Alberta Politics Thread

[Slava]

Originally Posted by chemgear

His missed ECON 101 pewpew shot aside, I would be up for a blind $11 billion cash money toss in the streets of Calgary ala 1989 Batman. Then again maybe not, I sorta remember it ending kinda badly. It's been a while.

And to be fair, I just took ECON 101 and 201 as easy side electives to fill out the schedule. I'm not remotely any kind of expert, Slava must be far and away much more familiar than any of us.

Thanks, but there are plenty of people who know more than I do about these things and I know for a fact that some of them are in this very thread!

Originally Posted by Makarov

Actually, the province is spending $37 billion on capital infrastructure projects over the next five years.

But this doesn't absolve them from other bad decisions. So while the infrastructure spend is good and in my opinion necessary, some of these other decisions are questionable. It's a little disingenuous to suggest that small business owners and companies should basically make due with the new reality, whereas we aren't holding the public sector to the same standard.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Serious question:

At what point in our history did we stop being the Province of Ralph Klein and become the Province of Naheed Nenshi and Rachel Notley?

I am genuinely curious.

Is the influx of new commers from Canada and out of Canada? Or have folks political views evolved?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I'm not being disingenuous, obviously that is the best option, if it is possible. If you have any examples of what types of changes that could be made to programs or business to reduce costs by all means share them with us, better yet make your voice heard with politicians and the public so they can implement these changes. I'm just going on the assumption that the people running these programs are doing what they can to run these programs as cost efficiently as possible, in which case jobs or program cuts are typically the cost cutting measure of choice.

Bringing in cheaper workers is likely the option people will argue for, but you need to keep in mind if we are reducing wages it has a ripple effect on tax revenue and is trading one problem for another in the system and therefore is more of a sideways move in my opinion. That being said that can vary situationally.

Lets look at this, because and its a overall issue and not just an NDP issue, but running an operations deficit is blindingly stupid, and you can't just keep ripping more money out of businesses and taxpayers to support it because its economically regressive. BTW this isn't a small oversight, the Government is running a 11 billion plus dollar a year deficit, and government agencies are spending 22 billion through their various agencies. This is now a real state of emergency issue. We can talk about raising taxes to cover it, but the bottom line is that no tax raise is going to cover this unless you decide you want to completely bottom out this province economically and have nobody invest in the businesses here.

So what are some things that probably should be looked at.

1) The sunshine list has now been expanded to 9000 people making more then $100,000. This is symbolic, but if people are going to complain about the 1% in the private sector, then I'm going to turn the tables. Anyone on the sunshine list should have their salaries reduced by 20% for the duration of the time that the government is in deficit. Like I said this is symbolic and the savings aren't great, but it would make sense for the government optics wise

2) The government shockingly added 47,000 public sector jobs this year, which is blindingly stupid, its also stunning in that there weren't 12% more schools or hospitals built, so I'm betting these are none front line worker roles. in otherwords, they expanded the government by about 12%. First of all, an immediate hiring freeze has to happen that runs until the government stops running deficits. No more hires, we should also encourage attrition through early retirement.

3) A complete wage freeze until the government stops running deficits, in fact because the government should be in a we're all in this together scenario, every public employee should take an immediate either 5% wage cut, or get one unpaid holiday day off per month this year. if we look at the civil service in Alberta at I guess around 450,000 people at and I'll be generous and average salary of $35,000, we can knock off nearly 800,000,000 in salaries and further reduce in what we pay in overall benefits.

4) The government runs redundant logistics and support services for their separate departments. Its time to amalgamate all logistics and support services into one department and look for inefficiencies there. The goal is a reduction of non frontline employees and managers by 12.7% to match up with the number of new employees bought in, realistically we should be shooting for an overall reduction of government employment to 2014 levels. If we go on an average salary of about35,000 and reduce by 47,000 employees we save about 1.7 billion dollars.

5) An immediate review of all departmental processes and head counts. I firmly believe that we have too many managers and non essential administrative workers in the government. When more then 1 out of 10 people in the province work for the government you have bloat. And its not just the NDP's fault, but the previous conservative government. with an amalgamation of background departments and a weeding out of the unneeded or redundant, the workforce can probably be reduced even further to closer to 2012 levels. I mean frankly the overall goal of clearing the department should be built around reaching 2011 measures of about 340,000 government workers. in the last 5 years the population of Alberta hasn't increased by 30% has it? So why has the civil service increased by that much.

