Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[timun]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

And this is always the issue - Public service employees also want more $$/higher salaries. (And there is nothing wrong with that ) so the real question is how much should go to each individual employee va overall funding

We are already the highest if I go by https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-conte...or_Mueller.pdf

Which I assume is relatively unbiased

And this is why in my opinion we have such a political divide even within this province - our public sector employees make the best money in Canada , and even better when you consider Alberta’s cost of living vs the other big 3 provinces

You should actually read the report before gleaning information from it. (Bolded below is my emphasis.)

Using data from the 2016-2018 monthly Labour Force Survey and including in the analysis only the 96 largest public sector occupations, we find that when comparing public sector real wages in Alberta to those in its three comparator provinces they do tend to be higher. But so too are comparable private sector wages in Alberta relative to these other provinces. By addressing the wage differentials between provinces in each occupation, we find larger differences in some occupations in Alberta but negative differences (i.e., wage penalties) in others.

Within each province, the public sector wage premium tends to be positive relative to wages in the private sector, but the premium in Alberta tends to be on the low side and there is large variance when looking at differences in occupational premiums within provinces.

In sum, public sector wages in Alberta do not stand out, except that they do tend to be on small side relative to other provinces and to the private sector within the province.

That public sector workers in Alberta are “overpaid” is not supported by the data presented here. Alberta is a high wage province, and these high wages are found in both the private and public sectors. Of course, there are differences between occupations with some having larger premiums and differentials. Similarly, wage differentials within occupations compared to the other three provinces can be negative or positive. But in either case there does not appear to be any systemic overpayment of public sector workers. A limitation of this analysis has been that not all occupations are able to be compared owing to the criterion for inclusion not being met. But by definition these are occupations with few workers and so, even if these are outliers in terms of relative wages, they are unlikely to change the main findings of this analysis.

[Jason14h]

First I love that you think I skimmed the article. I read every word

I never said overpaid anywhere in my post . I said highest paid . Which they are . The article says it (but not by a substantial amount ) and it is only comparing to the 3 other top provinces in pay

Literally the first line in the section CONCLUSION says "Using data from the 2016-2018 monthly Labour Force Survey and including in the analysis only the 96 largest public sector occupations, we find that when comparing public sector real wages in Alberta to those in its three comparator provinces they do tend to be higher"

Sooo…thanks for proving my point above the attitude between the two sides . You immediately jumped to overpaid and got defensive . When all I said was highest paid. Which was a factual statement

You can be the highest paid and deserve that compensation based on performance and cost of living

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

First I love that you think I skimmed the article. I read every word

I never said overpaid anywhere in my post . I said highest paid . Which they are . The article says it (but not by a substantial amount ) and it is only comparing to the 3 other top provinces in pay

Literally the first line in the section CONCLUSION says "Using data from the 2016-2018 monthly Labour Force Survey and including in the analysis only the 96 largest public sector occupations, we find that when comparing public sector real wages in Alberta to those in its three comparator provinces they do tend to be higher"

Sooo…thanks for proving my point above the attitude between the two sides . You immediately jumped to overpaid and got defensive . When all I said was highest paid. Which was a factual statement

You can be the highest paid and deserve that compensation based on performance and cost of living

So you don’t think admin or managers are overpaid and don’t think anyone should take a pay cut?

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I think this is best started by everyone agreeing that societies with zero taxation suck and fail, and societies with 100% taxation suck and fail. It shouldn't be a debate of more or less, it should be a debate of where governments have a role to collect and spend money to fill the gaps left by capitalist systems. Then it comes down to how to do so most efficiently.

People perceive the gaps in capitalism a lot differently. It also comes down to personal ideals around how much opportunity should come from being born into wealth vs. how much opportunity should be fostered for all.

No where once have I said I want zero taxes.

Not all taxes are created equal.

We should have a carbon tax and sales tax with no PIT and CIT.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

No where once have I said I want zero taxes.

Not all taxes are created equal.

We should have a carbon tax and sales tax with no PIT and CIT.

Unless you negotiate a similar taxation structure with connected jurisdictions, that's a recipe for being a place where people make their money to spend elsewhere ... i.e. an extraction economy where reinvestment is minimal.

[Swift]

LOL at the first post used in this thread for the thread split

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

First I love that you think I skimmed the article. I read every word

I never said overpaid anywhere in my post . I said highest paid . Which they are . The article says it (but not by a substantial amount ) and it is only comparing to the 3 other top provinces in pay

Literally the first line in the section CONCLUSION says "Using data from the 2016-2018 monthly Labour Force Survey and including in the analysis only the 96 largest public sector occupations, we find that when comparing public sector real wages in Alberta to those in its three comparator provinces they do tend to be higher"

Sooo…thanks for proving my point above the attitude between the two sides . You immediately jumped to overpaid and got defensive . When all I said was highest paid. Which was a factual statement

You can be the highest paid and deserve that compensation based on performance and cost of living

Literally the second sentence (in the same paragraph):

But so too are comparable private sector wages in Alberta relative to
these other provinces.

It's simply disingenuous BS to not include those next 15 words.

