Alberta Election Thread - Election Day April 16 2019

[OldDutch]

As a person who was severly impacted in the flood, this angers me a lot. Notley playing political football tying her carbon tax to Bow River Flood mitigation to win Calgary votes.

Coming up on 6 years since the flood. With 4 being hers.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...ver-flood-plan

[metallicat]

Did I miss the discussion on the UCP changing the 6.9 metre clearance sign with electrical tape? LOL. Oh Jason Kenney.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

We should be using our oil and gas royalties to build an @$$load of nuclear reactors. If we're going to blow money on stuff, at least once the world wakes up and realizes that no one is going to voluntarily live in energy poverty to reduce emissions, we'll have something of value left over!

Then the eco-crazies will just protest nuclear as they did for 2 decades in the 70's and 80's.

There is no fixing stupid.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

Running for the UCP in Edmonton South.

Under which bridge does the UCP manage to dredge up this caliber of leader?

Let's not lose our #### here, this is basically the caliber of CP Funny Thread posts circa 2012.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by metallicat

Did I miss the discussion on the UCP changing the 6.9 metre clearance sign with electrical tape? LOL. Oh Jason Kenney.

I actually thought that was quite prescient. In this day and age the memes and jokes would’ve been coming, and while I’m kind of sad we missed out, I think it’s smart they thought of that.

[metallicat]

They made it worse by doing that. I don't know that anyone would have known or cared. Jason Kenney probably doesn't even get the reference anyways.

[transplant99]

In 2015, the NDP promised Albertans a $586 million surplus for this year. Instead, Alberta is now on track for a $95 billion debt.

That just seems unfathomable....yet there are people that want more of it?

Where and how does it all end?

[the_only_turek_fan]

http://angusreid.org/kenney-notley-a...election-2019/

Angus Reid poll has the UCP up by 25 points as of March 22.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by transplant99

That just seems unfathomable....yet there are people that want more of it?

Where and how does it all end?

I am curious what the UPC would have done too prevent the deficit?

They would have cut taxes? I hate to be obvious, but how would that have helped with revenue.

They would have gotten the pipelines built? Not remotely in their control, I'm guessing it actually would have been less likely with a belligerent

They were going to be more friendly to oil companies, so business would be better? At the end of the day you can wish in one hand, #### in the other and Alberta economic policy still will have no impact on the $50 price of oil.

After the legacy of Debt free Klein (as apposed to slash and cut Klein), Stelmach, Redford and Prentice. I'm not sure I trust Alberta conservatives as good stewards of spending in our province right now. They have not shown the political will to tax or to cut, so their entire economic platform is to sell resources, walking us a little bit closer to the cliff without building a sustainable economy.

[OMG!WTF!]

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea voting NDP if you live in Calgary. We get a billion for flood mitigation and Rachel said shes going to spend a lot of time here and that we're "really important". Not gonna lie...I feel kinda special. Thanks NDP.

[transplant99]

nm

[transplant99]

nm...just not gonna bother

[#-3]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Equating all that to the price of oil is simply disingenuous and entirely false. Period.

That isnt deficit...that is DEBT. That is money borrowed that has to be paid back...so step one would be stop borrowing money when you have no plan or way to pay it back. Common sense stuff really. Or at the very least keep borrowing down as much as possible even if it means no pet projects like changing light bulbs in homes for 350 million dollars? Again...common sense.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...licy-1.4646373

Im old enough to remember going through this crap under Getty and what had to happen to get out of that quagmire....well we are right back where that started thanks to Stelmach and Redford and certainly Notley and need a Klein like response to get out of it. He said he would erase debt with massive cuts province wide and he did. And he did so with a large majority in '93 that led to the single largest voter mandate in the provinces history in 2001. What he did...worked.... and it was approved overwhelmingly by 62% of those that voted. Unprecedented.

But more to the point....what about what was actually said by the sitting government vs what they actually achieved?