Again, you'll notice that outside of the sunshine list, I haven't gone after the teachers or doctors or nurses, and I don't intend to. However.

Per capita we pay more then anyone else in Canada for healthcare, yet we have the third worst system of delivering effective healthcare, and frankly its going to get worse as the Feds reduce the transfer amounts for healthcare. So as I'm making those cuts to non essential workers and services, I would commit to plowing a third of the savings into education and healthcare to aquire equipment repair and build facilities and to increase head count in actual front line services.

6) all non essential services should immediately go out to tender for privatization. Logistics, maintenance and caretaking, everything, so we can reduce payroll and reduce paying into benefits and pensions that are no longer sustainable. I'm sorry, but the government should not be in the business of laundry, or making meals or janitorial services or even IT and office supply procurement. Again, you'll notice that I'm not privatizing healthcare or education or prisons, the government would still have over sight over these things, but we can't continue to afford to make the government a make work just to boost unemployment numbers.

7) An immediate restructuring of pension and benefits to government workers, these have gotten to the point where they're unsustainable and need to be bought into line with what's happening in the private sector. Also a review of salaries and a hard comparison to what other provinces are paying and doing, and a reduction to the mean national average by position, which means some people will actually probably get a raise.

I mean I get what people are going to scream at me. But Captain you're going to slam up unemployment and your going to hurt the tax base. But the bottom line is that we're not spending money on economic stimulation when we're running an operational defict, we're frankly taking money that could be spent on things like infrastructure and schools and hospitals and throwing it down a bottom less, uncontrollable and growing vortex. We're also dooming future governments to less infrastructure and more interest payments, and that's bad economics.

On top of it, and I say it with no malice, in terms of a tax base, a government worker is a negative in the tax base because they get paid far more then they pay, and at the end of the day that makes them a spiraling cost.

the bottom line is the tax base is rapidly shrinking with the unemployment rate in the private sector exceeding 10% (I believe) and that doesn't count contractors. The other side benefit is that if we shrink the private sector, those that go on government benefit like unemployment become a federal government expense.

Keeping a government bloated and overspending for the argument that you're somehow losing economic power by the people and a tax base is really wrong when its gotten to this point, and this is bad. And I know its tough for Notley because she would have to go to war with her own voter base to shrink the defict, because she can't possibly think that adding more taxes for her to piss away on a bloated government is right thinking.

Personally I want more doctors and more teachers, and better facilities and equipment for them to work with, but we have to make a choice here, we either keep and keep growing a bloated government under the misguided assumption that government employees = statistical good in the newspaper for employment numbers. And we keep spiraling and keep losing the oportunity to spend on the right things. Or we actually look at government as a cost center that has gotten way out of control and reduce it and invest the savings properly and shrink the deficit so that we can continue to invest properly down the road.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

Serious question:

At what point in our history did we stop being the Province of Ralph Klein and become the Province of Naheed Nenshi and Rachel Notley?

I am genuinely curious.

Is the influx of new commers from Canada and out of Canada? Or have folks political views evolved?

I don't think the policies of Nenshi as mayor are all that different then the policies of Ralph as mayor. Though I don't think Nenshi is as "left" as the Calgary Sun makes him out to be. One of the first things he did as mayor was go after the Police budget but the righties on council balked at cutting the budget. It wasn't until he became premier that Ralph was the cost cutting conservative we remember. He won the Olympic bid, spend heavily on infrastructure as mayor.

I also don't think we are the province of Notley as she wouldn't come close to winning re-election. The swing to Notley was because the PC's needed to go and the Wildrose refused to be reasonable on Social Policy. So Notley was the least worst option at the time.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by Slava

Thanks, but there are plenty of people who know more than I do about these things and I know for a fact that some of them are in this very thread!



But this doesn't absolve them from other bad decisions. So while the infrastructure spend is good and in my opinion necessary, some of these other decisions are questionable. It's a little disingenuous to suggest that small business owners and companies should basically make due with the new reality, whereas we aren't holding the public sector to the same standard.

