Western Standard - Feb 23, 2021： Alberta Budget sets record new deficit

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00:01:30.000 Thank you.

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00:02:30.000 hey there welcome to a western standard special on alberta budget day i'm well i'm not seated

00:02:55.760 with i still keep getting mistaken with that but i'm uh on camera with franco terrazzano of the

00:03:01.440 canadian taxpayers federation how you doing today to franco this is like uh kind of a super bowl

00:03:07.960 for tax federation kind of guys where you can analyze and start talking about what's going on

00:03:11.940 there well i'm doing good man but uh it wasn't a good day for taxpayers that's for sure no we don't

00:03:17.840 get a lot of those uh but i am going to start off before we drill into all that misery of taxes and

00:03:24.320 such to uh our show sponsor because you know we got to support our small businesses and those

00:03:30.080 businesses are supporting us this is karen's way and it's run by penny and it's a place like if

00:03:35.840 you've got stress or anxiety issues past trauma this is a full holistic service based in calgary

00:03:43.600 with uh drug-free ways to help cope with these sorts of things through nutrition and some

00:03:48.640 counseling so uh perhaps you know if you want to talk to somebody or have a look at some things

00:03:53.840 check out karensway.com and give a note to Penny. There's free consultations to see if what she

00:03:59.120 offers is right for you. It's certainly a good local service. So Franco, I'm going to start with

00:04:07.840 the what's probably then the shorter answer to begin with as we go into this budget and such.

00:04:13.840 What was good in it? Yeah, well, yeah, that's definitely the shorter answer. Okay, let's start

00:04:21.540 with that um well we are seeing the government reduce spending on like some wildly inefficient

00:04:27.060 departments like advanced education right so that's universities and colleges you got to give

00:04:31.300 them kudos there we did see the blue ribbon panel on alberta's finances they came back and one of the

00:04:36.580 big spending items that we have are universities and colleges like we're spending thousands of

00:04:41.540 dollars more per student for university so it's good to see the government um cut some spending

00:04:46.980 in advanced education and find some savings you know the the taxpayers federation we found some

00:04:52.420 freedom of information requests that showed that thousands of university employees at ufc at the

00:04:58.500 university of alberta were receiving pay hikes even during the downturn even during covet 19.

00:05:04.500 so it's good to see the government start to scale back advanced education well that's good yeah it's

00:05:10.660 been a long time since i was in any post-secondary school but even then some of the bloating

00:05:15.700 inefficiencies you could see even as a student i mean there's just there's room to still have good

00:05:20.420 value and good you know education that is an investment that's required for us but they really

00:05:25.780 aren't spending the most efficiently that's been an area of bloat that people are afraid to touch

00:05:29.460 or talk about so uh i guess that's one good sign to see out of the government um so with tax

00:05:36.620 increases there uh weren't a heck of a lot packed in there thankfully though they did kind of kick

00:05:41.480 a can down the road uh what did you see in the in there well a tax increases that's a good let's

00:05:46.160 talk about that good one um so i mean fortunately fortunately premier kenny right away came out

00:05:52.100 right before the budget and said you know this would be the worst possible time to be digging

00:05:56.300 deeper into taxpayers pockets and he's right about that obviously right over the last year

00:06:00.960 tens of thousands of jobs have been lost there's still um thousands of businesses in alberta who

00:06:07.240 are at risk of closing their doors for good so thousands more jobs are still at risk in alberta

00:06:12.120 here so kenny's right it is the worst possible time to be reaching deeper into families pockets

00:06:16.920 but unfortunately you know while we didn't see the big tax hikes you know the sales taxes stuff

00:06:22.520 like that we are seeing the government increase its income tax take through a sneaky a sneaky

00:06:28.280 backdoor type of taxation known as bracket creep and you know what's really unfortunate about all

00:06:32.840 of this is that premier kenny you know back in the day he used to be the guy bashing bracket keep

00:06:37.560 creep so it's it's really unfortunate that we're now paying for that in alberta yeah no i remember

00:06:44.120 it very well because bracket creep is kind of a as you said it's a sneaky one people don't pay

00:06:48.680 attention to it it's a little bit abstract but it's it's an inflation-based tax hike that's going

00:06:53.480 to keep hitting you over and over and it was a big issue in the 90s when a young kenny was with

00:06:58.440 the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and I was a young volunteer with the Reform Party and everybody

00:07:04.120 was getting on Chrétien's case for doing this exact sort of thing uh whilst also uh the not yet

00:07:11.240 Premier Kenny was on Ralph Klein's case very heavily to balance the budget boy things certainly

00:07:16.680 change once they uh change their their role yeah and Corey if I can just jump in in that you know

00:07:23.240 Well, I mean, obviously the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we don't think it's a good time

00:07:27.940 to be raising taxes.

00:07:29.220 I mean, especially when you have this massive spending problem that we do in Alberta, but

00:07:32.900 if you're going to raise taxes, at least have the spine to do that through tax rates or

00:07:36.880 introducing a new tax.

