Juno News - What does Danielle Smith’s win mean for Alberta？

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 i want to welcome into the show here chris sims she is the alberta director with the canadian

00:00:13.440 taxpayers federation and obviously has been covering this extensively we saw her with my

00:00:19.200 colleague rachel emmanuel on true north uh chris what are your first thoughts on the election

00:00:24.780 results uh nice to be on here and it was nice to see you on monday night of course during our big

00:00:30.160 election coverage uh we're pretty pleased with the policies that the ucp was promising during the

00:00:37.100 campaign so to back up a little bit even before the election the ucp government passed a law saying

00:00:45.040 that they would have balanced budgets and that they would rein in their spending and tie it to the rate

00:00:51.020 of inflation and population growth now that's a big deal it sounds kind of dry but it's a really

00:00:57.140 big deal because that keeps the government from just splurging if they get a big surplus if oil is

00:01:03.200 good that year it keeps their spending in check it's something that the ctf has been asking for 1.00

00:01:08.100 since the 90s like the backstreet boys were topping the charts when we were last asking for this so we

00:01:13.540 were super happy to see that they also agreed to seriously pay down the debt in a big way so again

00:01:19.120 this is all law this wasn't even something they had to campaign on um they are going to put 50 percent

00:01:24.480 of their surplus down on the debt every year uh that's really similar to what the late premier

00:01:28.900 ralph klein did when he put 75 percent down that's how he held up that paid in full sign and so we're

00:01:35.020 really pleased to see the promises that now that they've made during this election including things

00:01:39.360 like strengthening the taxpayer protection act by saying hey you know what if we want to increase your

00:01:44.920 personal income taxes or business taxes you need to have a referendum on it first and the government

00:01:52.100 needs to win it so there's some pretty serious promises we're seeing so we're pretty happy with

00:01:56.400 that yeah let's talk about the referendum aspect because stuff like this i i find it is useful in

00:02:02.260 some ways but not in others because governments that want to get around it can get around it i mean

00:02:07.600 it's not a constitutional requirement so theoretically a future government could say we're just going to

00:02:12.060 change the law requiring the referendum and pass the tax on our own but i guess my hope would be

00:02:17.280 that it either reflects or creates a culture where governments in alberta do not look at the

00:02:23.420 taxpayers as atms exactly and i think especially in alberta now i'm a transplant our family moved out

00:02:32.000 here in the summer from british columbia and i will say one of the biggest differences i've noticed

00:02:37.040 here in alberta is the grassroots activism and how engaged people are i mean you can send out an email

00:02:44.880 with a heads up of like a few days saying hey come to this pub in red deer if you want to hear about

00:02:50.780 balanced budget legislation like the cost of just transition and 200 people will show up like it's

00:02:58.640 really remarkable i've never seen anything like it and apparently it's just par for the course here

00:03:03.140 in alberta and what's interesting is that right now the taxpayer protection act in alberta is the

00:03:09.780 reason why we have no pst it's currently the only element of the taxpayer protection act it is that

00:03:16.340 you will have to win government a referendum before you put in a sales tax good luck with that so that's

00:03:22.820 why we have no pst so we're hopeful that it'll have that same level of sharp teeth when they expand it

00:03:29.540 well and just on that note of direct democracy here and of citizen engagement the kenny government

00:03:35.580 also passed i think it was bill 52 if i'm not mistaken which allowed for recall of politicians

00:03:41.840 and i think even of specific bills if i'm not mistaken so again you know there's another level

00:03:46.740 of democracy if a politician goes against their word goes against their promise there's a a very high

00:03:51.920 bar but there is a bar nonetheless that groups of people that get together in red deer and across the

00:03:56.340 province can say no we are recalling you because you have failed to uphold your mandate to us as an

00:04:01.900 mla that's right and before that the only jurisdiction in canada that had that rule was british columbia

00:04:07.580 and it was used almost successfully one time basically the mla realized he was going to get recalled and

00:04:14.020 then quit and so it worked well that way and so alberta not to be outdone did pass that law but what's

00:04:20.160 really interesting is that they did bc1 better it's extended to city level too they did it as a

00:04:26.680 two banger with that with that law so now municipal city councils can get recalled as well it's a really

00:04:33.900 important tool like you said the threshold is high you know it's not as if you get a couple of

00:04:39.000 disgruntled people in you know red deer somewhere that they're going to pull down the whole government

00:04:43.220 but it's that tool in the toolbox it's that little tap on the shoulder so that if an mla or a premier

00:04:50.120 or whatnot or a city council or a mayor starts messing exactly or exactly or school trustee starts

00:04:56.960 messing around and getting into hot water there's that extra oh man i could lose my job but there's a

00:05:02.700 flip side too which i find really interesting and fair it doesn't just fire them it holds a by-election

00:05:09.080 so that say there were some group that was really mad about whatever reason and a lot of people

00:05:16.400 perceived it as being unfair and they fomented this big campaign and they said let's have a