Fair enough, but holding the public sector to the same standard is easier said than done. Collective agreements cannot be unilaterally changed. Even when they expire, new agreements still have to be bargained. Layoffs are expensive and will have a negative effect on both service levels and the economy.

My only point is that there are no easy answers to these problems. We certainly won't find answers in those Economics 101 textbooks everyone keeps reading (I'm being a bit cheeky now; apologies).

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

Serious question:

At what point in our history did we stop being the Province of Ralph Klein and become the Province of Naheed Nenshi and Rachel Notley?

I am genuinely curious.

Is the influx of new commers from Canada and out of Canada? Or have folks political views evolved?

I think it's a little from column A and a little from column B.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Fair enough, but holding the public sector to the same standard is easier said than done. Collective agreements cannot be unilaterally changed. Even when they expire, new agreements still have to be bargained. Layoffs are expensive and will have a negative effect on both service levels and the economy.

My only point is that there are no easy answers to these problems. We certainly won't find answers in those Economics 101 textbooks everyone keeps reading (I'm being a bit cheeky now; apologies).

Personally i think that needs to be reformed

Maybe not, but I think that as these collective bargining agreements are reopened, there has to be a new reality injected into them. At the end of the day right now, the government is going to have to push hard for new concessions in each negotiation, and if the Unions decide to walk there are probably a lot of non front line workers that can be replaced by unemployed provate sector workers on a temporary basis.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

Serious question:

At what point in our history did we stop being the Province of Ralph Klein and become the Province of Naheed Nenshi and Rachel Notley?

I am genuinely curious.

Is the influx of new commers from Canada and out of Canada? Or have folks political views evolved?

I'm ok with Nenshi, I'm honestly not a huge fan of his, and I voted for him the first time and didn't vote for him the second time around, and probably wouldn't again.

With Notley I don't think anyone that filed a protest vote for her understood what she was. It didn't help that she was smart enough not to run on a platform of massive tax grabs and the carbon tax, so we went with her word and thought that it was an effective protest vote, but the devil we don't know is often worse then the devil we know. She's done far more damage then Redford did or would have done, which is sad because Redford was as corrupt and arrogant as they come. The biggest problem though was that Prentice was a symptom of the PC part as a whole. Arrogant and entitled, while Notley came across as Stifflers mom without the whole over sexed backstory.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Lets look at this, because and its a overall issue and not just an NDP issue, but running an operations deficit is blindingly stupid, and you can't just keep ripping more money out of businesses and taxpayers to support it because its economically regressive. BTW this isn't a small oversight, the Government is running a 11 billion plus dollar a year deficit, and government agencies are spending 22 billion through their various agencies. This is now a real state of emergency issue. We can talk about raising taxes to cover it, but the bottom line is that no tax raise is going to cover this unless you decide you want to completely bottom out this province economically and have nobody invest in the businesses here.

Captain, there's a lot in here but it really looks to me like you fundamentally don't understand how collective-bargaining works, or how running the public sector works. This is about as ideologically-driven of a stance on the public sector as could be.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I'm not being disingenuous, obviously that is the best option, if it is possible. If you have any examples of what types of changes that could be made to programs or business to reduce costs by all means share them with us, better yet make your voice heard with politicians and the public so they can implement these changes. I'm just going on the assumption that the people running these programs are doing what they can to run these programs as cost efficiently as possible, in which case jobs or program cuts are typically the cost cutting measure of choice.

I think we all know that government agencies rarely operate on a model of efficiency.

Bringing in cheaper workers is likely the option people will argue for, but you need to keep in mind if we are reducing wages it has a ripple effect on tax revenue and is trading one problem for another in the system and therefore is more of a sideways move in my opinion. That being said that can vary situationally.

If we are talking about public sector here, then our tax dollars are paying the wages in the first place. In this one area, spending less more than makes up for re-taxing the tax dollars that were handed out in wages and benefits.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by opendoor

True, but don't forget that it was the middle earners who got all of the benefit from the recent federal tax cuts. Someone earning $75K is saving about $5-600 in federal income tax for 2016 compared to 2015. And if that earner has children, they're saving far more than that compared to years past.

