Juno News - Albertans hit with double tax hike as fuel tax returns

00:00:00.000 universities and colleges have been the ones that for years have loved looking at international

00:00:13.780 students as being this giant cash cow because a domestic student who's from canada will pay i

00:00:19.740 don't know 7 000 a year in tuition and then you get these international students that are paying 0.77

00:00:24.100 upwards of 50 60 000 and the universities love it and they have lowered their standards to make

00:00:32.160 this happen and it's canada and canadians that have suffered and it's by the way the students

00:00:37.300 themselves who are suffering because when the students come and they can't afford a place to

00:00:42.120 live they can't afford they can't find a job they actually are not able to devote what they need

00:00:47.180 to their studies because they're focused on just trying to deal with this bill of goods they've

00:00:53.140 been sold which is not what the country has offered them so no in fact the most pro-immigrant

00:00:59.460 position you could take on this is to say that canada has profoundly failed on this so uh we'll

00:01:06.640 talk about this more tomorrow like i said this was a fresh admission from justin trudeau just

00:01:10.960 this morning in fact uh but to return to where we started yesterday the big carbon tax demonstrations

00:01:17.140 took place across the country uh chris sims is the alberta director for the canadian taxpayers

00:01:22.360 federation she joins us every monday but we uh bumped it back with yesterday being a holiday at

00:01:27.800 true north and chris always good to talk to you you've been very good at not letting the alberta

00:01:32.440 government off the hook here because uh just as the federal carbon tax went up yesterday so too

00:01:37.560 did the uh the reinstated alberta fuel tax and i i've got to say i mean i've got a lot of time for

00:01:43.480 danielle smith you and i have both crossed paths with her many times over the years i've yet to hear a

00:01:48.840 compelling reason for why all of the things she's saying about the federal government don't apply

00:01:53.880 to her government and the gas tax yeah same here um in fact i was almost tempted to phone you about

00:02:00.120 it just off off offline because i'm stumped it's one of those weird situations where she's such a rock

00:02:06.920 star when she's taking on prime minister justin trudeau she went right into the lion's den there in

00:02:11.560 ottawa and did a great presentation at committee and so like she's absolutely right to take the trudeau

00:02:17.480 government to task and say scrap this carbon tax altogether it's a huge waste of money but then

00:02:22.920 like puzzlingly in edmonton here at home in alberta we got our fuel tax our provincial fuel tax increased

00:02:30.600 all the way back up to its full strength of 13 cents per liter of gasoline and diesel and to your

00:02:36.600 point exactly like this is nothing personal big fan of a lot of what premier smith is doing but policy

00:02:43.160 wise i can't square this circle this does not make any sense both from a fiscal standpoint or

00:02:51.000 from a communication standpoint fiscally they did the right thing when they fully suspended the fuel

00:02:56.840 tax here in alberta for a year andrew it saved albertans around a billion dollars having it at zero

00:03:02.760 for an entire year then they brought it back up to nine cents per liter uh just at the new year the

00:03:08.440 start of 2024 but then they went all the way just yesterday and brought it all the way back up to 13

00:03:14.840 and so this is strange that they're doing this considering the fact that they have a balanced

00:03:19.560 budget and there's still places for them to cut like why are they handing mega millions of dollars

00:03:25.320 to an nhl team to help them build their hockey rink in calgary while you're nailing drivers of everyday

00:03:32.520 you know jobs here in alberta for filling up their vehicles and just communications wise i don't get

00:03:39.320 this part why would they bigfoot their own victory party why would they overlap their provincial fuel

00:03:46.760 tax increase with big bad justin trudeau's carbon tax increase just comms wise i don't even understand

00:03:53.800 this play why not leave it at nine cents per liter and kick the can ahead to june or july there's this old

00:04:01.560 line that you hear that there is just one taxpayer and that federal spending provincial spending

00:04:07.160 municipal spending at the end of the day when it's you have one pocket and when that one dollar

