The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - Smith's pitch for highspeed rail

00:00:00.900 Rachel Emanuel brings the news each day on Alberta Roundup. She has her say.

00:00:11.560 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel.

00:00:15.500 Last week the Alberta government announced the launch of its passenger rail plan to help support Alberta's population, which is growing.

00:00:23.460 They have already committed $9 million to support the development of this plan.

00:00:26.740 Joining us today to discuss is fan favorite and the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Chris Sims.

00:00:33.780 Chris, thanks so much for joining us today.

00:00:35.400 Thanks for having us.

00:00:37.620 So starting off, let's take a look at what this plan promises to do.

00:00:41.440 It would create a regional line between Calgary and Edmonton, rail lines connecting Calgary and Edmonton to Banff and Jasper.

00:00:49.240 There would also be a commuter connection to Calgary International Airport and surrounding communities and to the city's downtown core.

00:00:55.280 It would be the same thing in Edmonton.

00:00:57.120 You'd be able to go from the Edmonton airport to the city and the downtown and the surrounding communities.

00:01:02.500 And then there would also be a provincial rail system connecting Calgary and Edmonton.

00:01:06.440 And interestingly enough, there would also be a rail line connecting Fort McMurray and Grand Prairie,

00:01:11.240 which isn't necessarily places I would have thought that would have a ton of foot traffic.

00:01:14.740 But that's essentially what the plan promises to do.

00:01:16.960 And the Premier has said that it will really help people who are in those morning commutes bumper to bumper.

00:01:21.840 Let's actually play that clip now of the Premier talking about how this will help people in the morning who are, you know, hundreds of people commuting.

00:01:28.420 There's so much traffic.

00:01:29.640 Let's see what she had to say about it last week.

00:01:31.460 We see the value in a commuter passenger line that connects folks in those communities to the Calgary airport

00:01:38.340 and then on to the downtown core, in the case of Airdrie, for a more streamlined and relaxed commute.

00:01:44.660 And we believe that a solution like that will also work in Edmonton and the entire capital region.

00:01:49.800 That is the starting point.

00:01:51.440 But we also want to open up direct access to our breathtaking and adventure-rich national parks.

00:01:56.580 So the Alberta government is saying that Alberta's population now, 4.9 million people, will reach 7.1 million people by 2051.

00:02:04.720 And that's a big part of the reason why they're pushing this railway plan to support all those people.

00:02:08.780 Now, first and foremost, is this railway line something that you see people asking for right now, Chris?

00:02:14.200 That's a great question.

00:02:15.160 It kind of surprised me when I saw the announcement.

00:02:18.000 And so the answer is no.

00:02:19.120 We hear from supporters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who are, by the way, by and large, pretty big fans of Premier Daniel Smith.

00:02:27.400 So they're quite often on her side.

00:02:29.280 I hadn't seen one email in the last two years asking for this sort of a thing.

00:02:34.580 If I can take off my CTF hat for a second and put on my fangirl hat, that's a really cool shot.

00:02:40.320 Seeing Premier Daniel Smith in front of an old school train, it reminded me of Atlas Shrugged and Dagny Taggart.

00:02:45.900 And I know she loves that book, too.

00:02:48.180 But the thing there with Atlas Shrugged is that that is private money.

00:02:52.860 So that is not government money.

00:02:54.380 It's not taxpayers' money.

00:02:56.540 And to see this kind of taxpayers' money being earmarked for another rail plan, it's a little bit concerning.

00:03:03.960 So you mentioned we already have $9 million earmarked.

00:03:07.440 These sorts of plans have a really nasty habit of ballooning into way more money.

00:03:13.500 Now, $9 million is still a lot of money.

00:03:15.720 That's nothing to sneeze at.

00:03:16.820 They could have used that for other things like tax relief. 0.89

00:03:19.580 Again, we're open to the idea of this being a good idea, but we would rather see private investment get behind it.

00:03:26.860 And we're really leery about a ton of taxpayers' money being poured into plans that don't go anywhere.

00:03:32.780 Like, for example, in eastern Canada, they've been talking about having a high-speed rail corridor between Quebec City and Windsor since before I was born, Rachel.

00:03:43.920 And this is starting back in the 70s.

00:03:46.100 And so, yeah, it was a little bit surprising to see this plan.

00:03:49.060 Again, I'm open to being surprised if they manage to do this under budget and with private money.

00:03:53.920 That'll be awesome.

00:03:54.740 But right now, we're just not seeing the demand and the reason for using taxpayers' money.

00:03:58.760 So when we talk about government money being used here, there's already been $9 million earmarked for it.

