The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - 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

00:00:20.700 sims is of course the alberta director of the canadian taxpayers federation chris we are so

00:00:26.480 thankful to have you on the show today we're going to be doing a little bit of a 2024 economic update

00:00:31.640 what can we expect to see this year thanks for joining us so chris first i'm wondering looking

00:00:36.420 at the provincial government can we expect any relief from the danielle smith government well

00:00:42.200 we certainly hope so and one of the big ones should be an income tax cut a provincial income tax cut

00:00:50.020 here in the province of alberta most of your listeners and your viewers will probably remember

00:00:55.280 back when premier danielle smith was campaigning to keep her job she campaigned on being low taxes 1.00

00:01:02.660 and one of the marquee promises she made was that they were going to create a new lower income tax 0.75

00:01:10.100 bracket now that can sound super boring because i'm talking about tax brackets but at the end of the day

00:01:16.040 what this means is if they go through with this promise and they'd better you're going to be paying

00:01:21.620 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

00:01:38.500 if you earn around that amount of money you're paying 10 boom alberta provincial income tax that's much

00:01:47.240 higher than you would pay in british columbia for example that is run by the ndp government it surprises

00:01:54.300 quite a few people myself included when you move to alberta you actually might notice your paycheck go

00:02:01.240 down a little bit that's because as of right now our income tax is high because we don't have that lower

00:02:07.760 tax bracket fast forward premier daniel smith said okay i recognize this is a problem so this means

00:02:16.380 we're going to create a new lower income tax bracket so your first 60 000 of earnings will now be taxed at

00:02:26.040 a lower rate so your first you know 59 999 will be taxed at a lower rate in normal people talk this

00:02:34.980 should save the average two-person working family around 1400 bucks a year so that's nothing to

00:02:43.380 sneeze at and this government had better keep that promise and they better keep it real soon

00:02:48.920 we've been hearing some rumblings now of them using terms like it's our longer term plan

00:02:55.480 nah they campaigned on this as being a major promise they have to do it now and it will save if

00:03:02.840 they do it and they should this will save alberta taxpayers a lot of money like i said around for

00:03:07.780 two-person working family around 1400 bucks for the year so that's serious dope chris you are 0.72

00:03:13.760 absolutely preaching to the choir i couldn't believe when i filed taxes last year how much more money i

00:03:19.320 owed to the government it really really stung and you of course were on our election panel when we

00:03:25.260 talked about this income tax relief for the first time the ucp had hoped to make the economy

00:03:31.200 the election issue you know i don't really think it was i think it was more an election

00:03:35.140 based on whether voters trusted rachel notley or daniel smith moore but we saw a lot of policies

00:03:40.500 being pushed about the economy and you know the economy is still in really bad shape i think it's

00:03:45.040 only fair that the alberta government would put forward these policies and actually act on them as

00:03:50.260 they promised so for our viewers who are concerned and who would like to see this be implemented of

00:03:55.180 course you know email your mlas and let them know that you're concerned and that this is something you

00:03:59.240 want them to act on very quickly absolutely agreed and that is something that you know i love alberta

00:04:04.940 for a million reasons and i'm so thankful that we are able to move here with my family

00:04:08.260 um one of the things i really love about alberta is its activism just anecdotally uh i was at a big

00:04:14.960 conference in red deer and a lot of you know us types of small government low taxi type people were

00:04:20.380 there and we spent the whole day i was chatting with your colleague andrew lawton etc we go to some

00:04:26.200 you know random low cost hotel to finish off the night and finish our work that i'd you know rented

00:04:32.500 for the night and we stumble across this other grassroots organization having one of their

00:04:38.060 meetings right in the lobby because that's the way alberta is and so if taxpayers if citizens of

00:04:44.440 alberta want something changed they don't sit on the couch they actually pick up their phones they send

00:04:50.000 those emails they go to those agms they go to those meetings so definitely email the premier and your

00:04:55.200 mla and you say hey uh i'm holding your feet to the fire i want lower taxes i think that's a really

00:05:00.700 good point activism in alberta seems to be much more astute and important than it is in other