Within each province, the public sector wage premium tends to be positive relative to wages in the private sector, but the premium in Alberta tends to be on the low side and there is large variance when looking at differences in occupational premiums within provinces.

If you look at figure 3 on page 11, Alberta has the lowest overall wage premium among all public employees [for the big 4 provinces].

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Swift

LOL at the first post used in this thread for the thread split

About time we got our priorities right!

[timun]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

First I love that you think I skimmed the article. I read every word

I never said overpaid anywhere in my post . I said highest paid . Which they are . The article says it (but not by a substantial amount ) and it is only comparing to the 3 other top provinces in pay

Literally the first line in the section CONCLUSION says "Using data from the 2016-2018 monthly Labour Force Survey and including in the analysis only the 96 largest public sector occupations, we find that when comparing public sector real wages in Alberta to those in its three comparator provinces they do tend to be higher"

Sooo…thanks for proving my point above the attitude between the two sides . You immediately jumped to overpaid and got defensive . When all I said was highest paid. Which was a factual statement

You can be the highest paid and deserve that compensation based on performance and cost of living

You didn't type the word "overpaid" in your previous post, but it's the argument you framed with everything else you wrote in your post. I didn't "jump to a conclusion" and "become defensive" because of my "attitude"; contextually it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that you're on that 'side' of the two 'sides' you wrote about. If you legitimately believe that you're not "picking a side" you should re-examine your post, because you're unaware of the biases expressed in your writing.

Or you're knowingly "picking a side", feigning ignorance and deflecting with "I was just stating facts" (similar to the ol' "I'm just asking questions" shtick)...

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1533837502435450880

[GGG]

I think when charges like this are dropped against politicians more info on why the charges were laid in the first place or the charges were dropped is required. Allegedly he misstated 750k in income. How is that something that can be handwaved at the last minute with new evidence. Why didn’t that evidence exist prior to charges being laid.

Here is the article when the warrants were obtained

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...-ito-1.5782765

What happened?

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think when charges like this are dropped against politicians more info on why the charges were laid in the first place or the charges were dropped is required. Allegedly he misstated 750k in income. How is that something that can be handwaved at the last minute with new evidence. Why didn’t that evidence exist prior to charges being laid.

Ya I don't get it, did he pay taxes on that 750k or not. There's no "he didn't, but here's why it's not a problem".

[PeteMoss]

In a lot of case droppings its either a witness won't cooperate (unlikely in this case since its tax evasion) or they expect evidence won't be admitted by the courts because it wasn't obtained properly.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Here’s what they’re spending on now. What budget items would you like to see increased or decreased?

https://twitter.com/trevortombe/stat...93202013745153

God, our resource income is criminally low.

[Krovikan]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

God, our resource income is criminally low.

I don't think the UCP touched the Royalty framework (maybe I missed it), and the NDP reviewed and tweaked the Royalty system, but largely didn't change revenue from the system. So I'm actually confident that the revenue is fair.

What I think is criminally low is corporate taxes, that difference between corp and personal is embarrassing.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

I don't think the UCP touched the Royalty framework (maybe I missed it), and the NDP reviewed and tweaked the Royalty system, but largely didn't change revenue from the system. So I'm actually confident that the revenue is fair.

What I think is criminally low is corporate taxes, that plot between corp and personal is embarrassing.

The oil revenues are also very sensitive to prices - because when prices go up the rates go up as well, which is a double whammy for resource revenues.

Also the figures in that graphic are the budget estimate from before the 2021-2022 fiscal year had even started. The current forecast for that fiscal year is a bit over $13 billion (approx 5x that estimate), about equal to personal income tax as the largest source of revenue. And if prices stay where they are next year will be even higher.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

God, our resource income is criminally low.

That isn’t based on todays price

12 billion forecast for 21/22 now
https://www.alberta.ca/revenue.aspx

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

In a lot of case droppings its either a witness won't cooperate (unlikely in this case since its tax evasion) or they expect evidence won't be admitted by the courts because it wasn't obtained properly.

Why does that occur right before trial rather than months in advance. I do think witnesses no longer cooperating is possible because from the cbc article it looks like he was claiming he didn’t have renters in his rental units for years and just claiming expenses. So it could be that renters they had that were going to testify backed out.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

What I think is criminally low is corporate taxes, that difference between corp and personal is embarrassing.

The other big provinces are like that as well, total corporate taxes are significantly less than personal income taxes. Alberta and Ontario usually do better because of the higher number of head offices.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by Krovikan

I don't think the UCP touched the Royalty framework (maybe I missed it), and the NDP reviewed and tweaked the Royalty system, but largely didn't change revenue from the system. So I'm actually confident that the revenue is fair.

What I think is criminally low is corporate taxes, that difference between corp and personal is embarrassing.

Based on this Budget that puts personal income tax at 61% of taxes and corporate tax at 10%

In 1998, personal income tax was 48% and corporate was 23%.

The ratio of incomes taxes to other taxes has remained the same with 71% of tax income - the difference in 25 years is that corporations are paying less than half of what they used to and it's workers that are paying almost 30% more.