00:04:04.520 The government said that will be used for a cost-benefit analysis, which will include things like looking at the governance and delivery model,

00:04:10.620 and will take into account future population growth and technology like hydrogen powertrains.

00:04:14.760 We know the premier is so excited about hydrogen all the time.

00:04:17.380 So that $9 million, that's really just being used for the study.

00:04:20.580 Nothing's actually being built at that point.

00:04:22.000 Is that correct?

00:04:22.920 Yeah, that's my understanding, too.

00:04:24.640 And that seems like a pretty heavy-duty price tag to do a cost-benefit analysis.

00:04:28.940 Again, they already have people that are supposed to be on staff within the bureaucracy that are good at this kind of stuff.

00:04:36.160 Now, the joke's on us if they're actually good at that sort of thing.

00:04:39.400 But $9 million just to figure out if this is worth the money, that's an awful lot of dough.

00:04:44.480 And so we've put in some freedom of information requests with the Alberta government, trying to find out what they're anticipating.

00:04:51.000 Like, are they making any guesses as to what this might cost if they see it fully put forward?

00:04:57.440 I was surprised.

00:04:58.340 I didn't know about the Fort Mack element.

00:05:01.360 I thought this was more just between the major commuter centers of Calgary, Edmonton, and a bullet train out to Banff for the fancy tourists.

00:05:09.340 Didn't know about the Fort Mack part.

00:05:10.860 But don't know if it's worth it for the amount of population density.

00:05:14.880 Quite often, just speaking anecdotally, and I don't know if this has been the case of the Alberta government, of course, when I have friends who typically work in big industries or government and they go to Europe for a long time, they come back in love with trains.

00:05:27.320 And they're like, why can't we have that here in Canada?

00:05:30.440 Well, Canada is gigantic and we have a really low population density compared to Europe.

00:05:36.580 And so this is where often it doesn't fit.

00:05:38.800 Again, if they can pull this off and it's under budget and they're not using taxpayers' money to a great extent and they've got a lot of private investment, power to them.

00:05:46.680 That'd be really cool, especially something like a train out to the airport.

00:05:49.940 I know a lot of people would use that, but again, we're really leery and really hesitant no matter which government is doing it.

00:05:57.740 I can definitely see the argument for a train to the airport, but I think one thing I think about is, you know, taking a train out to Banff or to Jasper.

00:06:05.540 What are you going to do when you get there?

00:06:06.960 If you're there, it's the winter, it's negative 20, negative 30.

00:06:09.540 You're not exactly going to be wanting to wait around for city transportation.

00:06:12.940 I think for most people, they'd rather have their own vehicle there and be able to get around, especially in those cold temperatures.

00:06:18.320 I don't know if I really see the argument for this being utilized in places like Banff and Jasper.

00:06:22.520 What do you think?

00:06:23.440 That's a great question.

00:06:24.520 And then, of course, we get into the questions of what happens when you get off the train in Banff and then you want to go fancy skiing or fancy sightseeing up in the mountains.

00:06:33.020 Is there going to be a train that takes you up there?

00:06:35.220 Is there going to be some sort of taxpayer-funded bus service that uses hydrogen?

00:06:38.760 Like, there's all sorts of kind of knock-on effects and cascading effects that can come from this sort of thing.

00:06:44.240 Again, Alberta is beautiful and taking a train is really pretty.

00:06:48.840 It's a very pretty way to travel.

00:06:50.740 And so I can see the attraction from a tourism standpoint of having that happen.

00:06:55.080 You know, in fact, about 100 years ago, the, you know, Come to Canada sort of posters, especially that we had for the western provinces,

00:07:02.500 often showed some beautiful train cascading through the mountains and it looked gorgeous.

00:07:06.840 The problem is, is yes, those images are really nice, but what is the final price tag?

00:07:12.900 And again, spending $9 million already to find out how much it's costing, we have a lot of caution lights.

00:07:18.620 They're not red lights, but we have some caution lights here.

00:07:21.360 Yeah, I just think this isn't maybe the right time for an announcement like this.

00:07:24.340 I am consistently getting, you know, emails and messages from people who are saying,

00:07:28.060 we're about $100 away in my family every month of not making ends meet.

00:07:32.220 I know you deal with these people every single day.

00:07:34.000 This is, you're always receiving calls about this, but there's a lot of people who are really feeling that crunch right now.

00:07:38.180 And I think that they're hoping for some relief from the government.

00:07:40.320 We know things like the income tax relief that was promised, that's been delayed.