00:07:38.000 But what we saw in 2019 budget, Premier Kenney's first budget, is we saw him say he wasn't

00:07:43.460 going to raise taxes.

00:07:44.660 And then what he did was he buried bracket creep within his huge budget, right?

00:07:50.260 so very sneaky and even his own finance bureaucrats they they estimate that bracket

00:07:55.140 creep is going to end up costing Albertans about 600 million dollars by the end of next year

00:08:01.140 expecting it to cost about 196 million this year so it's a very sneaky form of taxation

00:08:07.060 and it's definitely coming at the worst possible time yeah so now that uh at least the the tax

00:08:14.580 hikes were relatively minimal in a sense and some hikes and service fees i saw like campgrounds and

00:08:19.940 and a few things.

00:08:20.940 I'm kind of, I don't mind service fees directly

00:08:23.020 for something if it's dedicated to that end of things.

00:08:26.020 I mean, it's user pay, go out.

00:08:28.120 If you don't wanna use it, don't, and so on.

00:08:30.300 Those, I mean, often those sort of things

00:08:31.600 go into general revenue.

00:08:33.380 The other end though then,

00:08:35.560 and since he hasn't hiked taxes dramatically

00:08:37.900 and he hasn't cut spending at all.

00:08:41.680 So we're looking at shocking for a province,

00:08:44.840 $116 billion debt we're gonna be left with here.

00:08:49.940 where do we even begin to address that? Well, let's just talk with these debt numbers for a

00:08:55.200 quick second. Then we can move into the spending side. But yeah, $116 billion by the end of this

00:09:01.320 year, that's more than $20,000 per Albertan if the government doesn't cut spending that we're

00:09:06.880 going to have to be paying back. And you know, it's more than just debt that we have to worry

00:09:10.800 about. I mean, one of the big things that I think we all need to be considered right now is interest

00:09:14.640 charges, right? You don't just pay the debt, you got to pay interest charges on the debt every

00:09:18.900 single year. And this year's interest charges are going to be about $2.7 billion. So that's

00:09:24.880 a big budget item right there. And you know what $2.7 billion means? I mean, that's $600

00:09:29.460 per person. That's 600 bucks that is leaving our pockets. And instead of going into something

00:09:35.140 important, maybe healthcare or lowering taxes, that's going to the bond fund managers on Bay

00:09:40.320 Street. Yeah, that's something I always found as an irony on when you would get, I guess,

00:09:46.120 you know left of center parties and they like to screech about how they hate big business they don't

00:09:50.840 they can't stand corporations and they want to stand for the little guys yet they never blink

00:09:54.760 an eye about blowing billions on interest which you know again it's not the small business loan

00:10:00.440 shark down the street who's doing this these are uh big bond businesses and and companies out there

00:10:06.200 that are making the money out of this debt but they seem to overlook that uh and and that's an

00:10:11.240 interesting thing with interest i mean just this this crazy road we're going down with covet in

00:10:16.760 the works and i'm quite fearful about you know potential hyperinflation hitting us pretty soon

00:10:21.800 and to get a bit more of the dorky economics if that happens usually the response from the

00:10:26.440 bank of canada to cool down the inflation is to raise interest rates and we saw a really horrific

00:10:31.960 chain of events through the 80s and onwards with with double digit uh prime lending lending rates

00:10:37.160 which we're just bankrupting people uh we've got to be nervous i mean we're just being lucky with

00:10:42.820 these low interest rates right now i mean a couple of points rise and we've got a lot of people losing

00:10:46.640 their homes yeah that's i think that is is bang on right like if you want to bet that interest

00:10:51.640 rates are going to remain let's say historically low well i don't think that's a very good bet for

00:10:55.700 you and but regardless right we don't have a crystal ball we don't exactly know what's going

00:11:00.060 to happen and that's why when governments are setting their budgets especially in alberta's

00:11:04.000 case right now, you have to control what you can control. And what can you control? You can

00:11:08.460 control the spending. But unfortunately, we saw this budget just completely blow the lid

00:11:13.780 on spending. We're going to see total spending this year, Corey, at $62 billion. Now, let me

00:11:20.020 give you some context. And I think this is going to make you think twice. That $62 billion in total

00:11:25.520 spending is billions of dollars more than what the NDP spent in their last year in 2018, even when

00:11:32.340 you account for inflation. So this government is spending billions of dollars more than the big

00:11:37.920 spending NDP. Well, yeah. And outside of things that, okay, I guess people are assuming and

00:11:44.240 expecting some spending increases from the government because of the pandemic in areas

00:11:48.960 of health. And I guess in stimulus, it's really painful for a guy, a free enterprise guy,

00:11:55.960 but I see it. If the state is going to make it illegal to do your business,

00:12:00.200 They're sort of obligated to come in and try and keep your head above water until it is legal to

00:12:04.560 do it again. I mean, my answer would be open the bloody businesses. Let's get these gears rolling

00:12:08.920 again. But that's a bigger discussion. So with the spending, though, now some of what they're

