Tag: Adam Legge

Categories
Alberta Politics

Alberta is getting a bad deal and it’s always Ottawa’s fault

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

Danielle Smith’s Alberta Next Panel looks a lot like a UCP re-election tour

Alberta is getting a bad deal and it’s always Ottawa’s fault. That’s Premier Danielle Smith’s key message in a 6 minute and 26 second long video posted on her social media channels on Tuesday.

Less that 24 hours after the polls closed in three provincial by-elections that saw voters deliver one win for Smith’s United Conservative Party and two wins for Naheed Nenshi’s NDP, the premier was ready to announce a new panel to hear people’s grievances about Ottawa and views on the provincial government taking control of immigration, which immigrants should have access to social services, and creating a provincial tax collection agency, provincial pension plan and provincial police force.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

Email
Categories
Alberta Politics

Nate Horner’s deficit spending, tax cutting confused conservative budget

Minister of Finance Nate Horner in the government’s pre-budget release video posted on social media (source: Nate Horner / Instagram)
Minister of Finance Nate Horner in the government’s pre-budget release video posted on social media (source: Nate Horner / Instagram)

Alberta goes for another ride on the royalty roller coaster

After twenty years of writing about Alberta politics and about same number of provincial budgets, it’s sometimes hard not to write the same thing year after year: Alberta relies too heavily on revenues from oil and gas royalties to fund the daily operations of government.

That’s the baked-in analysis of Alberta politics. Our provincial government’s over-dependence on oil revenues is both a blessing and a curse. When the price of oil is high, things are really good. When the price of oil is low, it’s really bad. It is the central component of what we used to call the “Alberta Advantage.”

Alberta has been able to afford to have the lowest taxes in Canada and high spending on public services because the government could use oil and gas royalties to offset what every other province would normally collect through taxes.

Read more on the Daveberta Substack

Email