Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Mr.Coffee]

I don’t want taxes cut I want health care and education better (properly) funded. UCP just don’t get it.

[calf]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

So when we get our massive property tax increase bills, is everyone going to remember who to blame for them, or are they just gonna rage on Gondek? Will The Dinger set them straight? Stay tuned!


Tax cut my ass.

Sounds like a provincial equalization program

[Rhett44]

Why is every government increasing my property tax? They are all the same.

I don't like Smith or Gondek.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by woob

But NDP were going to raise corp. taxes, ya know!

I’m still pissed at whichever idiot strategist thought that was a good idea to trot out and hand the election over. Honestly, the NDP probably wins that campaign, but someone had to float that and hope that people would ignore it.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Rhett44

Why is every government increasing my property tax? They are all the same.

Well, just like everything else, costs go up and services aren't exempt from that. Just that with Alberta Gov we don't know if those extra revenues will even go to where they should.

[fotze2]

Taxes should be like Safeway where at check out it asks if you want to donate to the diabetes foundation, but it lets you add an additional payment and allocate it to health or education or whatever department(s).

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Slava

I’m still pissed at whichever idiot strategist thought that was a good idea to trot out and hand the election over. Honestly, the NDP probably wins that campaign, but someone had to float that and hope that people would ignore it.

They brought in that economist to show they were serious about financial management (their biggest perceived weakness) and had to raise taxes to show they could balance the budget. I see where they were coming from but what an absolutely stupid move politically.

[woob]

Originally Posted by Slava

I’m still pissed at whichever idiot strategist thought that was a good idea to trot out and hand the election over. Honestly, the NDP probably wins that campaign, but someone had to float that and hope that people would ignore it.

Totally agree. If there was ever a leave it until after you’ve won policy, that was it. It really highlighted the whole hold your nose and vote for them anyways mentality, because fark taxes.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by Slava

I’m still pissed at whichever idiot strategist thought that was a good idea to trot out and hand the election over. Honestly, the NDP probably wins that campaign, but someone had to float that and hope that people would ignore it.

We didn't know yet, that it's okay to run on a certain set of promises, and then go ahead and do hundreds of other policies that you didn't tell anyone about. Telling the truth is so oldfashioned.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Makarov

The goal of treatment is to treat the person's addiction to fentanyl so that they don't use fentanyl (recognizing that relapses and set backs are inevitable and part of the process). Every time someone uses fentanyl, they risk their lives. That is not an overstatement.

And the whole point of involuntary treatment (as opposed to just involuntary detention) is to treat the illness (not just detain the person). I'm no expert in what that treatment looks like or how effective it is (and I certainly appreciate that treating opiate addiction is incredibly difficult), but I come back to... it must be better than doing nothing and just letting people suffer and die on the streets.

I don't know. I don't have the answers. I've spent many, many sleepless nights thinking about this. I know people who have lost children and siblings to this crisis. I've spent hundreds of hours drafting affidavits, cross-examining affiants, cobbling together arguments in facta and in court. I still don't have the answers. But, in this moment, I feel like the status quo is not acceptable.

I am going to jump on this one late and maybe it has been addressed already but maybe we should be funding social services agencies, building multiple supervised consumption sites, and working to alleviate the reasons why people actually start using drugs in the first place.

Look at the statistics, the Indigenous population is significantly more likely to use opioids, become hospitalized due to opioids, and die due to opioids. There are clear socioeconomic and social determinate of health factors associated with substance misuse whether it be alcohol, meth, or fentanyl.

The approach of policing our way out of this or forcing people into rehabilitation facilities to then send them back into the same situation where they were using before is absolutely backwards and doesn't appreciate the complexity of the issue. Substance abuse isn't a personal failing but rather a societal one and one that isn't able to be easily treated.