00:05:21.340 by-election hey if that person's voters and that riding says you know what bob did a good job we still

00:05:28.180 like bob he can keep his job he just needs to win the by-election and that's happened in the states in a

00:05:33.260 couple instances so it's a really interesting tool yeah that that is actually an interesting point and

00:05:39.380 i think it's actually quite a valid one i mean there have been arguments in favor of anyone who

00:05:44.500 crosses the floor should have to be re-elected under that party's banner and again i mean whether there's

00:05:49.860 a legal mechanism that should do that or not is is something that other people can decide but

00:05:53.860 but i don't think there should ever be a case where mlas lose sight of what they're there to do

00:05:59.280 and i feel oftentimes especially in minority governments where you don't have like the sort

00:06:03.640 of damocles over your head there there can be a very easy way for an mla to get there they've got a 1.00

00:06:09.260 four-year blank check they know that voters aren't going to start paying attention for maybe another

00:06:13.240 three years so they can do what they want and certainly at the federal level we've seen that i

00:06:17.680 mean what's happened when we've given the government the credit card without a spending limit

00:06:21.520 yeah exactly it's that um you've probably seen that cartoon where this the couple is standing there

00:06:27.320 and justin trudeau is running around flinging money everywhere and they're one of them's happy

00:06:31.300 and then the wife is telling the husband he's got your wallet because he's flinging it everywhere

00:06:36.660 yeah i got my climate action ascent of a few weeks back too and i was like oh money i was like

00:06:41.240 wait wait i already paid them this is my money exactly it's your money that having been washed

00:06:46.280 through levels of bureaucracy thank you very much for your donation um but here in alberta we have

00:06:51.900 those swords built in now at every level of government and so we're really happy about it

00:06:57.380 and you know the reason why we're happy about it is because the taxpayers federation we're grassroots

00:07:01.300 you know we take you know non-refundable you know non-receivable donations we don't take money from

00:07:06.520 taxpayers you know we have thousands of supporters across the country most of them are you know small

00:07:11.360 town farmers those sort of folks and they often will email us with things like you know i i want lower

00:07:17.880 taxes i'm worried about my neighbors because they're using a food bank like really direct

00:07:23.660 stuff and so to see this kind of direct democracy and these tools being put in the hands of the people

00:07:29.320 of alberta it's just a very good thing i know conservatives uh some conservatives and i use that

00:07:35.900 with the capital c here not the lower c have come to fear the ctf because the ctf is unafraid to call out 0.98

00:07:41.880 when uh so-called conservative politicians go against their their pledges you know aaron o'toole comes to

00:07:47.580 mind you know running as the big true blue conservative and then all of a sudden find some

00:07:51.580 weird like air miles carbon tax hybrid to run on in 2021 i know you like anyone else in media has

00:07:59.180 come across danielle smith on many many avenues uh over the last several years when she was in media

00:08:04.820 when she was a business advocate as premier has she been receptive to the issues that ctf has tried

00:08:10.740 to put forward very much so uh so like you yes of course uh we've interacted with danielle personally

00:08:17.240 over the many i think actually you were there when danielle and i were like concocting uh plans

00:08:20.960 for world domination at red lobster or something i was sitting right there at the table i happen to

00:08:26.480 remember that conversation and here she is premier can i just take my ctf hat off for just a second 0.99

00:08:31.300 yeah and just as like a human being it's pretty remarkable like this political comeback she was 1.00

00:08:39.000 you know all that stuff that happened with wild rose the floor crossing she lost her seat during

00:08:45.500 that time and now here we are one year from when i think you and i were talking about this

00:08:51.760 and she's elected to a majority with as premier it's a pretty remarkable comeback and i would say the

00:08:57.240 same thing if she were wearing like a red or orange jersey just objectively speaking it's a pretty 0.96

00:09:02.180 remarkable comeback politically here in canada and so to put the ctf hat back on yes she has been very

00:09:08.600 receptive interestingly one of the first things we did is we asked all of the ucp leadership candidates

00:09:14.640 to sign our pledge promising if i'm premier never ever a pst uh-uh not gonna happen and she signed it

00:09:22.300 right away and what's interesting is during the signing and i hadn't mentioned this to her at all

00:09:27.060 it was just her kind of nerding out as she would put it she's signing it and she says hey i really

00:09:32.840 liked the paper you guys did like 15 years ago where you said if you put enough money into the

00:09:38.140 heritage savings fund we could get rid of an income tax like wouldn't that be neat in the future i'm

00:09:43.480 just like yeah that would be neat did she write that on the pledge as well because that might have 0.93

00:09:48.960 been a good appendix to uh to try to bring up with her i should have called her on it and said put a 0.79

00:09:52.980 pride her on that you know yeah yeah exactly but yeah to you know yes the short answer is yes and

00:09:59.220 even during the election campaign they agreed to a lot of things like opening up the taxpayer

