![]() By 2012, Alberta’s richest 10% took home half of all income in the province. Here are a few examples of conservative policies that helped create that problem over the years:įlat income taxes: Former Premier Ralph Klein introduced a 10% flat income tax in 1999, meaning millionaire CEOs paid the same rate of tax as nurses, teachers or firefighters. Not only did this drain the provincial treasury, Klein’s regressive tax shifted the burden onto the backs of working Albertans and left Alberta as the only province in Canada with levels of inequality greater than in the United States. The government isn’t bringing in enough revenue to avoid deficits – especially as plummeting oil prices have cut into the province’s revenue from the oil and gas sector. That’s why former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge (someone who knows a thing or two about money) advised Alberta to increase spending in the last budget.Īccording to Dodge, Alberta “under-invested in public capital in the past and now has some catch-up to do to ensure an adequate level of public capital to meet current needs, let alone meet future needs.” Alberta doesn’t have a spending problem, it has a revenue problem ![]() Measured as a percentage of household income, Alberta’s program spending has been lower than the Canadian provincial average for much of the past twenty years:Īnd over the past two decades, Alberta has never ranked highest among provinces in per capita program spending, while overall spending has only averaged 3.2% above the Canadian provincial average: We were out of the driver’s seat when it fell off.” #ableg Īfter ruling the roost since the 1970s, Alberta conservatives are quick to forget decades of right-wing economic policies that helped create a cycle of booms and busts that not only left Alberta vulnerable to changes in global oil prices, but left the province’s finances in a mess, as well.Ĭonsider the following: The spending mythĬonservatives will argue Alberta has a spending problem, except that’s not true.Ī study by the Parkland Institute last year makes clear that Alberta’s spending on government programs has always been somewhere between average and below average. “We only left the car parked on the edge of the cliff. Jim Prentice 10 months ago: ““The most serious fiscal circumstance we have faced as a province in a generation.” Government needs to take fiscal crisis seriously #ableg #pcaa #abpoli /iAKMaPOgPZ “Sadly,” weeps PC leader Ric McIver, Alberta’s new government has “squandered the strong fiscal position they’ve inherited.” Have Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives suddenly forgotten the last 44 years they were in power?
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