Personally I think that having a decriminalized approach, trying to have a safer drug supply with smaller supervised consumption sites in strategic locations in all cities. We need to understand that people aren't going to stop using drugs because they are bad for them but we can take a harm reduction approach in combination with actually investing money in early childhood development, education, and social support systems for people who are at risk of developing drug problems. Or we could just keep taking the same approach and build bigger walls while we ignore the scope of the problem.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

We didn't know yet, that it's okay to run on a certain set of promises, and then go ahead and do hundreds of other policies that you didn't tell anyone about. Telling the truth is so oldfashioned.

Maybe I'm overly cynical of politicians but who was the last politician that can be put on the list of accomplishing campaign promises and policies. My standards are low and I can't think of any politician that I would give a pass grading to over the two dozen years that I've been voting.

[powderjunkie]

I think its a bull#### copout to condemn the NDP for having the audacity to make a sensible campaign promise. People were too dumb to grapple with it and we deserve what we are getting. Full stop. Period. End of Story!

11% is still lower than it was at any point before April 2006.

[fotze2]

I like to use full stop in real life. Cop pulls me over for DUI, I say I’m fine full stop. Well fata now I have to let you go.

Gandalf shouldn’t have said you shall not pass because balrog ignored that, he should have said full stop. I might be bias for all intensive porpoises but that the way it is on a go forward basis.

[surferguy]

Why are their 574 guest scrolling this thread? Does the UCP have the Russian bots working for them now?

[woob]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I think its a bull#### copout to condemn the NDP for having the audacity to make a sensible campaign promise. People were too dumb to grapple with it and we deserve what we are getting. Full stop. Period. End of Story!

11% is still lower than it was at any point before April 2006.

Unfortunately they didn’t factor in the voting public in this province. Albertans essentially told Jim Prentice (RIP) to pound sand when he told them to look in the mirror, and he was a blue conservative. Part of winning an election is knowing your voter base.

They should absolutely called out for the horrible decision to have that in their platform. Keep that policy until budget time or something.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Smith is a treasonous POS.

[puffnstuff]

UCP MLA Scott Sinclair writes on social media that he opposes the UCP budget tabled by Finance Minister Nate Horner this week: “This budget is indefensible for Lesser Slave Lake constituency and I will not support or vote for it “as is” without significant changes.”

https://bsky.app/profile/daveberta.b.../3lje4ik3a4s2x

Note: His riding has about 27,800 people in it and is about 40% below average for riding population. 16000 or so eligible voters.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

UCP MLA Scott Sinclair writes on social media that he opposes the UCP budget tabled by Finance Minister Nate Horner this week: “This budget is indefensible for Lesser Slave Lake constituency and I will not support or vote for it “as is” without significant changes.”

https://bsky.app/profile/daveberta.b.../3lje4ik3a4s2x

Note: His riding has about 27,800 people in it and is about 40% below average for riding population. 16000 or so eligible voters.

"I am against deficits, I am for tax cuts, and I have a long list of infrastructure and healthcare services I demand. I am the prototypical Alberta Conservative."

[Slava]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

I think its a bull#### copout to condemn the NDP for having the audacity to make a sensible campaign promise. People were too dumb to grapple with it and we deserve what we are getting. Full stop. Period. End of Story!

11% is still lower than it was at any point before April 2006.

Well it just depends on whether you want to win elections or tell everyone that your policy was the right one and people should’ve listened. The NDP went that route, and that’s fine I guess, but that cost them the election. You rollout a corporate tax hike the same day as the debate, knowing full well that this is where the UCP is going to attack you and well…you basically deserve the loss at that point.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Smith is a treasonous POS.

While I agree with the statement, this post is hardly evidence.

In so much as she sees her role to be advocating for the export of Alberta resources, pointing out that advocating for tariffs and advocation for a pipeline specifically designed to import Canadian goods is contradictory, and that agreeing with the need for the Keystone pipeline is akin to agreeing that the Tariffs are self sabotaging.

I'll do something the right wing trolls on this site are incapable of doing, and say Smith is right, this time.

*I also still feel it was a terrible idea for Alberta to invest so many tangle resources into Keystone, but the building of it would objectively be net positive for Canada and Alberta economy in the short term.