00:10:04.560 protection act and before that they agreed to balance budget legislation debt repayment saving

00:10:09.920 money in the heritage fund a lot of the meat and potato things that the ctf has been asking for

00:10:14.660 there's one little thing if we could push it for one more thing we would really like to see put in

00:10:19.500 the taxpayer protection act and that's the carbon tax so it's going to sound weird but of course right

00:10:25.720 now there's just a federal carbon tax what happens if that gets scrapped what prevents whatever

00:10:33.460 provincial politician is here in alberta from creating a provincial one here again it was awful

00:10:38.900 when premier rachel notley had sprung one on albertans but they got their say so on that now we're forced

00:10:46.180 to pay justin trudeau's mandatory minimum carbon tax and people here really don't like it and so we

00:10:52.120 would like one more change to the taxpayer protection act and that is to put a provincial

00:10:57.840 carbon tax shield in there yeah that would be a i think a very very good one and if i have the chance

00:11:04.120 to sit down with the premier in the coming months i'd like to ask that so do remind me if you get wind

00:11:08.320 that she's coming on the show i will before i let you go chris i want to ask you about that ralph

00:11:12.600 klein paid in full because i think that it's very difficult to unwind government which is why putting

00:11:19.620 a pst in place for example would become permanent i i just know it i know that it's going to become

00:11:24.980 very easy for a government to look at the numbers when something like that was in if it were ever in

00:11:29.640 and say you know to roll this back would just be too costly uh is it possible to get back to that

00:11:35.520 paid in full or has debt just become such an accepted part of doing business now as government

00:11:41.880 that there's no real appetite to make those tough calls anymore that's a great question and again i

00:11:47.900 would say the same thing if the numbers were there for an ndp or liberal government but here in alberta

00:11:53.580 the debt clock is going backwards like i've never seen it happen before so rewind about six or eight

00:12:01.640 months or so ago uh the government at the time before the election put down the biggest one-time

00:12:07.860 payment on the debt so they got a surplus they had some savings they had some money to actually use

00:12:14.080 and instead of just blowing it now i'm sure they wasted money on the margins here and there that we

00:12:18.720 haven't found yet but they put a big chunk down on the debt and so now the debt again it's an

00:12:25.240 astronomical number it's around 73 billion dollars but it's going down they're reducing the debt and

00:12:32.100 they already passed legislation saying 50 of the cash surplus must now go down on the debt

00:12:38.120 or they'll penalize themselves or you know we're allowed to chase them around in a fiber costume or

00:12:43.660 i can bicycle lock my neck to their leg like you know we we will make them keep their promises and so

00:12:50.900 here uh debt is on the radar uh i don't think that's quite broken through at the federal level yet

00:12:59.020 like the the folks in the parliamentary press gallery aren't really paying attention to that yet

00:13:03.940 but i'll tell you when that debt servicing cost also known as your interest payment on the federal

00:13:10.300 debt eclipses line items like national defense or health care or something like that they'll start

00:13:18.360 paying attention then do you guys have i you lived in ontario previously i know so you may know this do 0.96

00:13:24.360 you guys have the uh an alberta equivalent of the ontario opportunities fund which is this stupid 0.77

00:13:29.460 thing in ontario where you can like voluntarily donate your tax refund to pay down the provincial

00:13:34.120 debt oh which is like mike harris did it and i'm like apparently it gets like i don't know forty

00:13:39.460 thousand dollars a year or something but i'm like but in alberta i might actually trust that the

00:13:44.200 government would be responsible with that in ontario i don't i was never going to give kathleen

00:13:48.100 win my tax refund or anything here's a bag with no no hole on the end of it right yeah um but yeah

00:13:54.900 yeah promise but probably um but in all seriousness anyone can make a donation they would just have to

00:14:03.100 contact the treasury board yeah it's for real find out their direct deposit or their mailing address

00:14:09.680 and give money to them in fact i don't recommend that ever no no i'm not but it's like i really believe

00:14:15.780 in alberta and i want alberta to be able to do that again because it sets the standard for every other

00:14:19.780 province in the country that you don't get to just run your government and run your affairs on debt

00:14:24.520 and pretend that that's the only way of doing things yeah exactly and it's it's an example i

00:14:29.100 actually give to a lot of folks when i'll be online or whatever and post something like hey we've got tax

00:14:33.740 cuts or reductions here and they're like i'm happy paying more taxes and i'm like well here's the

00:14:37.900 address of revenue canada feel free you know take my portion and so so we're we're very hopeful

00:14:44.420 but we're also practical they made a lot of big promises during this campaign so we're going to

00:14:51.020 have to work really hard on the ctf side of things to hold them accountable for those promises and we

00:14:56.860 will all right chris sims from the canadian taxpayers federation good seeing you monday thanks for

00:15:02.100 popping in today really appreciate it thank you thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:15:06.660 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:15:12.640 you

Juno News - June 06, 2023

What does Danielle Smith’s win mean for Alberta？

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