00:12:16.700 bragging about is capital projects and things they're putting into the nice Keynesian approach

00:12:21.180 that we can spend ourselves, Rich, and keep everybody working. I see that as kind of a

00:12:25.980 Band-Aid, but they have done some spending on things like the Green Line and some other big

00:12:30.400 capital projects. I mean, sorry to interrupt, Corey, but I'm just, my blood is boiling over

00:12:34.940 here. I had to jump in. I mean, think about where we are right now in Alberta. Think about

00:12:39.560 our spending problem. We have a $10 billion spending problem. If this Keynesian economics

00:12:45.240 worked, we'd all be rich by now, right? We're already spending, the Blue Ribbon Panel said 0.96

00:12:50.440 we were spending more per person than every other province, right? We just had the new

00:12:55.380 democrats run this type of experiment and how did that work out well you know i think we all know

00:13:00.380 the answer here so so let's just remember that we we've had massive spending in alberta for a very

00:13:05.600 long time like that is that is not the way that we're gonna um be able to to grow our economy and

00:13:10.680 get out of this now now um on growing the economy it's not just on premier kenny right there's

00:13:16.060 there's things that premier kenny has done that's very good like reducing the business tax to one

00:13:20.740 of the most competitive tax systems in North America. He deserves credit for that. I'm sure

00:13:25.700 we're going to jump into the corporate welfare side of things, which he does not deserve credit

00:13:29.180 for. But it's not just on Premier Kenney. I mean, to be very blunt, we need the municipal governments

00:13:34.800 in Alberta, and we need the federal government in Ottawa to get their act together if Alberta

00:13:39.660 is really going to be firing on all cylinders again. Yeah, well, and then a lot of it's beyond

00:13:46.120 his control, but there's things in speculation. So another big part that we'd always watch at

00:13:49.880 budget time was where they're speculating the price of oil is going to go because that's

00:13:54.120 a large chunk of their royalty revenues, land sales, all sorts of things. So it looks like

00:14:01.600 they've been modest in what they're projecting for oil prices, which is probably wise. I

00:14:07.320 mean, you're going to burn if you really project a high oil price and it comes in low because

00:14:10.500 you end up short. But governments have often done that in the past too, where they'll low

00:14:14.420 ball what they expect out of the energy. And then when they get a little bit extra money,

00:14:18.240 they can try and look like heroes when they apply it to spending uh what do you think of their

00:14:22.600 energy uh projections at this point well let me just be honest with you i mean at the end of the

00:14:28.620 day we'll we'll see what happens right in a few years with hindsight 2020 um i think what you

00:14:33.720 said was was fair um i so i'm not exactly sure how that's going to play out but if i can go back to

00:14:38.920 the point that i made just before is in alberta you got to control what you can control and that's

00:14:43.280 the spending and we're not, and we're really seeing a lack of effort from this government

00:14:48.620 to find savings. Now, let me, let me pull up something that's small, but that really goes

00:14:52.980 to say a lot, right? Because you have to do the little things, right? If you're going to expect,

00:14:56.600 if we're going to expect you to do the big things. So we see the executive council's budget this

00:15:02.080 year, increasing by $2 million. Now that's premier Jason Kenney Shaw. So right under his nose,

00:15:08.240 he wasn't able to find savings. And, you know, Corey, we're talking about a very difficult time

00:15:14.420 for taxpayers. We expect the government to spending our money efficiently. Well, you know

00:15:18.640 what? I don't think there's too many people who are laying awake at night, hoping and wishing

00:15:22.780 that the premier shop would see its budget increase by another $2 million this year.

00:15:29.400 No, well, and that starts getting a little more political, I think. I mean, the UCP has been

00:15:34.880 having a really tough time trying to retain popularity with Albertans and they I think

00:15:44.020 they're pouring a lot of money into comms because they can't seem to figure it out I mean their

00:15:46.720 communications have been terrible the war room has been an embarrassment things like that where

00:15:51.680 you're just pouring good money after bad so I suspect there's a bit of that effort they know

00:15:55.660 it looks bad when you're pouring money into the premier's own budget but they see it as an area

00:15:59.880 where they're trying to save their political butts a little bit. But I mean, the small things

00:16:06.260 as said are there and you talked about finding efficiencies, but I see a question from somebody

00:16:11.380 who's pretty blunt. Where would you cut the spending though? I mean, it's always easier

00:16:14.300 to say cut, cut, cut. But there will be potential economic repercussions. There'll certainly

00:16:19.940 be political repercussions if you cut certain areas. I mean, you cut somewhere, somebody's

00:16:25.120 going to lose a job, somebody's going to be upset and you're going to have to deal with

00:16:29.200 that so uh what is the taxpayers federation what are the big areas we could do i mean you know the

00:16:33.500 not just the little stuff yeah no absolutely so so first let me let me just go to one thing when

00:16:38.820 you said about the political implications for cutting well guess what you know where he they're

00:16:43.440 really going to face a pushback is when it comes time to pay for all of this right because i can

