Juno News - Taxpayer group predicts another difficult year

00:00:00.000 hey everyone happy new year and welcome back to the alberta roundup i'm your host rachel

00:00:13.960 emmanuel today we are joined by a long time fan favorite and friend of the show chris sims

00:00:20.660 sims is of course the alberta director of the canadian taxpayers federation chris we are so

00:00:26.460 thankful to have you on the show today we're going to be doing a little bit of a 2024 economic update

00:00:31.620 what can we expect to see this year thanks for joining us so chris first i'm wondering looking

00:00:36.400 at the provincial government can we expect any relief from the danielle smith government well

00:00:42.160 we certainly hope so and one of the big ones should be an income tax cut a provincial income tax cut

00:00:50.000 here in the province of alberta most of your listeners and your viewers will probably remember

00:00:55.260 back when premier danielle smith was campaigning to keep her job she campaigned on being low taxes 1.00

00:01:02.640 and one of the marquee promises she made was that they were going to create a new lower income tax 0.75

00:01:10.080 bracket now that can sound super boring because i'm talking about tax brackets but at the end of the day

00:01:16.020 what this means is if they go through with this promise and they'd better you're going to be paying

00:01:21.580 lower income taxes so right now the province of alberta actually has a pretty high low threshold

00:01:30.060 income tax what that means is if you earn up to about 145 000 so that covers a heck of a lot of people

00:01:38.460 if you earn around that amount of money you're paying 10 boom alberta provincial income tax that's much

00:01:47.220 higher than you would pay in british columbia for example that is run by the ndp government it surprises

00:01:54.280 quite a few people myself included when you move to alberta you actually might notice your paycheck go

00:02:01.220 down a little bit that's because as of right now our income tax is high because we don't have that lower

00:02:07.720 tax bracket fast forward premier danielle smith said okay i recognize this is a problem so this means

00:02:16.360 we're going to create a new lower income tax bracket so your first sixty thousand dollars of earnings

00:02:23.900 will now be taxed at a lower rate so your first you know fifty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine

00:02:31.080 dollars will be taxed at a lower rate in normal people talk this should save the average two person

00:02:37.080 working family around fourteen hundred bucks a year so that's nothing to sneeze at and this government had

00:02:45.940 better keep that promise and they better keep it real soon we've been hearing some rumblings now

00:02:51.380 of them using terms like it's our longer term plan nah they campaigned on this as being a major promise

00:02:59.220 they have to do it now and it will save if they do it and they should this will save alberta taxpayers a

00:03:05.960 lot of money like i said around for two person working family around fourteen hundred bucks for the year

00:03:11.060 so that's serious dope chris you are absolutely preaching to the choir i couldn't believe when i

00:03:16.100 filed taxes last year how much more money i owed to the government it really really stung and you of

00:03:22.660 course were on our election panel when we talked about this income tax relief for the first time

00:03:28.420 the ucp had hoped to make the economy the election issue you know i don't really think it was i think it

00:03:34.180 was more an election based on whether voters trusted racial notley or danielle smith moore but we saw a lot of

00:03:40.020 policies being pushed about the economy and you know the economy's still in really bad shape i think

00:03:44.740 it's only fair that the alberta government would put forward these policies and actually act on them

00:03:49.940 as they promised so for our viewers who are concerned and who would like to see this be

00:03:54.340 implemented of course you know email your mlas and let them know that you're concerned and that this

00:03:58.580 is something you want them to act on very quickly absolutely agreed and that is something that you know i

00:04:04.180 love alberta for a million reasons and i'm so thankful that we are able to move here with my family

00:04:08.580 um one of the things i really love about alberta is its activism just anecdotally i was at a big

00:04:14.900 conference in red deer and a lot of you know us types of small government low taxi type people were

00:04:20.340 there and we spent the whole day i was chatting with your colleague andrew lawton etc we go to some

00:04:26.100 you know random low-cost hotel to finish off the night and finish our work that i'd you know rented for

00:04:32.580 the night and we stumble across this other grassroots organization having one of their

00:04:37.940 meetings right in the lobby because that's the way alberta is and so if taxpayers if citizens of alberta