00:07:44.540 The government is promising maybe it won't even be the full extent of what it was.

00:07:47.220 We're still waiting to see relief on the fuel tax, even though we know gas has been high for the past couple of months.

00:07:52.700 So it just seems like for a lot of people, I expect this announcement is probably falling on deaf ears,

00:07:57.340 but you would probably have a better line on that.

00:07:59.520 What do you think?

00:08:00.520 We're getting exactly the same sort of messages as you guys there at True North, Rachel.

00:08:04.380 And so, and you're right.

00:08:05.480 It's not just us anecdotally getting these really tough messages that we're getting phone calls and emails.

00:08:10.760 MNP, which is basically a financial accounting and analysis firm.

00:08:16.420 Okay.

00:08:16.760 Every few months they put out a big analysis and they say that around 50%, give or take, a little bit of variability across provinces,

00:08:24.900 but around 50% of Canadians are within $200 every month of bankruptcy, meaning not being able to make the minimum payments on all their bills.

00:08:37.280 So that's really rough.

00:08:39.920 It's very similar here in Alberta.

00:08:41.900 Yes, we are more affordable when it comes to things like housing and the fact that we don't have a sales tax, which is very good,

00:08:48.040 but things are still really tight.

00:08:50.300 And this is for working people.

00:08:52.420 And the statistic that gets me all the time, and I'll try not to cry because I've got mascara on,

00:08:58.060 is the language of working families are increasingly depending upon food banks.

00:09:03.800 What that really means in normal people talk is that a parent who's holding down a job is counting on donated jars of peanut butter to feed their kid.

00:09:13.960 That's what that means.

00:09:15.340 Working families relying on food banks.

00:09:17.380 And that is not a stranger here to Alberta.

00:09:20.100 It's still happening here in Alberta.

00:09:21.880 So yeah, affordability is key right now.

00:09:26.320 Like really, really key.

00:09:28.040 And you touched on that.

00:09:29.440 So I will put some pressure on the UCP government here.

00:09:32.520 When they were campaigning during the last election, they said tax cuts for all Alberta.

00:09:38.480 Okay?

00:09:38.920 They pushed hard on reducing our baseline income tax rate.

00:09:43.500 So what that means is here in Alberta, your first $140,000 or so of salary is taxed at 10%.

00:09:50.520 That's actually pretty high.

00:09:52.800 If you're moving here from another province and you're making around $100,000,

00:09:56.980 say you're a plumber or a police officer or something like that,

00:10:00.260 you're going to notice your paycheck will be lower here in Alberta.

00:10:04.080 That is because our income tax is relatively high.

00:10:06.940 So what they promised to do is take that first bracket and drop it down to 8% for the first $60,000 of pay.

00:10:16.040 What that means is you're probably going to save around $750 per worker here in Alberta when and if they do that.

00:10:24.500 The key here, though, Rachel, is that they've kicked that can hard.

00:10:28.780 Like it's landed all the way down the street.

00:10:31.160 And now they're saying, oh, by 2026, we'll bring it down to 9% if we have the money to do so.

00:10:37.680 That's not what they said during the election campaign.

00:10:40.160 They made it sound like this was going to happen in a hurry.

00:10:43.480 And they don't seem to be in a hurry to give us income tax relief.

00:10:46.300 To your point also, I will point out on the fuel tax.

00:10:49.880 Yes, Premier Daniel Smith did get rid of the provincial fuel tax fully for a year.

00:10:54.600 That was awesome.

00:10:55.820 We praised her to the stars for that.

00:10:57.880 It saved Albertans around a billion dollars over that year or so, right?

00:11:02.020 Give or take on how often you fuel up.

00:11:04.000 Now it's all the way back up to 13 cents per liter of gasoline and diesel.

00:11:08.780 And people are noticing it.

00:11:10.280 Right now, I don't know what it is in your neck of the woods.

00:11:12.100 But when I left Lethbridge, it was $159.9, often $162.9.

00:11:17.460 And so that's pretty high.

00:11:18.780 When I visited Ottawa a few weeks ago, it was cheaper in Ottawa.

00:11:22.980 I had never seen that before comparing it to Alberta.

00:11:26.160 So yeah, people are really not seeing the affordability and savings happening here.

00:11:31.060 And so I think this announcement for a cool new train was a little bit mistimed.

00:11:36.440 Again, we're open to it if private investment comes flooding in and people love it and it's

00:11:40.920 awesome and it's not costing taxpayers money.

00:11:43.240 That sounds really, really cool.

00:11:44.880 But right now, we really need to see the details and the evidence of that.