00:05:05.020 provinces at least in my observation chris there's something else we need to talk about when we're

00:05:09.760 looking at the provincial government what is the update on fuel tax yeah this went sideways really

00:05:15.680 fast with this government and they didn't need to make this happen so let's back up for about a year

00:05:21.700 okay so a little over a year ago premier daniel smith fully suspended the fuel tax so if everything

00:05:29.740 were being equal and we had the full fuel tax we would pay 13 cents per liter provincial fuel tax on

00:05:37.820 both gasoline and diesel for a while there former premier jason kenney suspended it partially then fully

00:05:44.340 then partially again a little over a year ago premier daniel smith said you know what everything's

00:05:49.540 bloody expensive and everything is unaffordable i'm fully suspending it oof 13 cents gone every single

00:05:56.460 time you're filling up there was a technicality though they said it's going to be now tied to the

00:06:02.120 price of oil and the moment that your west texas crude or your you know dollar your price per barrel

00:06:08.840 drops below a certain threshold we're going to automatically put the tax back on incrementally

00:06:15.400 now let's be clear nothing is automatic when it comes to government they're literally the government

00:06:21.180 they can change the law like in a day so nothing is automatic what they did then is kind of throw their

00:06:27.920 hands up and say oh well look the price of oil is dropped so we're going to put it back to nine cents a

00:06:34.020 liter so in essence what has happened is the daniel smith government of alberta has hiked your fuel tax

00:06:41.600 as of january 1st i actually can't really believe i'm saying that out loud because most people are

00:06:48.940 still really struggling with affordability they've got a lot of bills coming in i know a lot of people

00:06:54.540 had a much more subdued christmas to put it nicely the last few weeks so people are strapped

00:07:01.820 and the idea that this government turned around and hiked their fuel tax january 1st

00:07:07.600 while the ndp premier wab canoe over in manitoba is fully suspending their fuel tax

00:07:14.180 this is a bad look we're not happy it's the family and friends event at shoppers drug mart

00:07:20.200 get 20 off almost all regular priced merchandise two days only tuesday february 24th and wednesday

00:07:26.860 february 25th open your pc optimum app to get your coupon

00:07:30.520 happy absolutely chris this is such an important policy because not only does it offer relief to

00:07:38.920 albertans who are struggling right at the pumps but also because danielle smith is always hammering 1.00

00:07:43.660 the federal government and environment minister stephen guibo and this is one of those ways that

00:07:47.800 she can really fight back against his climate policies because she's handing albertans relief 0.65

00:07:52.260 at the pump and kind of throwing his climate change policies back in the face by saying look

00:07:55.840 there's something that we can do for albertans and certainly we are going to do that so just one

00:08:01.560 more thing i want to ask you about the provinces before we move into the federal government when

00:08:05.800 danielle smith was first elected she offered some one-time payments to families and to seniors it was

00:08:10.840 about 500 depending on your unique circumstances is that something she should and could do again in 2024

00:08:18.440 sure if folks need it and if the government can afford it and as of this show they have a 5.5

00:08:27.000 billion dollar surplus all that being equal yeah they should do it because you have to keep in mind so

00:08:33.500 if people are fighting to afford basics and by basics we mean housing home heating fuel and food okay

00:08:41.520 we're not talking about trips to maui here okay people are fighting to afford those basics then that is

00:08:47.640 something that the government can help with especially if she's providing a shield against 1.00

00:08:53.460 trudeau's never-ending carbon tax hikes his ridiculous spending that also causes inflation to be worse

00:08:59.760 so anything daniel smith can do to make life more affordable like a shield wall here in alberta

00:09:05.920 is a good thing to do and just a reminder this is taxpayers money this is not some magical wealth

00:09:13.180 generating machine that they've had hidden under the city of edmonton under the legislature

00:09:16.940 this is all taxpayers money so if they can give some of that back to taxpayers in order to make

00:09:22.400 life more affordable that's smart okay and finally moving into alberton's least favorite topic the

00:09:28.220 federal government can we expect to see any relief from the federal government in 2024 or are we really

