I consider myself a supporter of fiscal conservatism. Or at least I support the concept as it once was, back when I decided to support it. You see the phrase seems to change teams a lot, and different groups constantly lay claim to fiscal responsibility.
What does fiscal responsibility mean in Alberta?
A difficult question to answer. Currently you have, what I consider to be a “fringe” movement on the right side of the legislature currently the domain of the Wild Rose Alliance. During the last election, then leader Paul Hinman routinely labeled the ruling Conservative party to be “socialists”. A ploy of rhetoric right of the Republican Party / Fox News playbook from south of the border…How can any party be taken seriously with comments like that I wonder? Yet they are gaining steam. It seems weird that Alberta would ever elect such a massive majority of socialists to the Legislature…Of course that is the furthest thing from the truth. Ask any Liberal or NDP supporter if the conservatives and their spending habits represent fair minded left thinking social spending. I bet once they stopped laughing they would set you straight.
To those of you who support the Wild Rose – and God Bless you for caring enough to support any party, I would only say this …if the Conservative party of Alberta represents the most “Left” viewpoint you can imagine …you should talk to more Albertans. (and maybe stay away from Edmonton)
What is the sin of the current Conservative leadership that makes them “socialists”? Spending.
The people crying for fiscal conservatism today point to the massively increased spending as proof of run away socialist style spending. Under Ralph Klein we didn’t spend like this – they would argue.
Let’s return to our roots!
I would argue that todays Conservative budget IS a return to our roots, but memories in Alberta seem short. The long, laissez-faire rule of Ralph Klein has obscured the PC roots in this Province under a more progressive Peter Laugheed. Government spending was not always considered bad in this province - and that was by the same conservative minded voters who lay claim to Conservatism today. Danielle Smith the new Wild Rose Alliance leader said that she did not leave the Conservative party, but the conservatives left her. I respectfully point out the Ralph Klein days she longs for were a stark departure from the roots of the PC party she used to support, not the origins of it.
Of course reckless spending is wrong.
If our leaders are racking up gambling debts in Vegas, spending beyond their budgets on marketing projects and pork barrel policies and stick our children with Billions in debt than they are perpetrating a fraud. They are stealing from future Albertans and they should be ashamed. Fiscal conservatism does not support this type of spending.
Yet not all spending is wrong. – it may well be necessary and completely fiscally responsible. Under Ralph Klein the Province eliminated our debt largely on the backs of ignoring our obligations. The government, even fiscally responsible ones – still have an obligation to pay for those things that make our economy and society work and prosper.
Alberta under Ralph Klein became the only government in North America to ever shut down and implode a fully operational Hospital like the Calgary General. If we set aside the emotional attachment Calgarians had to a 100 year old hospital as a fiscal responsibility watch dog I ask …was it financially smart? The answer in hindsight was clearly NO!
You see hospitals cost a lot of money to build and maintain. Hatters have been waiting for a decade for the much overdue expansion to our hospital. In 1997 the Klein government rejected building a new hospital in Calgary because it cost 400 million dollars. Today to build that same hospital would cost 1.6 Billion. Turns out avoiding paying for something you need doesn’t save you money. By avoiding the Province’s obligation to build and support the infrastructure communities need to prosper – they gave our children additional future costs! It’s as irresponsible to the other end of the spectrum as wasteful spending is because it doesn’t save money – it costs more!
Spending money on capital and infrastructure is not the same as spending it on a pork barrel policy, just as buying a house, even with a mortgage is not the same as racking up your credit card on a shopping spree.
Spending money on Schools, overpasses, hospitals, parks, community centers and the like – does not represent fiscal irresponsibility. Government spending is not in and of itself bad. WASTEFUL government spending is bad – and there is a big difference.
So why suddenly does a fiscally responsible ruling party like the provincial PC’s need to increase their deficit and threaten to take on debt for such a rich Province? Is it a burning need to return to socialism as the fringe Wild Rose Alliance party alleges? Hardly.