00:04:11.800 you've earned comes out of your pocket and goes to government in the abstract and in the grand sense

00:04:16.760 it really doesn't matter which one i i mean i used to like jack asters back in the day before the hst

00:04:22.440 in ontario uh they used to have the line items on the receipt that you'd get it was like kretzian's tax

00:04:29.400 and dalton's tax and then it was like harper's tax and wins tax and i was like i liked it actually

00:04:34.520 because you know i told you yeah okay they both have a role to play but at the end of the day

00:04:37.960 the hst was a transparent policy because a tax is a tax is a tax and and this is the thing i mean to

00:04:43.480 try to distinguish between these two is just from a messaging perspective alone flawed but also it means

00:04:50.120 that any criticism she's making to the federal government criticisms with which i agree yes can also

00:04:55.880 be pointed back at her government and i i just don't get that i mean her she's been asked about

00:05:01.000 it somewhat have you gotten a sense of how she rationalizes it at least i haven't heard her direct

00:05:07.720 response many times to be fair and i'd like to hear it frankly again it was her birthday yesterday

00:05:16.120 i like so much of what she is doing to be totally fair they've balanced the budget here andrew they

00:05:21.080 wrote it into law that they must keep spending increases restrained below the rate of inflation

00:05:26.600 plus population growth uh they're paying down the debt uh they're putting money away for a rainy day

00:05:31.400 like those are really good things but it just pains me when they turn around and do nonsensical things

00:05:38.200 like jacking up the fuel tax back up to full strength and i can hear some people right now within

00:05:42.600 the ucp saying well technically you know a barrel of oil is getting up there in price okay fair enough

00:05:48.680 when former premier jason kenney first announced this policy yes it was tied to the price of a

00:05:54.120 barrel of oil once the price of a barrel of oil got up to i think it's 90 per ton 90 per barrel rather

00:06:01.160 they would then drop the fuel tax back down but it was not getting to that range when premier smith

00:06:07.640 new premier smith fully dropped it down to zero for a year she did so for affordability reasons and also

00:06:15.080 to take some of the sting out of the federal carbon tax and this is where i think you know what if this

00:06:21.000 is my hunch i don't know for sure i think what's happened is uh what's often called dome disease in

00:06:26.840 alberta and that's where a politician who's elected really grassrootsy very connected to the average

00:06:32.200 person gets in put into office there in edmonton and then the bureaucrats who work in the department of

00:06:38.680 the treasury board they get in there and those types who don't run for election they don't need to

00:06:43.800 talk to average voters they love trying to find new taxes it's those sorts of pointy heads that

00:06:49.400 keep suggesting a pst here in alberta for example or new fees on all sorts of stuff so they can take

00:06:55.320 in more money because those folks are always looking at that revenue column how much money government's 1.00

00:06:59.880 taking in fair enough but politicians need to stand up to these people and say you know what no read the

00:07:05.880 room we're not going to increase taxes and when you combine it andrew with just i think it's just this

00:07:11.400 morning where ndp premier of manitoba wab canoe came out and said yeah i'm extending my fuel tax

00:07:18.120 holiday so folks in manitoba are saving 14 cents per liter of gasoline and diesel zero they're paying

00:07:24.600 zero provincial fuel taxes in manitoba we got full freight 13. i i don't understand there's a great quote

00:07:32.040 from milton friedman which is to be honest i i don't love the i i like my version of the quote better

00:07:37.880 because his is like more uh clinical in nature but but the effective meaning of it is that you

00:07:43.000 shouldn't try to elect the right people you should try to create the circumstances where even the

00:07:46.840 wrong people do the right things which naturally leads us to manitoba which has an ndp government

00:07:52.200 an ndp government which has not been great on the carbon tax they've not been terrible they've been

00:07:56.520 very wishy-washy but even in manitoba their government is extending this fuel tax holiday

00:08:01.880 that's right and i've always loved that modified quote you use because it actually gives people a

