Alberta Provincial Politics

[darwink]

At the end of the day, the Calgary numbers are all that matters, but even those numbers are too general.

Can also end up with a distorted view if you poll CMA versus city boundary. You end up with the ex-urban ring with voting patterns like ‘rest of Alberta/rural’ which leaves the impression more ridings are competitive than is actually the case.

 

[MichaelS]

That’s a bullshit excuse considering the billions the government chose to blow on all manner of partisan Danielle Smith thought experiments, corrupt contracts, Alberta Next panels, payouts to coal companies, Alberta is calling immigration campaigns, ‘studies’ that no one wanted for everything from leaving CPP to Preston Manning’s cushy $200k anti vaxx ramblings about the pandemic. This government under Smith raked in $82 billion in oil royalties over 4 years vs $16 billion for the NDP. And they are running a massive deficit. Where did all that money go?

While the scandals are annoying, I think you are overstating their percentage of the actual budget. Your criticism of the UCP is that they raised your property taxes. Do you think the NDP will lower them? If so, what services will they cut in order to do so? The UCP are spending more per capita on health care than the NDP did. Same with education, although the growth is not at the same rate. Perhaps this increase is meant to catch up in that regard.

I am not thrilled with the UCP either, but to suggest that we would have services increased and taxes decreased if we have an NDP government is an interesting stance.

 

[trtcttc]

There's also 9% for the Liberals, a party that doesn't exist in provincial elections. And the federal NDP is polling in single digits. It's very likely more than 10% of the respondents aren't even responding in a Provincial context, but federal, where you'd expect NDP support to be non-existent in AB. Especially if Avi Lewis is the new leader, the AB NDP needs to find a way to get away from the NDP brand if they want a chance. There's too many voters and for sure UCP ads that will tie the crazy things Lewis says to the AB NDP. Smith was already doing that on the news shows last week.

Would the NDP cut education funding to not raise taxes?

It's weird why everything is funded based on income, except education. And AB is quite unique in that we have two major municipalities of similar size but vastly different education funding contribution. They can also change the distribution. In Ontario, the commercial portion is 0.88% and residential 0.153% and we're at 0.284% and 0.417%. Our residential rate will be higher because our property value is lower (the same principal why cheaper cities like Winnipeg have high property tax rates), but our commercial contribution is half of that of Ontario, despite much lower commercial property values.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

There's also 9% for the Liberals, a party that doesn't exist in provincial elections. And the federal NDP is polling in single digits. It's very likely more than 10% of the respondents aren't even responding in a Provincial context, but federal, where you'd expect NDP support to be non-existent in AB. Especially if Avi Lewis is the new leader, the AB NDP needs to find a way to get away from the NDP brand if they want a chance. There's too many voters and for sure UCP ads that will tie the crazy things Lewis says to the AB NDP. Smith was already doing that on the news shows last week.


It's weird why everything is funded based on income, except education. And AB is quite unique in that we have two major municipalities of similar size but vastly different education funding contribution. They can also change the distribution. In Ontario, the commercial portion is 0.88% and residential 0.153% and we're at 0.284% and 0.417%. Our residential rate will be higher because our property value is lower (the same principal why cheaper cities like Winnipeg have high property tax rates), but our commercial contribution is half of that of Ontario, despite much lower commercial property values.

Th equalization (Alberta versus have-not prrovinces, Calgary and Edmonton versus rural Alberta) chicken coming home to roost is sure something.

 

[trtcttc]

Th equalization (Alberta versus have-not prrovinces, Calgary and Edmonton versus rural Alberta) chicken coming home to roost is sure something.

It's really Calgary vs Edmonton and the rest of Alberta. But just like equalization, it's Calgary/AB subsidizing the rest of the province. So really in both cases provincial and federal equalization, we're left holding the short end of the stick. The only difference is provincially we hold a lot of the balance of power, whereas federally, nobody makes concessions to us because we're not a battleground area.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

The city being an entity of the province is an issue in this case. Limits how much they can push. I do actually don't think equalization is a problem, it is part of the way our society is constructed. We need people living in rural Alberta and those people need services.

 

[trtcttc]

The city being an entity of the province is an issue in this case. Limits how much they can push. I do actually don't think equalization is a problem, it is part of the way our society is constructed. We need people living in rural Alberta and those people need services.

I feel like we've had this discussion before, and once again, I agree with you on the principle of equalization, whether that's within our city, within our province, and within our country. Wealthier areas of our city subsidize poorer areas and helps keep services relatively similar. Go to the US and what you think of as 1 city (i.e. Boston) is actually many smaller cities which makes the municipal services differ widely between wealthy and poor areas.

The problem is with the formula to calculate equalization, whether that's with Quebec's hydro subsidies or Edmonton's lower housing values. It may still make sense to do it based on property, but I do find it odd we have this one carve out for education (likely on the assumption people that have kids more likely to buy big houses), whereas every other provincial service is funded by income taxes.

 

[O-tac]

I've said this before, and I'll reiterate it again. The UCP are spending record amounts of cash on healthcare. Unfortunately that isn't resulting in better service or supporting the system. Instead it is being blown on quadrupling the bureaucracy by blowing up AHS and creating new departments that were previously efficiently included under the central AHS umbrella. They're blowing it up building charter surgical facilities. They've blown hundreds of millions on privatization schemes like Dynalife that were then brought back into the fold of AHS. This is all purposeful chaos to justify 2 tier healthcare. It's straight out of the tried and true conservative playbook.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

I've said this before, and I'll reiterate it again. The UCP are spending record amounts of cash on healthcare. Unfortunately that isn't resulting in better service or supporting the system. Instead it is being blown on quadrupling the bureaucracy by blowing up AHS and creating new departments that were previously efficiently included under the central AHS umbrella. They're blowing it up building charter surgical facilities. They've blown hundreds of millions on privatization schemes like Dynalife that were then brought back into the fold of AHS. This is all purposeful chaos to justify 2 tier healthcare. It's straight out of the tried and true conservative playbook.

It is the complete opposite of "we've tried nothing and it hasn't worked" but it is having similar results because trying all the wrong things and it not working looks better than the former. Sadly, everything and I mean EVERYTHING is political and for show with them. I long for the days of Steady Eddy and Sky Palace controversies.