Infrastructure is expensive because you pay for it today …but use it for 50 years. Alberta ignored building its infrastructure for 15 years so we could look good by eliminating our debts – but we did so at a terrible cost. Fort McMurray’s exploding population seriously threatened safe and clean drinking water for its citizens. Hi ways became crowded and dangerous. Hospitals unbuilt, unexpanded and underfunded left to rot. Schools dilapidated. The movement of goods and services became slower on our roads and more expensive for businesses.
Meanwhile Alberta added people. Lots of people! Alberta added the population of Red Deer every year for a decade. Imagine all the infrastructure that needs to be built to support an entire new major provincial city each year. Think of all the infrastructure purchased in a Red Deer sized area over an 80 year period! Roads, schools, hospitals – and yes even parks, pathways, library’s, and rec facilities. We are talking 10’s of billions of dollars behind. When all those thousands of people moved here from Saskatchewan, Ontario and beyond – they left all the taxes they paid in their lives elsewhere back home….they didn’t transfer that tax money, classroom space or hospital beds over here.
Alberta really is that far behind the 8 ball.
Medicine Hat has likely doubled in population size since the last hospital expansion. Our classrooms grew full. Our schools started falling apart…Does anyone remember what Hat High and CHHS looked like in the mid 1990’s under King Ralph? I remember dodging falling ceiling tiles in the gym during highschool athletics.
Fiscal responsibility and conservatism does not mean the avoidance of all government spending- even if that means deficit or debt. Borrowing money today to pay for an asset enjoyed or needed for 50 years is not irresponsible. Postponing the purchase while it balloons in price is irresponsible. Fact is spending money on infrastructure now is long overdue, badly needed, and can be purchased on the cheap today – AND help stimulate the economy (the free market one) in the process. If the government goes into dept to overpay for wasteful projects and spending all should be outraged.
If they spend money on things that Albertan communities need (water treatment, hiways, hospitals, schools, and community infrastructure) than they are just doing their job.
Alberta has been solidly “right wing” since 1935. If government spending was always bad…how did our cities get all the old infrastructure we have now? Where did the hospitals and schools and museums and parks and rec centers and arenas etc …Where did all of that come from if there is no appropriate time to ever spend money? Where would our communities be today if our forefathers had been so “responsible” as to ignore their obligation to build and support the people moving to do business in our province back then?
Our province is badly low on infrastructure. The price is the lowest it’s going to get, the spending does the most good for the economy right now! At some point the discussion of eliminating wasteful spending was transformed into elimination of any spending - even if holding off on projects is foolish and wastes more money. I just don’t see how that is more fiscally responsible.
Confusing times in Alberta politics no?
It’s late so this might not make sense and I don’t think I was able to digest everything you’ve posted but I’m going to throw some stuff out there to see if it sticks.
First Ed is proving to be the most unpopular premier that I can honestly remember… worse than even getty. And that’s not only because he’s had the misfortune of being at the tiller during this downturn. Ed should not have messed with the royalty regime. Increasing royalties have had the same consequences today as they did for saskatchewan way back in the late 70’s… most of the rigs have left province. Alot of oilfield workers will tell you that this downturn started in alberta alot sooner than it did for the rest of the world. Long before financial institutions in states started folding oil companies had already started packing up and moving to saskatchewan where the royalty regime was much more favorable. Had Ed not messed with the royalties I’m willing to bet that Alberta would be in a much stronger position now.
Let me be clear, I hate trickle down economics but this is one clear case where it works. If the oil companies are getting rich here, then they are employing an assload of people. I am certainly in favour of the richest being taxed the most. But a smarter thing to do would have been to leave royalties as they were and instead found a way to heavily tax anyone earning over $250 000 a year. We still do ok and will continue to be ok because of the oilsands. However Alberta has always had two economic classes for the most part, those in the oilpatch and those who aren’t. Now it’s those working in fort mac and those who don’t. At least before the work was spread out throughout the province and all of the related work that the oilpatch supports (not talking frac work, I’m even just talking office jobs and the like). Now it seems it’s all up north. I don’t see that as a healthy thing at all. Insofar as royalties go not only is this ed’s fault but it’s everyone’s fault too. He ran on this platform during the leadership campaign, we all should have had the forsight to see what it would cause but instead we all just figured the rigs would stay no matter what and fell for Ed’s country charm.