00:16:47.580 tell you right now after five plus years of economic hardships small businesses holding on

00:16:52.620 by a thread nobody has any money to be paying for this right all this spending so they're going to

00:16:57.660 have to cut spending now that was a great question so let me give you three three places where you

00:17:02.360 got a cut the first is across the board right you have to have across the board cuts let me tell you

00:17:07.320 why that blue ribbon panel on albertas finances said that we would spend 10 billion dollars less

00:17:12.420 every single year if our per person spending was like bc ontario and quebec right the most

00:17:17.640 comparable provinces to alberta 10 billion dollars of savings now you also have to remember too that

00:17:23.100 for the last decade plus we have had runaway government spending the progressive conservatives

00:17:27.880 they they about doubled program spending in their last decade then you had the NDP who came in and

00:17:33.480 we all know that story another big spending government so when you have this type of history

00:17:37.560 and this magnitude of overspending you have to be able to find savings across the board now one

00:17:42.720 place that we do have to give credit to this government is in advanced education wildly

00:17:46.800 inefficient department and they're doing what needs to be done so you have to give kudos there

00:17:50.580 Now, the second thing, the second area where there's a lot, a lot of money to be saved is in corporate welfare. Now I'm not talking about reducing taxes on businesses across the board. That's not corporate welfare. And I'm also not talking about the government helping gyms and restaurants keep their lights on through government imposed lockdowns and restrictions. What I'm talking about is the massive subsidies, for example, that are going to the petrochemical industry.

00:18:15.300 Well, you know, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we identified 14, 14 different corporate welfare programs since the United Conservative government came in, totaling $5 billion.

00:18:26.160 That's a ton of money right there.

00:18:28.080 And finally, you really have to go to the big budget item.

00:18:32.700 And the big budget item is labor costs, right?

00:18:34.780 We have seen labor costs balloon since the downturn began back at the end of 2014, right?

00:18:40.620 And what did we see in the private sector?

00:18:42.220 Well, unfortunately, we've seen so many people lose their jobs, take significant pay cuts, right? Families having a difficult time putting food on the table. And you know what we learned through freedom of information requests that you still have 1000s of Alberta government bureaucrats getting pay raises during lockdowns in 2020. So that was a bit of a rant, but I hope I answered that question.

00:19:05.340 Oh, that's okay. This show's about ranting. We need to vent hopefully productively while we're

00:19:10.900 at it. You know, so there is a big elephant in the room and a couple of people have mentioned

00:19:16.480 things, you know, unions. Governments are terrified of public sector unions. They don't

00:19:22.860 want to battle with them, but it seems to be kind of unavoidable. And unfortunately, a lot of union

00:19:27.460 heads, they're being very well paid. I haven't heard of many of them taking pay cuts, but

00:19:31.020 either way uh you know the the options seem to come down to if a courageous government can get

00:19:36.300 up there cut labor compensation i know it hurts it hurts for people out there but they're still

00:19:41.800 working at least you can still work and be bringing in five ten percent less per year and

00:19:47.180 it looked like maybe he was starting to move in that direction like klein did you know they cut

00:19:50.660 the mla salaries first they cut the gold-plated pension first and then they cut the public sector

00:19:55.460 but i didn't hear anything in this like they're saying we're ready to start negotiating with

00:20:00.200 unions and saying, look, you know, we're not doing this out of vitriol or spite. We've just

00:20:04.840 got to get our affairs in order and we can keep people working, but it'll be for less money.

00:20:08.940 Because the other option will be some heavy duty cuts and it won't be the wages. It'll be the jobs.

00:20:13.640 Yeah. Let me just give me some, give me some room to run here on this one.

00:20:17.220 Yeah. You put the ball on the tee for me. So, so hopefully I can get a good hack at it. So,

00:20:23.500 I mean, you really, you really set it up really well. Okay. Because the last government pay cut,

00:20:29.360 the last broad-based government pay cut was back in 1994. That was a 5% cut. And what did Premier

00:20:35.620 Klein back in the day do? He went to the union bosses and he said, look, I'm cutting the budget.

00:20:40.040 Either you take pay cuts or you lose some staff. It's up to you, right? And fortunately,

00:20:44.760 the government employees decided to take a 5% cut. Now, I think if you go to government employees

00:20:50.120 now, the government employees, I'm not talking about the union bosses. I'm talking about the

00:20:53.200 government employees. And you say, hey, can you take a cut to help ease some of the costs on your

00:20:59.100 neighbor who just got laid off i think most government employees would be willing to do that

00:21:03.580 especially if it meant they get to keep you they get to keep their job um but but unfortunately

00:21:07.960 the union bosses seem to be opposing um any any suggestion to return back to reality right so

00:21:15.180 you got to ask these union bosses a question i mean how many more albertans need to lose their

00:21:19.060 job before these union bosses are willing to take a pay cut and core you know we did some research

00:21:24.540 looking at collective bargaining in Alberta since the downturn began back in 2015. And we saw many