I'm not sure this is actually the case. Exhibit A is myself:
1. federal taxes reduced slightly but probably offset by Alberta removing the flat tax. No real net benefit
2. new child benefit marginally better than the previous one. Net difference to our family is about $50/month. So I'll give this one to Justin on a technicality.
3. Increase in CPP premiums over the next few years - several thousand $$$/year. Huge negative to our finances.
4. Loss of income slotting - negative financial implications for my family.

So overall we are likely worse off than before, and we are a severely middle class family.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Captain, there's a lot in here but it really looks to me like you fundamentally don't understand how collective-bargaining works, or how running the public sector works. This is about as ideologically-driven of a stance on the public sector as could be.

I don't disagree, I'm not an expert on collective bargining.

However first and foremost, clearly the public sector isn't working thus huge deficits, failures in health care services etc. So maybe its time to change the fundamental understanding of how it works. Maybe the people that are designing and managing and running the public services are the ones that are out of touch with the modern reality.

Second, a collective bargaining agreement shouldn't be a suicide pact and that's why there's an expiration date on them so they can be adjusted properly, and to me its due time for a hard adjustment.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't disagree, I'm not an expert on collective bargining.

However first and foremost, clearly the public sector isn't working thus huge deficits, failures in health care services etc. So maybe its time to change the fundamental understanding of how it works. Maybe the people that are designing and managing and running the public services are the ones that are out of touch with the modern reality.

Second, a collective bargaining agreement shouldn't be a suicide pact and that's why there's an expiration date on them so they can be adjusted properly, and to me its due time for a hard adjustment.

There are alternatives to reducing the public sector staff expenses other than cuts though, and the easiest path is through attrition. Privatization is also generally a terrible road to go down with most in-house duties performed by government workers. There are some exceptions to the rule, but there are times when redundancy and red tape necessary and private corporations often don't give a crap about such things when trying to boost profits and appease shareholders.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by rubecube

There are alternatives to reducing the public sector staff expenses other than cuts though, and the easiest path is through attrition. Privatization is also generally a terrible road to go down with most in-house duties performed by government workers. There are some exceptions to the rule, but there are times when redundancy and red tape necessary and private corporations often don't give a crap about such things when trying to boost profits and appease shareholders.

Fair enough, but I think we're past the point of simple attrition. I don't agree with you on the privitization side of things, I don't believe that the government should be in the business of doing laundry, or cleaning floors, or running a logistical organization, or even running their own IT Infrastructure, when there are private organizations that are specialized in these areas and can probably do it better and cheaper. And again no I'm not talking anything front line.

And to be honest a lot of the blame has to be put on the voters, because we need to start treating the government like we're shareholders and making sure that we're extremely demanding on how they're spending our money and running Our business so to speak. You can bet that a voting shareholder would do better due dilligance in replacing a board other then this other guy has to be better because he's not this guy.



And private corporations that run with redundancies and don't make a profit or break even die, its that simple. The government for some reasons thinks it has a right to be poorly run, have no vision, and execute their tasks poorly and then have a right to pass the costs onto the tax payer without over sight.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

Serious question:

At what point in our history did we stop being the Province of Ralph Klein and become the Province of Naheed Nenshi and Rachel Notley?

I am genuinely curious.

Is the influx of new commers from Canada and out of Canada? Or have folks political views evolved?

It's changing demos, for sure.

Not to mention that progressive populism is becoming accepted more and more as mainstream pragmatic political thinking.

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

I'm not sure this is actually the case. Exhibit A is myself:
1. federal taxes reduced slightly but probably offset by Alberta removing the flat tax. No real net benefit
2. new child benefit marginally better than the previous one. Net difference to our family is about $50/month. So I'll give this one to Justin on a technicality.
3. Increase in CPP premiums over the next few years - several thousand $$$/year. Huge negative to our finances.
4. Loss of income slotting - negative financial implications for my family.

So overall we are likely worse off than before, and we are a severely middle class family.

I'm on your side in this but just wondering how someone can be more or less severely middle class? You mean dead center of bell curve or what?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

I'm on your side in this but just wondering how someone can be more or less severely middle class? You mean dead center of bell curve or what?