I mean they only missed their target by 96 Billion dollars over 48 months, so i guess we could let that slide without questioning them...right?

It still begs the question, what exactly is it that the UPC would have done?

They certainly have not indicated the political will to cut. Reading through their platform they are just going to do all the same stuff cheaper.


I'm not a fan of the light bulb program, and think they could have done things that would have done more on every level. But the UPC had no intention of collecting that revenue, so it would not have effected the debt at all, and from a Keynesian stand point it may been the right move to setup what was essentially a lower income government jobs program in the face of a recession.

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Not trying to crap on the UCP party, but I found online a small blurb which says (about Eva Kiryakos UCP Calgary SE):

"Kiryakos has practiced law for 11 years and one of her main campaign promises is to modify or repeal the Protecting Choice for Women Accessing Healthcare Act".

What that act did was set up boundaries to protect women and health workers from harassment. I was rather confused as to why anyone would be against that, and that an issue like that is one I would move my vote to the AP incumbent for.

I've since asked her about it and I'm awaiting a reply. If anyone is interested I can share what her reasoning is once she gets back to me.

Small update, Eva has said (paraphrased) that she is really busy with campaigning right now but that she would have a reply in a few days.

So far I'm at least impressed she acknowledged 2 individuals during a busy season for her.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by #-3

It still begs the question, what exactly is it that the UPC would have done?

They certainly have not indicated the political will to cut. Reading through their platform they are just going to do all the same stuff cheaper.


I'm not a fan of the light bulb program, and think they could have done things that would have done more on every level. But the UPC had no intention of collecting that revenue, so it would not have effected the debt at all, and from a Keynesian stand point it may been the right move to setup what was essentially a lower income government jobs program in the face of a recession.

Keysian stimulus is not spending money on useless Jobs. That’s just a terrible wrong assertion. If you believe that hiring people to do work is good job creation you still need that work to be productive otherwise you only get half of the benefit.

[transplant99]

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by #-3

I am curious what the UPC would have done too prevent the deficit?

They would have cut taxes? I hate to be obvious, but how would that have helped with revenue.

Corporate tax revenue actually went down with the NDPs increased tax rate. Tax rate and tax revenue are not linearly correlated, a lot of people have trouble understanding this.

[CaptainCrunch]

I think the one big thing that the UCP probably wouldn't have done is bloated the public sector payroll to hide the poor job market in Alberta.


Without them adding 10's of thousands of people since their election I think the number was about a 20% increase in the size of the provinces payroll.


That's operating budget issues, we have had to borrow more and more money just to turn on the lights in the morning. This isn't infrastructure additions, or private job creation efforts.


Its blatantly rigging the stats so they can claim that the provincial job losses aren't as bad as they are when you look at global statistics. And realistically it would be like you paying your employees on the company credit card, in the long term its an unaffordable solution.


At some point one of the major sources of the deficit which is operational is going to have to be addressed. We simply can't afford to keep burning money in the barrel of operational budget as eventually one of our biggest social programs will be interest servicing.


I'm certainly not advocating layoffs of nurses or teachers, or front line workers, but at some point the way that the government does its day to day business and the bureaucracy that the NDP has created is going to have to be looked at.

[Ducay]

Oil & Gas was already slumped when NDP took office and then kicked them while they were down with the royalty review and then poor support for pipelines until too late. Both of these effectively killed capital investment in our province and, in turn, revenues for every company that executes on those billions and billions of capex that went elsewhere.

NDP is directly to blame for the reduced tax revenues.

[CaptainCrunch]

Greg Marr was on powerplay and talked about the investment dollars that have fled the province, its gotten to the point where our countries own Pension Plan is investing in US Energy and Oil and not putting their money in this province.


And the bottom line is that Kenney isn't some magical solution to bringing that money back. Its going to take years to rebuild our market reputation, and if Bill C-69 and C-48 go through, it will probably kill foreign investment in this province's energy industry all together.