00:21:31.200 private sector unions taking pay reductions. Why? Because they wanted to help keep their businesses

00:21:37.320 afloat and they wanted to help keep their employees on staff. But we couldn't find a single

00:21:43.180 government union contract that led to any pay reductions during the downturn. In fact, we found

00:21:49.120 many that led to pay increases i mean so this is the biggest spending item uh that the alberta

00:21:54.980 government has so they have to tackle it if they're going to um you know get their spending

00:22:00.640 in order now we do see them making some movement in the right direction but they're not even going

00:22:04.940 close enough not even yeah not even close no and i mean i think if we on the ground people as you're

00:22:10.680 saying there's no well i can't say no sense speaking to union bosses they're in charge and

00:22:15.340 representing the the members but we got to reach out to the members and get them to speak upwards

00:22:20.460 to their leadership and say look you know we got to start reasoning with things i mean the

00:22:24.220 leadership are kind of in their hallowed halls just as our political uh leaders are i guess in

00:22:29.180 some ways and they kind of lose some of the reality and maybe some of the things too is to

00:22:34.060 remind uh our government like they'll always predict doom and gloom if you cut spending

00:22:39.500 particularly if you're going to go to war with unions but i i'm you know admittedly old enough

00:22:44.140 to remember the 90s very well and everybody projected that if ralph klein took on the unions

00:22:49.260 if he cut spending for labor he's toast he's gonna get wiped out the liberals are gonna replace him

00:22:54.700 and the unions were there they were literally i remember them literally outside the legislature

00:22:58.380 kicking on the doors they broke a couple of windows i mean the the protests were something

00:23:02.940 else and every pundit oh klein has just destroyed himself politically and everything else so they

00:23:07.420 finally went to the polls and what happened he won a bigger majority and four more years of austerity

00:23:13.260 and cleaning things up moving towards re ending our debt we got to the point of uh the deficit

00:23:18.220 was gone and what happened he got a bigger majority and then four more years after that

00:23:23.980 when he started spending again and he you know started moving towards hiking spending his

00:23:29.500 popularity started to sink so i i think maybe they're not giving the voters as much credit as

00:23:33.420 they should with this yeah um you know i i agree with you and i think um just everyone is is it's

00:23:39.420 It's so obvious, unfortunately, Corey, we really are starting to have a bit of a class

00:23:44.740 divide here in Alberta, right?

00:23:47.140 Not the one that you normally hear about, right?

00:23:49.500 Not businesses versus their employees, but the class divide that we're seeing budding

00:23:54.920 here in Alberta is one between government employees and the people who have to pay their

00:24:00.100 tab, right?

00:24:01.040 Because government employees have been completely shielded from the downturn.

00:24:05.340 Now, there's one other point that I want to make.

00:24:07.240 I think what Premier Kenney and what the finance minister are going to have to do is they're going

00:24:11.540 to have to take a look at the top of the bureaucrat pyramid, right? They're going to have to go into

00:24:16.160 the upper management bureaucrats and get them to take a significant pay cut. Because when we've

00:24:21.660 done research into this, our top bureaucrats are making a ton of money and they're making

00:24:26.680 significantly more than their counterparts in other similar provinces. Let's talk about

00:24:31.380 healthcare for a second. I know it's going to be controversial, but there's places to cut in

00:24:36.640 healthcare. For example, we looked and we found more than 900 management bureaucrats within Alberta

00:24:45.060 Health Services on the sunshine list, right? These management bureaucrats, these aren't frontline

00:24:50.080 workers. These are management bureaucrats within Alberta Health Services making big six-figure

00:24:55.360 paychecks. That's why they're on the sunshine list. So you can't tell me that there isn't any places

00:25:01.000 to be cutting, even within healthcare, right? Why do we have 900 management bureaucrats on the

00:25:06.660 sunshine list within Alberta Health Services? Yeah, well, the best analogy I've seen with that

00:25:12.380 with the amount of bureaucracy, not just the amount of, and this gets a little rougher, I guess,

00:25:16.260 but I'm talking about perhaps reducing actual jobs, in my view, but you go to a big hospital,

00:25:21.260 and you look at the giant zone for staff parking, and it's just packed, you know, hundreds and

00:25:25.520 hundreds of vehicles from nine to five. And then at nine, you know, six o'clock, seven o'clock at

00:25:31.560 night, that staff area is down to 5% capacity. Well, people didn't stop being sick in that

00:25:36.220 hospital during the other, you know, 12, 14 hours of the day. What happened? Well, they don't need

00:25:41.960 all the paper pushers during those hours. I mean, these are that that's showing and you do you do

00:25:47.180 need administration. I understand that. But boy, it seems to me that we could use a lot more feet

00:25:52.160 on the ground in the in the hallways in the wards rather than in the offices and at the desks

00:25:56.360 uh but that takes some really frank examination and some difficult uh choices to make well you

00:26:01.540 know what um what what you're describing here in terms of inefficiencies is real right um that

00:26:07.240 blue ribbon panel i keep going back to it but it found that alberta would would spend about three

00:26:11.980 billion dollars less every single year if we spent like other provinces um on health care per person

00:26:18.240 And here's another another study showed that Alberta spends the second most per person in all of Canada on health care.

