Western Standard - HANNAFORD The $400 billion trust fund goal is tough but worth the effort

00:00:00.000 her future plans for the heritage savings trust fund uh currently sitting around i think 22 billion

00:00:07.920 she wants to increase it to four as much as 450 billion dollars uh by the year 2050 uh it's the 0.98

00:00:15.520 same year that alberta will hopefully be you know a net zero uh province uh you know it's all related

00:00:22.480 all reliant on um energy revenues oil prices and all that sort of stuff but you've got some

00:00:29.360 countries in the world i mean they're living off their versions of heritage savings trust fund

00:00:33.760 like you know like norway and stuff like that just billions and billions of dollars in uh

00:00:39.360 interest and profits coming in every year helps fund their their uh their economy and uh smith

00:00:47.600 wants to do the same thing here i think it's obviously a legacy project for her nigel well 0.97

00:00:52.480 only is that the legacy project is also a life dream i mean back 20 years ago on the editorial

00:00:57.840 board at the calgary herald that was talked of a lot how they really needed to grab hold of the

00:01:04.560 heritage fund and make something of it crying shame what they were doing back in those days was they

00:01:10.960 weren't letting it grow every year the provincial government would scoop the interest off and feed

00:01:16.080 it into general revenue and so it sat there at 14 billion 14 billion 14 billion and you know if that

00:01:23.200 had been allowed to grow it would be a heck of a lot more than 22 billion dollars today so you know i i

00:01:30.480 think it's incredible first of all i mean i just hope she hope she uh stays the course on this uh because

00:01:37.280 that's always the the problem in the past people have always said oh yeah gotta gotta build the heritage

00:01:43.360 fund up and then done just the complete opposite ripped it off so you know uh i i wish her well and you

00:01:51.680 know if it takes her being in office until 2050 to see it through and uh there's the first problem

00:01:58.800 yeah well and if there is a pile of money there's going to be somebody who wants to get their hands

00:02:02.560 on it uh you know this helps get it out of the reach i i've noticed well it's nothing unusual the

00:02:07.920 budget's about a week away for the the formal budget to come out and already i've been watching the the

00:02:12.800 press releases the nurses want more funding the teachers want more funding the cities want more funding

00:02:18.240 the police want you name it everybody wants more funding uh premier smith said she's not cutting

00:02:22.880 anything but she's ensuring though that any extra dollars are going into savings sorry guys but uh

00:02:29.600 we're going to take that out before it even gets uh gobbled up i think it's an interesting tactic you

00:02:33.600 know one of the things that though the people watching this need to understand is how much interest

00:02:38.800 we are paying on the debt that we have at the moment which is in the order of 70 billion dollars

00:02:43.920 like three billion dollars a year is coming out of our pockets and going to the the people who hold

00:02:52.000 the debt i mean we're glad they were prepared to lend it in the first place but nevertheless if you can

00:02:58.480 get rid of that debt then you save that money and this is the crying shame oh since in 2010 alberta was

00:03:08.080 debt free since then we have received something like 140 billion dollars in resource revenues and yet

00:03:18.080 in that same period of time we have paid 21.5 billion dollars in interest charges all that money coming

00:03:27.200 in and yet we still ended up having to borrow some it's uh it's actually almost criminal it is bad

00:03:34.240 management i mean that could have been capital investments and in all sorts of things the things

00:03:37.360 people are complaining about today that we're lacking we could have the hospitals we could have

00:03:41.120 the overpasses the schools 21 billion dollars could go a long way oh that's right but it was always give

00:03:46.800 us more now give us more now and i guess politicians who wanted to get elected uh weren't able to make

00:03:52.000 the case that it was better to provide for the future yeah unfortunately it's a drop in the bucket

00:03:56.880 compared to the interest charges the uh trudeau government is paying on their uh their their massive debt

00:04:03.600 you know just tens of billions you mean we canadian citizens yes absolutely absolutely but uh it is

00:04:09.840 all predicated on uh on oil prices as i said if uh if they go in the tank then uh you know it's going

00:04:16.800 to be very difficult budgeting and some very difficult decisions uh have to be made but uh you know as

00:04:22.080 nigel says it's it's time to make them and get them done yeah well there's an almost a bit of an

00:04:26.480 admission oil and gas is still a finite resource i mean there's a lot of debate about how long it seems we've

00:04:32.480 got a federal government that just wants to bring it to an end as soon as possible i think a lot of

00:04:36.720 other people saying well we've got it let's utilize it while we have it but both can agree at one point

00:04:41.840 or another it will be gone yes and and having something sucked away for when that time comes is

00:04:47.520 is a smart strategy what did trudeau call sorry what did smith call trudeau today in their address

00:04:54.000 a delusional ideologue or something delusional enemy or something like that

Western Standard - February 23, 2024

HANNAFORD The $400 billion trust fund goal is tough but worth the effort

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