00:08:08.280 lot of hope even outside of taxes so everything that's gone on the past four or five years or

00:08:13.400 whatever it can get people down pretty fast and i really like that method and that way of looking at

00:08:18.680 it i remember you telling me that years ago and it cheered me right up because then that means that

00:08:22.760 we can fix stuff we can create the conditions where even politicians who are you know lukewarm still

00:08:30.600 nonetheless do the right thing and in this case in manitoba again no no knock on wab canoe he seems

00:08:36.120 like a very personable person actually um they're they've i guess created the conditions where they're

00:08:41.560 doing the right thing and so we're really happy to see that and strangely this is where things are a

00:08:47.160 little bit twilight zone here in alberta we're even seeing some of the ndp candidates for the

00:08:52.920 provincial party because former premier rachel notley is stepping down they're having an ndp leadership

00:08:57.560 race some of the ndp candidates have come out and said yeah we need to scrap the federal carbon tax

00:09:03.400 now there's a lot of asterisks around there so i don't know how they feel about a provincial one i

00:09:08.760 don't know what kind of terminology they're going to use but even to have them saying out loud with

00:09:13.320 their face we're opposed to the carbon tax is huge so this is a big game changer and so again it would

00:09:20.040 be really nice to be able to just full throat uh approve of what the alberta government is doing when

00:09:25.800 they're rallying cry against the federal carbon tax but it's really tough to do so when just cost

00:09:32.120 wise straight up math we are now paying higher taxes at the fuel pump i i have to take a bit of

00:09:38.600 an indulgence here chris did you listen to the song i sent you i haven't had a chance to yet okay okay

00:09:44.040 we're gonna do this now so okay i admittedly i sent it and chris thought i was like some

00:09:48.600 like my chris thought i've been hacked and was like fishing her or something i did i totally thought

00:09:52.920 you've been hacked i'm like and then i looked because i was like she always responds to me

00:09:55.960 within like five seconds then i went and looked at the email like oh yeah this looks like a spam

00:09:59.000 email it's like hey check out this ai generated song anyway so last week i discovered this ai song

00:10:04.680 machine and i was like and i was just having some fun with it and uh chris has just been such a

00:10:09.560 wonderful fixture on the show we thought she needed her own theme song for the show let's roll it 1.00

00:10:14.440 in the land of oil and cattle there's a woman named chris sim she's got a fire in her heart 1.00

00:10:26.200 fighting against the government's whims she ain't afraid to speak her mind stand up for what's right

00:10:36.520 a voice for the common folk she's a beacon shining bright

00:10:44.440 she's crusading against taxes you are for the hard-working folks out there 1.00

00:10:52.360 she believes in limited government in freedom she declared with a heart full of passion and a

00:11:01.400 spirit unyielding chris sims is the voice her message is appealing there we go

00:11:09.880 all right we can end it there that is so nice thank you chris sims you're the voice of alberta

00:11:22.200 and we're so glad you spend a little bit of your week with us keep up the great word keep up the

00:11:27.320 fight this is what happens when you don't open my emails you miss out on uh

00:11:30.680 on a i suddenly love something ai made this is wonderful you know there's always room for growth

00:11:38.280 that's really touching thank you for that so my wife has very little tolerance for ai generated 1.00

00:11:43.320 anything so like she was like stop sending me your freaking song so i'm like all right well my uh

00:11:47.560 i guess i guess i just have to share them with the audience now i think i'm done for now i think

00:11:51.160 i'm done for now i might make a couple more sean was upset that he didn't have one so i had a nice

00:11:56.440 jazz song written about him needing to back off and let me do the ai songs it actually slapped us

00:12:02.120 the kids say these days so all right well chris sims we will talk to you next week thank you so much

00:12:07.000 for coming on as always that was lit thanks andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:12:12.360 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - April 06, 2024

Albertans hit with double tax hike as fuel tax returns

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