00:26:24.180 And we come in just behind Newfoundland and Labrador.

00:26:26.580 So we have a very big spending government health care system.

00:26:29.980 But but really, it's like this across the board.

00:26:31.660 So when I when I started that one remark about where do you find spending?

00:26:35.100 And I say it has to happen across the board. It's because this is the story.

00:26:39.380 This is the rule, not the exception for the Alberta government.

00:26:42.420 We have a very bloated Alberta government, 10 billion dollars spending problem.

00:26:45.920 And this is why it's so frustrating when you see a budget like today, which really just lacked effort to even find savings.

00:26:53.660 It really lacked the effort.

00:26:55.760 Why are we spending billions of dollars more than the NDP did in 2018-19 when we have such an inefficient provincial government to begin with?

00:27:06.740 Yeah, I think a lot of us really expect it better.

00:27:09.380 And I hope they understand.

00:27:10.300 I mean, the bleeding support numbers leaving the Kennedy government, a lot of it's not NDP people.

00:27:16.940 They never liked them to begin with.

00:27:18.180 These are conservatives who are dropping off.

00:27:20.200 We wanted to see some fiscal responsibility here.

00:27:23.880 I mean, not slash and burn, but we wanted to see something.

00:27:26.400 And we're not seeing it today.

00:27:28.740 To get a little looking in the crystal ball a little farther down the road, though.

00:27:32.160 So they didn't, you know, and it always comes back to this.

00:27:35.960 They didn't allow it this time, but they said we should examine a sales tax down the road.

00:27:42.220 It's a political horror story for Albertans, yet it's a holy grail, it seems, for politicians and economists to say we've got to get a sales tax because then we can tax ourselves rich.

00:27:53.580 What do you think about that?

00:27:55.800 Well, I mean, there's only so much blood that you can draw from stone, right?

00:27:59.800 And our problem isn't that the government is taking too little of our money.

00:28:03.800 That's not the problem, right?

00:28:05.660 The problem is that our government spends way too much, way too much, and the government's continuing to spend.

00:28:11.140 And unfortunately, the government isn't really taking this spending problem as serious or nearly as serious as it should.

00:28:18.880 But I mean, look, we should be seeing Premier Jason Kenney and the finance minister outright reject the possibility of a provincial sales tax.

00:28:26.360 I mean, we have a $10 billion spending problem and the government isn't addressing it, really isn't addressing it.

00:28:32.220 we saw spending um go up again this year so so i guess i guess that's in in high level what what

00:28:39.120 i would be saying to that and i think you also have to remember too just because you give a

00:28:43.620 government a new tax it doesn't mean the budget problem goes away you know what you know what

00:28:48.640 politicians like to do with other people's money they like to spend it right i i sometimes get this

00:28:54.560 that every other single province um has a sales tax so alberta should have a sales tax well there's

00:28:59.540 two obvious answers to that. I mean, the first one is just because other provinces are doing

00:29:03.560 something bad doesn't mean we should. And the second one is, well, yeah, look at other provinces,

00:29:09.200 big deficits as well. So just because you give the government and politicians another way to

00:29:13.580 take more of our money, it doesn't mean the situation is going to improve in Alberta.

00:29:18.100 No, and it seems that you see a shallow, shallow assumption all the time that with a sales tax,

00:29:23.280 that it won't have an economic impact farther down. I mean, if you hit consumers with another

00:29:27.360 5% on everything they're going to buy, they're going to spend something less. And if they're

00:29:32.080 spending less, businesses are going to cut back on what they're doing. I mean, it goes all the

00:29:36.360 way down the line and that might lead to layoffs. I mean, it has an economic impact. You know,

00:29:41.480 people who, proponents of sales taxes always overlook, you know, well, it's not harmless.

00:29:47.220 You're adding another tax to the economy here. Yeah. Corey, if I can just jump in, like, sorry,

00:29:52.180 sorry for cutting you off but i think you just reminded me of a really good point um and it's

00:29:57.860 essentially this i mean we have heard the finance minister say um and premier kenny say now is not

00:30:03.140 the right time to consider a sales tax right this would be the worst possible time our finance

00:30:08.020 minister hasn't completely shut the door on the idea and it's almost it almost seems to me like

00:30:14.420 there's this idea like well you know a pandemic isn't exactly the best time to be taking more

00:30:19.620 money from families, better to wait till after the pandemic ends. But Corey, I mean, how many people

00:30:25.760 do you know that just has a bucket of money laying around for after the pandemic? And remember,

00:30:32.540 after the, when the pandemic ends, Albertans will have faced more than five years of economic

00:30:37.320 hardships, many layoffs, many pay cuts, businesses closing their doors, many businesses holding on by

00:30:43.540 a thread. So just when the pandemic ends, it doesn't mean that the hardships for Albertans

00:30:47.740 will magically go away. And we have to remember and be cognizant of the fact that many Alberta

00:30:52.600 families and businesses have been struggling for five plus years. So we don't have all this tax

00:30:57.280 dollars just lying around on our money trees to be paying higher taxes in the future as well.