00:11:49.380 And we talk about the fuel tax relief.

00:11:52.300 The government has said, listen, we can't cancel the tax entirely unless we see the price of

00:11:57.140 WTI exploding again.

00:11:58.740 I believe they said if WTI was over $90 a barrel, they would partially remove the tax

00:12:03.520 and they would continue to lower the tax as the price of oil went up.

00:12:07.000 So the price of oil has been high.

00:12:08.480 We haven't seen that tax come off yet.

00:12:09.800 I know I asked the premier about this in my interview with her about two weeks ago after

00:12:13.280 speaking with you and you said, we're going to take a look at this as well.

00:12:16.760 Are you guys putting pressure on the government?

00:12:18.300 Are you hoping this tax is going to be coming down soon?

00:12:21.000 I know the premier had said at the time, you know, we need to have some consistency, but

00:12:25.520 it's been high for a while.

00:12:27.000 People are feeling the effects of that.

00:12:28.560 Yeah, they really are.

00:12:29.460 And we absolutely are putting pressure on this government.

00:12:31.820 And so we're hearing a lot from our supporters saying, hey, where's my relief at the fuel pumps?

00:12:35.820 Why is it when I visit Manitoba and the NDP government led by Wob Canoe has taken 14 cents

00:12:42.520 off completely?

00:12:43.940 Yeah.

00:12:44.320 So just newsflash.

00:12:46.400 The NDP government of Manitoba has 14 cents off per liter of gasoline and diesel.

00:12:51.580 And again, that's not just those of us commuting with our minivans and our kids.

00:12:54.720 That's truckers saving that kind of dough every time they're filling up their big rig trucks. 0.96

00:12:59.720 So yeah, we are pushing them there.

00:13:02.040 Again, to be fair, Manitoba's got a big deficit.

00:13:04.920 Here in Alberta, we have a balanced budget, right?

00:13:06.980 So we have to pick our wins and losses.

00:13:09.260 But we are urging the government to find these savings as fast as they can.

00:13:13.360 That was an excellent interview that you did with Premier Danielle Smith, because it got

00:13:17.640 her on record about exactly how this fuel savings works.

00:13:21.520 My concern, though, is that what happens if we stay high for our West Texas International?

00:13:26.980 What if the price of a barrel of oil stays high all this time, and then in the two weeks

00:13:33.220 leading up to their quarterly update, which I think should be July 1st, should be the next

00:13:38.060 one that they're analyzing, what if it suddenly drops for the two weeks leading up to that

00:13:43.400 announcement?

00:13:44.300 Are they then just going to pocket all of that excess cash and then say, no soup for you,

00:13:49.260 it's technically not above this amount, and we're not going to give you fuel tax relief?

00:13:53.480 We do not want to see that.

00:13:55.040 So to your point, the price of oil has stayed high now for quite a while, past several weeks.

00:14:00.600 We expect it's probably going to stay around that amount leading up to July 1st.

00:14:04.940 But we really, really want to see that gas price, that gas tax come down when they do

00:14:10.820 their quarterly update, as they promised.

00:14:13.960 Okay, Chris, and just ending on a lighter note for you and for all of my viewers, you guys had

00:14:17.880 your Teddy Waste Awards over at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation last night.

00:14:21.680 What were the highlights of the night?

00:14:22.960 Who did some of the awards go to?

00:14:24.120 Oh, it was a really tough competition at the federal level, as you can imagine.

00:14:28.100 So for folks who don't know what we're talking about, the Taxpayers Federation, we've been

00:14:31.440 around since 1990 before the internet was a thing.

00:14:34.060 And one of the things we do is we hand out spoof golden pig statues to politicians and

00:14:40.320 bureaucrats who waste your money in the most spectacular way. 0.94

00:14:43.580 Now, some people might wonder, why is that funny?

00:14:45.260 It's not funny.

00:14:45.860 It's funny because when we mock them, they hate it.

00:14:51.080 They can take our laugh.

00:14:52.420 They can take our yelling.

00:14:53.680 They can take people getting an angry email.

00:14:55.700 But when you ridicule and mock these desk rulers, they get really huffy really fast.

00:15:00.260 They think they're super important. 0.86

00:15:01.280 So we have a huge award show every single year to honor the ridiculous waste of our money.

00:15:07.160 So at the federal level, it was a super tough competition.

00:15:10.480 It was really down to the wire between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blowing a million dollars

00:15:15.260 on his affordability retreats for his cabinet.

00:15:19.640 Very Orwellian term there.