Perhaps hes just a very authoritative guy.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Fair enough, but I think we're past the point of simple attrition. I don't agree with you on the privitization side of things, I don't believe that the government should be in the business of doing laundry, or cleaning floors, or running a logistical organization, or even running their own IT Infrastructure, when there are private organizations that are specialized in these areas and can probably do it better and cheaper. And again no I'm not talking anything front line.

And to be honest a lot of the blame has to be put on the voters, because we need to start treating the government like we're shareholders and making sure that we're extremely demanding on how they're spending our money and running Our business so to speak. You can bet that a voting shareholder would do better due dilligance in replacing a board other then this other guy has to be better because he's not this guy.



And private corporations that run with redundancies and don't make a profit or break even die, its that simple. The government for some reasons thinks it has a right to be poorly run, have no vision, and execute their tasks poorly and then have a right to pass the costs onto the tax payer without over sight.

I agree that a lot of the jobs that need to be done can and should be contracted out. Specialization does work and yes things like janitorial duties, IT, maintenance should be given to the experts.

I disagree on the whole concept of government being run like a corporation. Governments and private corporations have vastly different agendas, values and goals. Yes we can't sustain running deficits forever (and 11B deficit is disingenuine because 3B of that is just amortization costs and not real costs and a good chunk of increase is in capital grants) but they are in place to provide services first and foremost, cost effectiveness is a goal but it isn't as primary as a corporation.

The other problem is planning. Even with one party in charge for 44 years there was constant shifts in priorities and planning. Our hospitals, especially the older ones are built piecemeal. One year we build this wing, 5 years later it needs expansion so another add-on is added. No efficiency there at all, simply fill the need with as low cost as we can for this year. There are no synergies built into the system because they weren't designed that way.


Responding to the needs of the citizens at the lowest cost makes it difficult to gain cost efficiencies as you can't just say oh sorry, I know the population grew by 25% but we can't afford more doctors right now so you have to suffer. The government has a duty to provide these services and unfortunately the cost of doing so is usually monetary.


Are there things that can be done to improve the situation? Absolutely and I think people gloss over how much work the NDPs have done to consolidate the non-government agencies and attacking the unsustainable wages by their CEOs and executives. The costs of AER executives now are astronomical compared to what they were being paid for the same work while direct government employees. That's the waste that needs to, and is being focused on. People love to bitch about government union wages but along with a good start point they are also capped much lower than their non-government counterparts. These people made a lot less during the boom than the private sector for exactly the security they are now enjoying.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't believe that the government should be in the business of doing laundry, or cleaning floors, or running a logistical organization, or even running their own IT Infrastructure, when there are private organizations that are specialized in these areas and can probably do it better and cheaper.

Look how well outsourcing email worked out for Hillary Clinton!

Seriously, though, contracting out IT entirely is a terrible idea that almost never saves money and almost never improves service, either. Contracting in IT is something you should do to fill knowledge gaps in your organization, or if you are a tiny company that doesn't need a full-time IT person.

I don't know much about the other areas you speak of, but I doubt it's as easy as just contracting out willy-nilly whatever *can* be done by private enterprise. For one thing, you need to manage, direct, and monitor the work of these companies, which doesn't come free, or cheap, if you want to do it properly. It's not as easy as saying "well our IT department cost us $38 million last year and these guys say they can do it for $30 million, so we save $8 million!"

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Actually, the province is spending $37 billion on capital infrastructure projects over the next five years.

I don't have a ton of time to look into it but I'm (actually ) seeing 34.8 billion over 5 years (at least that's what the Alberta.ca site shows). For giggles I grabbed some numbers for a few years back.

http://www.finance.alberta.ca/public...n-spending.pdf

http://globalnews.ca/news/1192585/al...d-2014-budget/

2010: $20.1 billion over 3 years ($6.7/year)

2014 before the NDP: $19 billion over 3 years ($6.3/year)

NDP 2016: ($6.96/year)

So they're basically keeping the spending materially unchanged. The $11 billion in overspending this year isn't due to a massive ramp up in infrastructure or stimulus spending, it's basically this historical ongoing cost we've been spending this whole time.

Additionally, I'm not saying the 5 year number was picked on purpose to be deceiving though it does inflate the total.


EDIT: Though I could be wrong, are you saying that they are spending an additional $37 billion on top of that isn't listed on the Alberta 2016 Budget page summary? Perhaps I'm missing that somewhere.