00:31:02.620 No. And I mean, the other aspect some people make, I'll just talk about the sales tax a little

00:31:07.680 further because it just, it keeps coming up and it's usually economists who do it. They say it's

00:31:12.020 a more efficient way of taxing, but I don't care. I mean, the only way I would say go for it, okay,

00:31:17.220 cut the income tax to the core down to nothing and make it truly revenue revenue neutral and i

00:31:22.440 don't trust you cut that first then bring in the sales tax yeah but until then first all i see is

00:31:29.760 another tax and we definitely can't afford it can i uh can i can i interject again sorry but you're

00:31:35.280 you keep teeing me off and tee me up so um like look we hear our we hear economists arm wrestle

00:31:42.880 all the time over which type of tax should we think about? Which type of tax should we think

00:31:47.740 about? But I think many miss the obvious. You know what really matters to everyday Albertans?

00:31:54.840 How much tax the government is taking. That is the most important thing for people's lives. Not,

00:32:00.480 oh, did I pay this income tax? Did I pay this sales tax? No, it's how much money did the

00:32:05.940 government take, right? That is what matters truly when it comes to a tax burden. Now let's talk

00:32:11.920 about this revenue-neutral idea, when I hear revenue-neutral, to me, that's the old wolf

00:32:17.340 in sheep's clothing, right? The problem with revenue-neutral anything is that it's only

00:32:21.120 revenue-neutral until it's not. So the government might come out and say, well, we'll put in a sales

00:32:26.480 tax, we'll reduce income taxes to a smaller level. Well, what's stopping the politicians

00:32:32.780 from them turning around in two, three, five years and then jacking up income taxes again,

00:32:37.040 right so so we have to remember that this whole idea of revenue neutral it really is that that

00:32:42.820 wolf in sheep's clothing well then another area then uh which is a little bit separated from the

00:32:49.900 budget but it still impacts it and it's coming up and you guys have been active with that though

00:32:54.260 is uh the referendum coming up on equalization because part of the issue we do have as albertans

00:33:00.600 too though is whatever we seem to gather up the federal government is more than happy to kind of

00:33:05.380 take it away from us or give an excuse not to transfer services back to us like they typically

00:33:10.640 could. It's something that's kind of not in our control, but could be in our control if we speak

00:33:14.900 up on it. Where's the Taxpayers Federation landing with that referenda? Yeah, well, thanks for

00:33:20.960 bringing that up. We did launch the fight equalization campaign. So please go to 0.79

00:33:25.320 fightequalization.ca and it's going to be our campaign for the October 18th referendum. And

00:33:31.320 we're fighting for equalization fairness, fighting against the status quo. And let's just let's call

00:33:37.260 a spade a spade. What we need is we need Ottawa to take their boots off our necks, right? And look,

00:33:42.600 it's equalization is very important. And we do need to fight the status quo. But this equalization

00:33:49.200 referendum is much more than just about equalization, right? It's really a way to put

00:33:54.160 our legitimate grievances across the country. And we do have legitimate beefs with the rest

00:34:01.100 of Canada. I mean, there has been so much research showing that we have spent, or we have paid more

00:34:06.000 than $600 billion more to the feds than we've received back in spending since the 1960s. That's

00:34:12.920 not just equalization, that's the tax and spend system at large. So we had this massive, massive

00:34:18.640 oversized contribution to the rest of Canada. Now, what do we get now, right? Well, we get

00:34:22.840 politicians that seem to be getting their kicks by roadblocking our development. We had British 1.00

00:34:28.600 colombia saying that they would employ every tool in the toolbox to block our pipelines we have the

00:34:33.260 quebec's premier what is he calling our oil dirty energy say there's no social acceptability for

00:34:38.180 another pipeline and then there's the feds right then there's the feds you got bill c69 you have

00:34:43.760 to give kudos to kenny by the way who's who's challenging that so that's very well done bill

00:34:48.340 c48 the tanker ban then you've got the carbon tax the feds are getting ready to hit us with a second

00:34:52.960 carbon tax the feds rejected northern gateway they moved the regulatory goalposts on energy east

00:34:57.660 our political and legal system chased away Kinder Morgan company when it was trying to spend its

00:35:03.020 money to build the Trans Mountain expansion so I mean I see this equalization referendum as

00:35:09.000 Albertans chance to really send Trudeau and the rest of Canada a message yeah well and budgetary

00:35:16.160 wise it's something people love bringing up all the time and again vapidly it frustrates me

00:35:20.820 we should be like Norway they got this giant fund and they they saved it all and now they're

00:35:24.920 getting revenue from it. Okay, there's some truth to that, you know, and we kind of started along

00:35:29.260 that with the heritage front. But Norway doesn't have a Quebec. Norway doesn't have a federal

