Category Archives: taxes

Druh Farrell eager to leap into another tax-funded boondoggle.

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 While we still await the final costs for the still delayed disaster that some call the “peace” bridge, Druh Farrell the chief proponent of that embarrassment to the city is already trying to have more tax dollars potentially destroyed through fast-tracking a program where the city will compost our coffee grounds.

 The merit of having government take over composting for us is debatable at best and I will be posting some information on the myth of a landfill crisis and the benefits of recycling below.

 Calgary is to begin a $1.3 million pilot project with 8000 homes where a third bin will be added to their fast growing collection of waste bins. The new bin will be for organic waste that can theoretically be converted into a useful compost. I am happy at least that the city is doing a pilot program rather than jumping neck deep into this notion. This is a responsible way to see if the program needs adjustment or is even worthwhile to pursue as a whole.

 Never one to be bound by responsible actions though, Druh Farrell is furious and is demanding that we fast-track the program into full implementation as soon as possible. Never mind the fact that we don’t even have the facility to deal with the waste (estimated to be $60 million or so). Never mind that we have not tested to see if citizens really like the notion of having a bin full of rotting organic waste sitting in July heat for two weeks at a time. Never mind seeing what a true and total cost estimation of a city-wide program may be. Full speed ahead says Druh!!

 I suspect that Druh realizes that the pilot may expose this program to be a waste and a failure thus her eagerness to rush right into it. I may of course be giving Druh too much credit there.

 We are in a city that constantly claims to be so broke that annual tax hikes are the norm yet our council can’t seem to run out of ways to waste our money. Let’s let this pilot project run it’s entire course, look at the outcomes, and then start to discuss if the entire city needs a third waste bin.

 We rushed into recycling in the first place and ended up with thousands of tonnes of glass that nobody wanted piled in our landfill after having been expensively collected and sorted. Do we have a place for a mountain of compost? How about this Druh, why don’t we store the rotting organics in the middle of your precious Kensington while we try to find a facility to process it. That may take some of the shine from the concept.

 Below is video from Penn and Teller’s series “Bullshit”. I do warn, as the title of the series indicates the show is loaded with expletives. Despite the colorful language, the show is packed with facts and realities of recycling including a live experiment of how gullible well meaning urbanites can be at times. I strongly recommend watching the show in full (not at work and not with kids around).

 

City council is considering wasting your tax dollars in order to stunt business development.

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It is hard to tell which does more damage to Calgary’s business environment; city council’s indecision when it comes to zoning decisions or when city council actually makes a decision on something and intervenes in projects. They both are damaging in general.

There clearly is a great deal of money to be made in generating studies and reports while our cowardly city council tries their hardest to avoid making a simple decision on anything. Despite pretty clear evidence that a bike share program in Calgary is totally unviable and likely would turn into a terribly expensive taxpayer boondoggle, our council of cowards has turned away from completely shelving the program. $24,000 has been wasted on one biased bike-share study and our council has decided to throw more good money after bad in order to study the issue further.

Last year I went to a meeting at my community association where an exasperated lawyer was trying to build his case to get the city to give him the green light to build a small office complex on Center street near 41 ave. He had bought some houses there under the assurances that he would have no trouble in getting his offices approved and he would be able to construct and move into his new facility. This was not to be so and the poor man was jerked around by the city system for a couple years. He has since put all those houses up for sale and one can see the line of realtor signs on Center north of the Tim Hortons there.

You see, there is an element of the hard left who have this long-term utopia in mind where Calgary would have LRT access to all portions of the city and that includes a proposal to run a train right up Center street.  While there is no official plan on the books for this extension and certainly there is no money to build it, there are some members of city council who want to see this happen. What is happening now is that they are stalling all development on Centre Street North as they know that new development on Centre would hinder plans and expropriation of property should the city decide in a decade or so to put a line there. This is similar to the provincial legislation that essentially seizes and devalues private property in anticipation of expropriation rather than just buying it.

The outcome of this unofficial policy on Centre Street North is stark, ugly and obvious. Houses are run down and worthless as owners will not put in any dollars to maintain a place that they expect to be expropriated. Crack houses, massage parlours and general slums are blossoming along this stretch of zoning uncertainty and things will only get worse. Who in their right mind would buy property on Centre right now?

I can’t imagine how much that poor lawyer lost in his attempt to develop something nice and new in good faith. He still hasnt managed to sell those dumps that he purchased.

The impact spreads beyond Centre as well. We have seen a marked increase in general crime and vandalism in our neighborhood as the unsavory element drawn to the run-down houses walks to neighboring communities in hopes of stealing something for their next fix. This devalues houses for blocks around Centre and it is soley due to instability and indecision on the part of our ineffective city council.