As far as health care goes… it’s in a terrible state. One number you didn’t mention (or at least I don’t think you didn’t mention) is that back in 1988 there were something like 1300 hospital beds in this province, today there’s something like 800, and our population has skyrocketed since then. I heard those numbers on the cbc, I know I don’t have them exactly right but I’m in the ballpark. It has gotten so bad that in alberta where the suggestion of new taxes is about as welcome in polite conversation as the N word is that the bulk of albertians are actually in favour of bringing back health care premiums. What I don’t get is that provinces like Saskatchewan and Newfoundland had no premiums even in their worst years and never ran billion dollar health care deficits. Something is terribly wrong here. While we’re going to have to spend to bring infrastructure back up to snuff I don’t see why we need to have health care premiums in order to prevent a billion dollar health care deficit. When it comes to that something is terribly rotten in denmark. How can other provinces run a health care system without premiums but alberta can’t?
As for Wild Rose… well people aren’t happy and they want an alternative. Who else are you going to support? The alberta libs are full of criticism but void when it comes to answers. They are like yappy barking dogs. Dr Swann has never once offered any solutions. Liberal name aside nobody is going to support that.
Our money has been managed fairly poorly for some time now. King Ralph may have eliminated the provincial deficit but he did so at the expense of not only cutting infrastructure but by cutting municipal funding thus in effect rolling Alberta’s debt over to the smaller municipal governments. Ed took that even a step further, I listened the day the budget came down last spring and while he avoided cutting provincial funding in most places he made further cuts to the municipalities. According to alot of people Alberta ever being ‘debt free’ was something of a myth; it came at the expense of putting the cities in debt and by running infrastructure into the ground. Today the province is in the hole, the cities are still in the hole and infrastructure is worse than it’s ever been.
Ed Stelmach is certainly not an inspirational or charismatic leader. I do think that being bland doesn’t necessarily make his adopted policies a disaster…I am not sure what to make of him as a Premier …on the one hand he seems to be losing support, but in the last election he did receive a BIGGER majority than Ralph Klein had won previously. For all the hew and cry from one sector his policies were fairly well received on election day.
I guess what troubles me is not whether or not Albertan’s dissent around Conservative policies - that is normal and healthy political dialogue IMO
What I find troubling is how people and the media tend to never re-examine a viewpoint or they allow the viewpoint to change and never really comment on the fact that policy or the position have moved.
There are times when government spending is inappropriate.
There are also times when government spending is what is called for.
Its like political opinion formed in there “Back there, back then” in a different political and economic environment are untouchable in the “Here, Now” where our situation has clearly changed.
I supported cuts when they were appropriate under the conditions …I never thought that made us irreconcilably “Pro Cut forever in perpetuity”
Times have changed, it is absurd to never revisit policy.
It is very rare that our economic situation in Alberta faces a massive global scale recession.
It is very rare in our provincial history that Alberta sits with a massive backlog of public works projects un built.
Those two things make this the most opportune time to reinvest in Alberta ….The fear I have is simple. If not now ….when is a good time to invest in our economy, or are we going to ride the infrastructure of the 60’s and 70’s until it crumbles?
yet a fringe political group in the Wild Rose Alliance is fast picking up steam under the impression that we must slam the breaks on government spending.
If Alberta spends money today it can get much needed infrastructure cheaper - because the economy has cooled down a bit….
and the money spent can actually re stimulate the Provincial economy - instead of having to compete with the private sector for labour and goods by building in the high times.
Sooner or later building infrastructure stops being a choice. Why not pick the most opportune time for investment? Why manage by crisis?
The PC party in Alberta used to believe that there was a role for the government to play in stimulating and managing the economy. Heck historically even the Social Credit Party wanted provincial control of monetary and fiscal policy. The modern “Klein style” movement is a departure from the Conservative base.
Would it surprise most people to note that Laugheed, the early leader of the PC party in Alberta supports the “socialist” policies of the Stelmach government and opposed the Klein era?