Sundre’s council, or perhaps rather the municipality’s administration through direction of our locally elected officials, will be hard pressed to find a way to pay for the new provincial police funding requisition that does not in any way involve raising taxes beyond regular inflation.
I asked Mayor Terry Leslie, who recently returned my call while helping his wife run errands in Red Deer, what he thought about Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s campaign promise to save taxpayers their hard-earned money by axing the carbon tax, only to turn around and unveil in the UCP’s budget a litany of legislation that will hit many Albertans’ wallets. This of course includes the long-anticipated and recently announced updated provincial police funding formula that could potentially see local taxes increase, services decrease, or reserves drawn from.
Leslie’s response was that pointing a finger in blame is not a productive approach to working towards actionable solutions, and that the UCP is attempting to fulfil the mandate that propelled the party to power.
But he also acknowledged that a higher level of government downloading costs to a lower level still amounts to taking money from the same and only source: the taxpayer.
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” he said.
Of course the mayor is not wrong to say pointing the finger in blame begets no solutions; that the better alternative is to work together to make things work.
That kind of attitude, while admirable, was in desperately short supply for the NDP, who conservatives were for four years all too happy to blame for everything under the blue sky.
Unfortunately, many Albertans seem to put on rose tinted beer goggles when reminiscing about almost half a century of conservative rule. Yet in reality, that dubious legacy left our province miserably unprepared for the predictable and inevitable crash in the price of oil; a global market collapse that Notley not only had no control over, but also began before the NDP ever came into power.
Imagine bearing the unenviable burden of being expected to fix in four years a mess created over the span of 44 years of cronyism and complacent, entitled governance that always catered to a volatile industry at the average citizen’s expense.
Conservatives of course will sing the praises of Ralph Klein, who courtesy of a much healthier oil and gas sector didn’t hesitate to make sacrifices to make Alberta debt free.
This was an extremely short-lived success, as the root cause of our problems, an over dependence on oil and gas, was never addressed, but arguably allowed to fester.
Because no sooner did King Klein pay off Alberta’s fiscal debt — at the cost of huge infrastructure and social debts that endure to this day — did subsequent conservative governments begin to dig us back in the hole.
But tell me more about how the terrible NDP destroyed Alberta in one term.
I was among the roughly two-thirds of Albertans who weren’t affected by the carbon tax, and its elimination has not had a noticeable impact on my wallet. However, from local property taxes that will likely go up to pay for the new police funding formula and increased insurance and electricity rates to everything else in between, I anticipate being much farther behind than ever before, which will mean even fewer visits to local eateries I love so much.
Yet I suppose it could be worse — I guess I should be grateful I’m not a student whose tuition will increase, or a retiree set to be booted off of the Seniors Drug Benefit Program, or a disabled person facing monthly AISH payments that do not keep pace with inflation.
Boy! I sure can’t wait for the billion-dollar corporate tax break to begin trickling down to me and my fellow Albertans.
Of course I won’t be holding my breath.
Simon Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up.