00:04:45.060 want something changed they don't sit on the couch they actually pick up their phones they send those

00:04:50.020 emails they go to those agms they go to those meetings so definitely email the premier and your mla

00:04:55.860 and you say hey uh i'm holding your feet to the fire i want lower taxes i think that's a really good

00:05:00.740 point activism in alberta seems to be much more astute and important than it is in other provinces

00:05:05.780 at least in my observation chris there's something else we need to talk about when we're looking at the

00:05:10.260 provincial government what is the update on fuel tax yeah this went sideways really fast with this

00:05:16.500 government and they didn't need to make this happen so let's back up for about a year okay so

00:05:22.820 a little over a year ago premier daniel smith fully suspended the fuel tax so if everything were being

00:05:30.420 equal and we had the full fuel tax we would pay 13 cents per liter provincial fuel tax on both gasoline

00:05:38.500 and diesel for a while there former premier jason kenney suspended it partially then fully then

00:05:44.500 partially again a little over a year ago premier daniel smith said you know what everything's bloody

00:05:49.780 expensive and everything is unaffordable i'm fully suspending it hoof 13 cents gone every single

00:05:56.340 time you're filling up there was a technicality though they said it's going to be now tied to the

00:06:02.020 price of oil and the moment that your west texas crude or your you know dollar your price per barrel

00:06:08.900 drops below a certain threshold we're going to automatically put the tax back on incrementally

00:06:15.300 now let's be clear nothing is automatic when it comes to government they're literally the government

00:06:21.460 they can change the law like in a day so nothing is automatic what they did then is kind of throw

00:06:27.620 their hands up and say oh well look the price of oil is dropped so we're going to put it back to nine cents

00:06:33.780 a liter so in essence what has happened is the daniel smith government of alberta has hiked your fuel tax

00:06:41.940 as of january 1st i actually can't really believe i'm saying that out loud because most people are

00:06:48.900 still really struggling with affordability they've got a lot of bills coming in i know a lot of people

00:06:54.980 had a much more subdued christmas to put it nicely the last few weeks so people are strapped

00:07:02.420 and the idea that this government turned around and hiked their fuel tax january 1st

00:07:07.700 while the ndp premier wab canoe over in manitoba is fully suspending their fuel tax this is a bad look

00:07:16.020 we're not happy absolutely chris this is such an important policy because not only does it offer

00:07:21.300 relief to albertans who are struggling right at the pumps but also because danielle smith is always

00:07:26.180 hammering the federal government and environment minister stephen guibo and this is one of those ways

00:07:30.580 that she can really fight back against his climate policies because she's handing albertans relief at the

00:07:35.460 pump and kind of throwing his climate change policies back in the face by saying look there's

00:07:39.380 something that we can do for albertans and certainly we are going to do that so just one more thing i

00:07:44.900 want to ask you about the provinces before we move into the federal government when daniel smith was first

00:07:49.620 elected she offered some one-time payments to families and to seniors it was about 500 depending on

00:07:55.460 your unique circumstances is that something she should and could do again in 2024.

00:08:01.700 sure if folks need it and if the government can afford it and as of this show they have a 5.5

00:08:10.180 billion dollar surplus uh all that being equal yeah they should do it because you have to keep in

00:08:15.860 mind so if people are fighting to afford basics and by basics we mean housing home heating fuel and food

00:08:24.180 okay we're not talking about trips to maui here okay people are fighting to afford those basics then

00:08:30.180 that is something that the government can help with especially if she's providing a shield against 1.00

00:08:36.420 trudeau's never-ending carbon tax hikes his ridiculous spending that also causes inflation to be worse

00:08:43.220 so anything daniel smith can do to make life more affordable like a shield wall here in alberta

00:08:49.300 is a good thing to do and just a reminder this is taxpayers money this is not some magical wealth

00:08:56.180 generating machine that they've had hidden under the city of edmonton under the legislature this is

00:09:00.660 all taxpayers money so if they can give some of that back to taxpayers in order to make life more

00:09:05.700 affordable that's smart okay and finally moving into albertans least favorite topic the federal