00:35:35.240 government. The EU doesn't take that sort of chunk out of that country from their revenue. So it

00:35:41.140 allowed them to sock it away. I mean, sure, we might have pissed it away anyways, even if the

00:35:45.360 feds didn't take it. I can't necessarily think we're that good as stewards of our own money

00:35:50.260 sometimes, but it is a big factor. I mean, if Albertans want to get stirred up too, they don't

00:35:55.740 want to see as much spending cuts. We need them no matter what, but don't want to see as much and

00:36:00.320 they don't want to see the tax hikes. Well, let's have a look at where some of that money is also

00:36:03.040 siphoning out of us and we're not getting a return on it. You know what, Corey, I actually

00:36:08.460 see the issue on both sides. I agree with you. Of course, I agree with you, right? All the amount

00:36:13.600 of money that we're paying in federal taxes greater than what we're getting back. I mean,

00:36:18.680 that's a no-brainer but but i do see our one of the key fundamental challenges in alberta has been

00:36:25.040 the massive provincial government spending problem the pcs spent spent spent the ndp what do they do

00:36:32.080 hiked business taxes hiked income taxes hit us with a carbon tax and still added tens of billions

00:36:37.240 of dollars of debt onto our backs and now the united conservative government right they came

00:36:41.880 into power what were they supposed to do fix the finances without raising taxes and you know what

00:36:47.300 this is a challenging situation absolutely but they're spending billions of dollars more than

00:36:51.940 the ndp right so i agree with with your sentiment there in terms of ottawa and we do need to fix

00:36:57.940 that but but boy do we ever need to clean up our own backyard here in alberta oh yeah it's on both

00:37:03.700 ends it's one of the things with people pursuing independence in the past i talked about particularly

00:37:07.220 when we had ndp and we had redford in you know saying look guys until we could prove that we

00:37:11.940 could manage the province better than ottawa who are we to talk about separating from them

00:37:16.420 i mean first things first if we're just going to make a smaller version of the same thing we're

00:37:19.620 not going to be anywhere better off uh so what do you think albertans can do to help uh turn this

00:37:25.300 around and stand up for themselves in the meantime i mean aside from electoral efforts well hey i'd

00:37:29.940 love for everyone to check out what the taxpayers federation is doing i i think that would be step

00:37:34.660 one obviously that i would recommend i mean check us out at taxpayer.com go to our newsroom that

00:37:39.060 would be that would be fantastic but but really we have to stay on our our politicians right um

00:37:44.660 There's a famous quote that I'm not even going to try to remember because I'll butcher,

00:37:48.460 but essentially what it is is that the policies are really decided upon by those people who get involved, right?

00:37:54.860 So we do have to stand up.

00:37:56.040 We do have to be heard.

00:37:57.200 And we have to remember that we still have to care about the fiscal situation here in Alberta.

00:38:01.920 We still do, right?

00:38:02.840 Because all of this debt, this $160 billion worth of debt that we're going to have by the end of the year is going to come due at some point.

00:38:10.940 And that's why we need this government.

00:38:12.520 We need to push them to do a better job finding savings.

00:38:16.220 We really do need to do that.

00:38:18.800 Yeah, well, I think we kind of covered a lot of her there.

00:38:22.140 Did we solve all the world's problems?

00:38:24.100 Yeah, and to Roxanne and some of the others who put very long comments, I can't put those

00:38:28.840 up on the screen because they eat the whole screen up, but people can read those on Facebook

00:38:32.240 after the fact, and it's a great forum for discussion.

00:38:36.800 So I just want to put a couple of reminders out there before we close off as well.

00:38:40.340 uh this monday we have danielle smith on with uh i believe dr john and it's going to be a series

00:38:45.860 of six different uh appearances where danielle is going to be coming on and it was really well

00:38:50.440 received when she was on with uh david redmond last monday uh so make sure to tune in for that

00:38:56.400 subscribe to the the youtube channel if you haven't already so you don't miss these live

00:39:01.060 events when they come with franco or danielle or some of the other uh fine folks we we talked to

00:39:06.220 around here uh we're also yes there's been a soft paywall some people have commented on that with

00:39:10.940 uh the western standard site you get a limited number of free stories and then a subscription

00:39:15.100 is kind of required we're just we're growing we're trying to get it out to you uh we give as

00:39:19.340 much as we can just always remember it was only 15 years ago you wouldn't think twice before

00:39:22.780 spending 18 20 30 a month for a newspaper subscription uh a few bucks for uh an online

00:39:28.620 version uh you know can can be well worthwhile for you and don't forget our sponsor again at

00:39:33.180 karen's way so uh thanks again franco and and one more time it's a canadian taxpayers federation

00:39:39.580 uh what's the url for you guys and check us out at taxpayer.com nice and easy to remember okay

00:39:46.220 thanks franco i'm sure we'll be talking again soon hey my pleasure chat soon

Western Standard - February 26, 2021

Feb 23, 2021： Alberta Budget sets record new deficit

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