Conservative.


I don't care about the rest of Canada and their failures and challenges. I care that we live in a province with massive fiscal capacity, low taxes and governments who make the same stupid decisions that ensure we are stuck in a continual mode of failure. If you under-fund and under resource everything, and convince your population they don't need vaccines, and then you ####ing charge them for it, you are gonna have problems.


Stop making excuses. These are solvable problems. Just not by people who believe government is a business that succeeds quarter by quarter and exists to enrich their people. No surprise Cliff "let's not do anything ever" Fletcher has to chime in with his usual conclusion.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by calf

I'd choose gaslighting.

During the campaign "we don't plan to increase taxes"

Soon after winning the election "the UCP left the province in worse shape than we realized due to their incompetence/corruption. Services are already bare-bone with no room left to cut, so we have to raise taxes to dig ourselves out of the mess they left us in, but we will still.be the lowest taxed.province in the country". Four years later it's a distant memory

Sure, or just constant redirection. When they ask about taxes you can switch gears to your top 5 list:

• How about Smith overriding your rights by using the notwithstanding clause multiple times?
• What I find interesting is how Smith is encouraging gender investigations against young girls but not young boys, what does she have against 12 year old girls?
• Isn't it interesting that under Smith insurance and utility costs are so out of control that you can barely afford to pay your bills?
• Let's talk about how about Smith is destroying AHS and being so completely corrupt and incompetent that she has been trying to destroy any semblance of an investigation into the scandals?
• We should reflect on how the UCP's constant attacking of the education system is making things constantly worse for the kids of Alberta?

Once people have heard those a few times each, roll out the next 5.

As for the campaign, this was something that came up with watching the Mamdami campaign. His opponents always talked about how much he is going to tax the rich, but he never brings up taxes, he just brings up his list of things that he plans to get done. So really, the NDP in campaign mode just need to talk about the outcomes they are going to achieve:

• Revoking the NWC usage and making it harder for the NWC to be used again in the future.
• Fixing Healthcare
• Fixing Education
• Addressing cost of living (Affordability)
• Addressing housing costs (Affordability)
• Raising the minimum wage
• Bringing back ethics in government

These are the talking points for the campaign. Anyone with a light bulb in their head knows what will need to happen to work on these things but the results are the priority and what should be focused on. With the degree the UCP has attacked so many of these systems there is going to need to be a significant response that will take years to execute before we see results.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

The same bull#### excuses we hear for decades. The same garbage lies spewed by our media and particularly radio show hosts like Danielle ####in' Smith who go on and on about taxes being too high, taxed to death, all that nonsense that convinces people to agree with their lies and vote Conservative.


I don't care about the rest of Canada and their failures and challenges. I care that we live in a province with massive fiscal capacity, low taxes and governments who make the same stupid decisions that ensure we are stuck in a continual mode of failure. If you under-fund and under resource everything, and convince your population they don't need vaccines, and then you ####ing charge them for it, you are gonna have problems.


Stop making excuses. These are solvable problems. Just not by people who believe government is a business that succeeds quarter by quarter and exists to enrich their people. No surprise Cliff "let's not do anything ever" Fletcher has to chime in with his usual conclusion.

I don't need to defend Cliff, but in this case, he's not wrong.

This isn't a problem exclusive to the AB UCP; all governments everywhere essentially make getting (re)elected their number one priority and all other policy decisions fall far down the list. Especially those like investing heavily in healthcare well ahead of the demographic disaster we have coming up.

Provincially, the UCP learned it from Prentice's "Look in the mirror comment" (probably the most honest and on-the-nose comment ever made by a conservative politician in Alberta) and the NDPs corporate tax increase - saying and doing the right thing doesn't get (or keep) you elected.

I'm in no way saying that how the UCP is treating healthcare is in any way right, but I think it's naive to think that getting a government to doing the right thing is easy. I think Calf is right - the only way is to flat out lie to get elected, then do the right thing and hope that 4 years is enough time for people to calm down and forget (hopefully by enacting those lies quickly enough to demonstrably make people's lives better)...

[Fuzz]

More lies...I guess that's the solution. Lie lie lie.


I remember when there used to be consequences for that.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

My wife, a RN, has decided to instead pursue a career in teaching (lol).

Here’s some anecdotes from her shift today for a little lens into the state of Alberta healthcare:

- Children’s hospital @ 155% capacity
- they ran out of sheets for kids, so some admitted kids don’t have blankets or sheets
- the new hospital was made too small. Calgary / AB population has obviously exploded so it’s woefully inadequate. There’s room for expansion, but the gov won’t do it because they’re ####ing brutal.
- before she can start her shift she needs access to a computer so she can see the meds her assigned patients are on. There aren’t enough computers, because of the 14 on shift nurses there’s only 8-9 functioning computers. Apparently each nurse must have their own for a variety of reasons. So she went off scouring the hallways and managed to find one but it needed IT support that didn’t exist. By the time she cobbled one together in a hallway and got it working she was well over an hour into her shift so some patients went missing meds. There are no people around to help them with this task and apparently this is a huge issue, causing a large risk for health care on her unit.
- in her experience (20 yrs at Children’s) they’ve never been this full. The Nurse manager is supposed to go call in nurses to help cover (it’s called being “mandated” and you must come in- it isn’t optional) but the nurse manager refuses to do it because it costs too much money (or the nurses off shift are resting because they literally just finished a shift).
- patients in hallways, one patient in a closet

Extremely busy place, not the best care going on. Doctors stressed to the max too. Sounds like a real #### show for sure. Hope your kid doesn’t get sick.

That career choice is like getting traded from the Winnipeg Jets to the Edmonton Oilers.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

The same bull#### excuses we hear for decades. The same garbage lies spewed by our media and particularly radio show hosts like Danielle ####in' Smith who go on and on about taxes being too high, taxed to death, all that nonsense that convinces people to agree with their lies and vote Conservative.


I don't care about the rest of Canada and their failures and challenges. I care that we live in a province with massive fiscal capacity, low taxes and governments who make the same stupid decisions that ensure we are stuck in a continual mode of failure. If you under-fund and under resource everything, and convince your population they don't need vaccines, and then you ####ing charge them for it, you are gonna have problems.


Stop making excuses. These are solvable problems. Just not by people who believe government is a business that succeeds quarter by quarter and exists to enrich their people. No surprise Cliff "let's not do anything ever" Fletcher has to chime in with his usual conclusion.

You don’t care about the rest of Canada? Fygm I guess.

So your solution is what? Raise healthcare workers wages in Alberta high enough to draw from other provinces, leaving them shorter than they already are?

It’s too bad we couldn’t control our population growth to a certain degree, but, alas, the is simply nothing that can be done. Best we try and #### over other provinces within Canada.