00:09:35.480 going to have to wait for a change in government here i'll start with the bad news um and the short

00:09:40.800 answer is no uh the trudeau government is pretty ideological and by that i mean they're really bent

00:09:48.680 on cracking down on things like oil and gas on resource development as we saw with the environment

00:09:54.660 minister mr guibo you know he was famously a greenpeace activist who was literally arrested

00:10:01.220 on tv so he's the one in charge of what we can do as far as energy extraction here in the alberta so

00:10:08.440 let's not kid ourselves here um so yeah that's pretty grim we're also seeing the wrong signals

00:10:14.600 coming from trudeau when it comes to big time spending on things like you know a national pharma

00:10:20.180 care program and all these big tent big sky ideas when we have no money we have un-money right now

00:10:27.520 we are more than a trillion dollars in debt so what we're paying on the interest payments just the

00:10:34.040 interest payments on the debt right now in many cases eclipses what we spend on health care as a

00:10:40.680 line item in the budget it eclipses what we spend on the armed forces like it's mind-blowing how much

00:10:48.960 debt we have right now um what this also does is that when he just keeps on making these spending

00:10:55.280 announcements what happens is the bank of canada just prints more money and that then causes inflation

00:11:03.080 like anybody with a basic shred of common sense with economy understands how this works so what's

00:11:09.320 happening is he's causing inflation to get worse which makes everything go up for us in price which

00:11:15.180 in turn makes the bank of canada all twitchy and then they start jacking up interest rates so we've not

00:11:21.580 heard one little bit of like sober second thought coming out of trudeau or any of his team and he's also

00:11:28.620 going to increase the carbon tax so ape i know april 1st no fooling um his carbon tax is going up

00:11:35.740 so remember what i was saying about diesel being so expensive um as of right now in january diesel has

00:11:43.380 a carbon tax of 17 cents a liter that's going up to 21 cents a liter now picture everything like look

00:11:51.520 around your house if you're listening to the podcast or if you're out for a walk look at even all the

00:11:55.560 stuff that the houses are billed of around you right even the cars they're all shipped to you on

00:12:01.800 trucks all of those trucks use diesel if he increases the tax on diesel he increases the tax on everything

00:12:08.900 and that's what he's going to do so unfortunately policy wise no we don't see any really good things

00:12:14.720 on the horizon from the trudeau government i will point out one little glimmer though and that is the

00:12:21.000 atlantic caucus of the liberal party in government what that means is all of the mps who have seats

00:12:27.480 in the atlantic region new brunswick nova scotia princett island newfoundland labrador they managed

00:12:33.840 to make trudeau blink on one of his biggest issues the carbon tax they made him take the carbon tax off

00:12:42.280 home heating oil furnace oil as it's known out that way furnace oil is almost exclusively used

00:12:48.920 in atlantic canada and he did that because he was gonna lose his shirt in atlantic canada and those

00:12:55.880 mps stood up to him even though they're in the same party they said hey man pull up your socks we're not

00:13:01.060 doing this anymore and he suspended the carbon tax on that fuel for their constituents so i would give

00:13:07.860 you a little bit of a hope that it's possible for mps no matter what party they're in especially in

00:13:13.500 government if they stand up and put their foot down we can see real change because for those folks out in

00:13:19.560 atlantic canada that's going to save them minimum 300 bucks just this winter because of that one move

00:13:26.580 okay chris thank you so much for that update i know it wasn't the happiest update for our viewers but

00:13:32.260 ultimately i believe the most important thing you can do is educate yourself know what's going on in your

00:13:37.240 country know what's going on in your economy that way you can be prepared for whatever comes next

00:13:41.680 maybe now is time just to rain and spending a little more hopefully we have a better update

00:13:46.420 for you guys in 2025 chris thank you so much for joining us today i know my viewers always really

00:13:52.440 appreciate your insight for those of you who are still on christmas holidays lucky you enjoy it for

00:13:58.560 a little while longer i will see you guys next week have a great weekend and god bless

00:14:11.680 you

The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - January 06, 2024

Taxpayer group predicts another difficult year

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