Dear Editor,
Premier Prentice is projecting a $ 500-million deficit and a continuing shortfall in revenue until the price of oil goes up to at least $75 a barrel.
Prentice and his caucus are floating all kinds of ideas how to make up for this shortfall, pretty much all of those ideas involve the taxpayer, (what else is new?), not the corporations who pay the lowest income tax anywhere, 10 per cent, (national average is 12.6 per cent, in the US 15-35 per cent).
Will he change the unfair flat 10 per cent personal income tax and change back to a graduated tax, so that higher income earners pay their fair share? No, he said he won't touch the flat rate tax.
He could increase the ridiculously low royalties from currently 9-12 per cent; royalties were 25 per cent for oil sands oil and 35 per cent for conventional oil and gas when Lougheed was Premier, or actually collect all the royalties, but he said no he won't.
One has to wonder how a drop in oil prices can bring on such an immediate backlash, after all the AB government and the oil companies had years of high oil prices, why wasn't there some money put aside for economic down turns?
Not that the PC government was saving this rich resource revenues for Albertans as the Norwegian government has done, who has over a trillion in a fund for future generations when the oil is gone!
You got to ask yourself how can such a resource rich province as Alberta be in debt at all?
Well, we all know by now a lot of it was mismanaged, used for a fleet of four air planes, while no other province has planes for government officials anymore, used for offices abroad, some of them now closed, squandered away on $ 40,000 air plane tickets, $250 Million for the very elaborate Canada House in London and all kinds of other things that were over the top and not necessary.
Bringing back health care premiums for Albertans is most likely in the cards, but with the difference that this time the employers are totally off the hook and don't have to pay half or all of the employees’ health care premium. Prentice always makes sure that corporations are taken care of first, not the people of Alberta.
His primary order of business at his first meeting with Harper was to get a special deal for Alberta's 'temporary' foreign worker program (TFW) as Alberta - so he says - is in a unique situation. That deal was sealed with giving a special group of foreign workers (FWs) whose four-year work visa was ending end of March, one year extension to get their citizen status through. How many FWs was in PC fashion not disclosed, some say over 1,000, others estimate over 10,000. Alberta has now close to 100,000 FWs.
This happened after the oil price crashed. You would have thought that Mr. Prentice would adjust to the new Alberta economic reality and save those jobs for Canadians.
After all we have lost already thousands of jobs in the oil field with much more losses predicted, and we have a 20-30 per cent youth unemployment rate.
Pipe fitters for example are on the list of FWs apparently needed, however, will the double class of apprentice pipe fitters graduating from RDC this months find work still with the oil down turn? These are Canadian young men who are in many cases desperate to get going with their lives, start a career, a family etc. in an economic climate that makes it more and more difficult to find work.
If our Canadian youth doesn't find work for decent wages, it will not be beneficial for Canada's future or economy. Prentice or the corporations don't care about young Canadians, at least nothing they have done indicates that they do.
Why was the TFW program not adjusted to Alberta's revenue down turn? Because Prentice, as the PC party always does, caters to the industry first and Canadians second. The TFW program is also a means to undermine Canadian wages and benefits.
Prentice and his caucus are following an economic model that serves the interest of economic and political elites, but does not provide a living wage for everyone, does not lower the youth unemployment rate, which was already high before the oil down turn and will get worse now, nor does it lower the poverty rate in Alberta.
Isn't it time to break the cycle of exploitation in Alberta? Exploitation of the resources that belong to Albertans, not the industry, exploitation of people who work hard every day, but cannot make ends meet on the minimum wages nobody can live on anymore?
Workers’ rights and benefits are deteriorating, 12 per cent of Albertans live in poverty.
Voters have the power to change that!
Ilse Quick,
Lacombe