00:15:21.180 So yeah, he blew a million dollars and CBC CEO Catherine Tate begging for more money at

00:15:28.360 the parliamentary committee hearing while handing out massive bonuses to their executive team.

00:15:34.480 And so in the end, it was a squeaker, but Catherine Tate took home the hardware. 1.00

00:15:39.420 So I will remind people that the CBC CEO is paid between $400 something thousand dollars

00:15:44.880 and $600 something thousand dollars every single year.

00:15:48.940 And the CBC takes $1.4 billion from us every single year.

00:15:55.200 To put that kind of money into perspective, Rachel, instead of spending that on the CBC,

00:15:59.680 that would pay the salaries of 7,000 cops and 7,000 paramedics every year instead of paying

00:16:07.120 for the CBC.

00:16:07.980 So this is my little friend here, my stuffed pig I brought with me.

00:16:12.320 But we gave out the golden award to Catherine Tate here quickly in Alberta, actually the provincial

00:16:18.040 category.

00:16:18.540 It was the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.

00:16:21.640 They won it for the provincial category here in Alberta because they gave something like

00:16:26.420 $30,000 to an Alberta artist who drew a painting that Franco Terrazzano described as ants on

00:16:33.940 a pop tart is what it looked like.

00:16:35.900 That was in New York.

00:16:36.880 And another performance she did was in South Korea, which was I think about eight minutes

00:16:41.320 long and it was a video and it was her on one of those lawn chairs, you know, the ones

00:16:45.960 that fold up like a lounge and she was rolling around on it for like eight minutes.

00:16:52.580 So yeah, she won.

00:16:54.100 Obviously, I'm in the wrong industry.

00:16:55.760 I could definitely roll around on a lounge chair for a couple minutes.

00:16:58.520 That's what Franco said.

00:16:59.640 He said, just videotape me next time I'm relaxing in the backyard.

00:17:02.880 I'll do it for free.

00:17:03.860 Give the money back to the taxpayers.

00:17:06.960 Yes, exactly.

00:17:07.700 So that was about 30 grand.

00:17:08.920 And again, and not, you know, picking on the artist individually, it's the government's 0.64

00:17:12.340 fault for giving out these ridiculous grants.

00:17:14.580 Like people want to go watch that kind of art, like power to them. 0.87

00:17:16.980 Don't make taxpayers pay for it, though.

00:17:19.800 Yeah, those are some stunning figures.

00:17:21.300 And I'm remembering correctly, didn't Catherine Tate also lecture MPs about how they're worrying

00:17:25.060 too much about their own bonuses while awarding herself around half a million dollars? 0.89

00:17:30.540 Yep.

00:17:31.180 Yep.

00:17:31.460 And it's one of those strange tone deaf things where she just keeps on saying, yeah, everything's

00:17:36.480 fine.

00:17:36.840 So much so when I will, I thought I was asleep.

00:17:39.440 I didn't believe this.

00:17:40.920 You might remember back in, I think, December or January that the national anchor, Adrian

00:17:45.860 Arsenal on CBC had her boss on her show and was grilling her about these bonuses and citing

00:17:53.340 the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:17:55.540 Never did I ever think that I would see the CBC anchor actually doing that.

00:17:59.180 But if it's already trickling down to the rank and file, you know, reporters that work for

00:18:03.440 that outfit, boy, oh boy, they got to have some reform, which is, again, why we want the

00:18:07.520 CBC defunded.

00:18:08.640 If people want to donate or have a subscription to something like CBC Radio for remote locations,

00:18:13.340 that's a whole nother kettle of fish and they can use their own money for it. 0.84

00:18:16.320 But it is not worth $1.4 billion per year.

00:18:21.060 Sounds like if we defund the CBC, then we solve our healthcare crisis right there.

00:18:25.160 Lots of money to hire all the new staff that we need all across the board.

00:18:29.080 Chris, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:18:30.740 This was really great.

00:18:31.440 Always a pleasure to have you on.

00:18:32.880 Thanks so much.

00:18:34.560 And the audience, I'm curious to hear from you guys, what do you think about this passenger

00:18:38.220 railway line?

00:18:38.940 Is it something that you're excited about?

00:18:40.200 Do you think you would utilize it a lot?

00:18:41.580 Or is it maybe not the best time for it?

00:18:43.800 Comment under the video below.

00:18:44.920 I'm definitely curious to hear what everyone else thinks about it.

00:18:47.780 And I will be back on Saturday with our regular programming.

00:18:50.260 I hope that you guys have a great week.

00:18:51.800 I'll see you soon and God bless.

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - May 08, 2024

Smith's pitch for highspeed rail

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