00:09:11.460 government can we expect to see any relief from the federal government in 2024 or are we really going

00:09:18.660 to have to wait for a change in government here i'll start with the bad news um and the short answer

00:09:24.100 is no uh the trudeau government is pretty ideological and by that i mean they're really bent on cracking

00:09:32.660 down on things like oil and gas on resource development as we saw with the environment minister

00:09:38.580 mr guibo you know he was famously a greenpeace activist who was literally arrested on tv so he's the

00:09:46.100 one in charge of what we can do as far as energy extraction here in the alberta so let's not kid

00:09:52.260 ourselves here um so yeah that's pretty grim we're also seeing the wrong signals coming from trudeau when

00:09:58.660 it comes to big time spending on things like you know a national pharma care program and all these

00:10:04.660 big tent big sky ideas when we have no money we have unmoney right now we are more than a trillion

00:10:11.940 dollars in debt so what we're paying on the interest payments just the interest payments on the debt

00:10:18.260 right now in many cases eclipses what we spend on health care as a line item in the budget it eclipses

00:10:26.180 what we spend on the armed forces like it's mind-blowing how much debt we have right now um what this also

00:10:35.300 does is that when he just keeps on making these spending announcements what happens is the bank of

00:10:41.620 canada just prints more money and that then causes inflation like anybody with a basic shred of

00:10:48.340 common sense with economy understands how this works so what's happening is he's causing inflation

00:10:54.340 to get worse which makes everything go up for us in price which in turn makes the bank of canada all

00:11:00.260 twitchy and then they start jacking up interest rates so we've not heard one little bit of like

00:11:06.660 sober second thought coming out of trudeau or any of his team and he's also going to increase the

00:11:12.500 carbon tax so if i know april 1st no fooling um his carbon tax is going up so remember what i was

00:11:20.500 saying about diesel being so expensive um as of right now in january diesel has a carbon tax of 17 cents a

00:11:28.980 liter that's going up to 21 cents a liter now picture everything like look around your house

00:11:35.220 if you're listening to the podcast or if you're out for a walk look at even all the stuff that

00:11:38.820 the houses are built of around you right even the cars they're all shipped to you on trucks

00:11:46.180 all of those trucks use diesel if he increases the tax on diesel he increases the tax on everything

00:11:52.100 and that's what he's going to do so unfortunately policy wise no we don't see any really good things on

00:11:57.780 the horizon from the trudeau government i will point out one little glimmer though and that is

00:12:03.780 the atlantic caucus of the liberal party in government what that means is all of the mps

00:12:09.620 who have seats in the atlantic region new brunswick nova scotia prince edward island newfoundland labrador

00:12:16.180 they managed to make trudeau blink on one of his biggest issues the carbon tax they made him

00:12:23.780 take the carbon tax off home heating oil furnace oil as it's known out that way furnace oil is

00:12:30.260 almost exclusively used in atlantic canada and he did that because he was gonna lose his shirt

00:12:37.140 in atlantic canada and those mps stood up to him even though they're in the same party they said hey

00:12:42.420 man pull up your socks we're not doing this anymore and he suspended the carbon tax on that fuel

00:12:48.340 or their constituents so i would give you a little bit of a hope that it's possible for mps no matter

00:12:54.740 what party they're in especially in government if they stand up and put their foot down we can see

00:13:00.180 real change because for those folks out in atlantic canada that's going to save them minimum 300 bucks

00:13:06.820 just this winter because of that one move okay chris thank you so much for that update i know it wasn't

00:13:12.900 the happiest update for our viewers but ultimately i believe the most important thing you can do is

00:13:18.100 educate yourself know what's going on in your country know what's going on in your economy that

00:13:22.740 way you can be prepared for whatever comes next maybe now it's time just to rain and spending a

00:13:26.660 little more hopefully we have a better update for you guys in 2025 chris thank you so much for joining

00:13:33.140 us today i know my viewers always really appreciate your insight for those of you who are still on

00:13:38.900 christmas holidays lucky you enjoy it for a little while longer i will see you guys next week have a

00:13:44.900 great weekend and god bless

Juno News - January 06, 2024

Taxpayer group predicts another difficult year

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