Not simply content to meddle with development through their inaction though, our city council is now looking to stop development through direct action. Council decided yesterday to study (surprise surprise) an idea to purchase 19 hectares of land along Highway 1 in order to stop potential development of retail business.  This is getting outright insane people. This is not some rare natural area and it is not an area lacking in open space. Have a look at the picture below to see the massive volume of undeveloped and protected space already set aside in that area.

What we have in city hall these days is an almost religious-like fervour against the concept of what some pejoratively call “sprawl”. This anti-business gang will stop at nothing to try and hinder city growth and this idiotic notion of buying land to stop retail development is a clear indicator of it.

Lets assume that the city wastes millions and millions of our dollars to buy this land in a gross dispay of market intervention. What will the consequences be? Well, our reputation as a good place to do business will sink further as instability in zoning is assured and the anti-development attitude of our council is more clearly exposed. The retail businesses that were considering that site will not simply vanish. What will be more likely to happen is that a larger new retail center will simply be developed farther West this causing people to commute even farther for their purchases. How green. Residential development will push even farther as it chases retail services and the dreaded “sprawl” will have expanded more.

Get real you fools! Calgary is a thriving and growing city. We are blessed with the open space surrounding us that allows us to grow and build good neighborhoods for our families. To those who really want to see the outcome of high density planning may I suggest a trip to Manhattan. There you will see obscenely expensive real-estate values due to lack of supply. That leads in turn of course to neighboring slums and ghettos that are totally unimaginable in cities like Calgary. Homeless and crime levels in densely packed cities are worlds worse than ours and much of the reason is density.

People are welcome to pursue whatever unrealistic utopia they like I guess. What is concerning though is that these blinded idealists have found their way onto city council.

Airdrie, Okotoks, Cochrane and Strathmore will continue to thrive and people will continue to develop outwards to avoid the congestion and discomfort that anti-“sprawl” measures will bring about. We will continue to grow as a city but our development will be an odd hybrid of sattelite cities and a dysfunctional downtown crowded with discarded rental bikes and empty busses.

Please Calgary can we elect a city council with a grain of common sense in 2013? We really need to break the trend.

A couple places to cut spending.

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Whenever it comes to spending cuts, supporters of big government like to try and act as if spending on core services will have to be decimated. Nenshi loves doing that in Calgary when people complain of tax hikes. He likes to ask if people don’t want their streets plowed or if people want policing cuts.  There are hundreds of other areas of spending that we could reduce or simply do without altogether. Some of these are some pretty big ticket items on the national and provincial fronts.  

 In the 21st century, we have utterly no need whatsoever for a State Broadcaster. The CBC was initially formed to help bring information and communication across a very vast country. Broadcasting infrastructure such as local studios and towers did not yet exist and the CBC indeed helped unify the nation in bringing all of that together. Those days however are long gone. Satellite technology ensures that people have access to information whether through radio, television or internet in every corner of the country. While working in the arctic, I never saw a house without a satellite dish. Cellular coverage is available on the ice-roads on the Beafort Sea. 
 

 Our State Broadcaster is completely obsolete yet it is costing Canadians $1.2 billion per year. If privatized, I am sure that the infrastructure of the CBC  would be worth at least a few billion when sold as well. That money could be dedicated to the national debt thus reducing interest charges thus allowing for more spending on core services. I am sure that most provinces would be happy to dedicate another $100+ million per year to their health expenditures even if indeed it does mean that we will see fewer reruns of Anne of Green Gables and Little Mosque on the Prairie.

 Another behemoth of spending that we really don’t require is bilingualism. Let’s face it, aside from Quebec, New Brunswick and to a much lesser degree Ontario, French speakers are in such a tiny minority that it is a joke to really consider the rest of the provinces to be bilingual. Unilingual French speakers are an even smaller minority within a minority. The amount we are spending on this microscopic segment of the population however is not small at all.

 A recent study has found bilingualism to be costing $2.4 billion per year in Canada.

Now perhaps a case can be made for enforced bilingual services in some of our Eastern provinces but lets look here in Alberta (the other Western provinces are similar).

 In Alberta, 1.9% of our province consider French to be their mother tongue. Only .05% are considered to be unilingual French speakers. Think about that folks because it really is only the unilingual ones we need to be concerned with here when it comes to providing French services. In provincial bilingual spending alone, we spend $2027 per year per unilingual French speaker. With federal spending on top of that the cost becomes much higher.

 That sure is a lot of money to spend to ensure that a tiny minority can read the back of a cereal box in their preferred language.

 What is the long-term goal for this spending anyway? Is it expected that we will have a large population fluent in both official languages in Alberta? If that is the case, it has been a terrible failure. French is not growing in popular use in Alberta no matter how much we spend on it.

 Is it really that impossible to model spending based on actual need?

 When will we allow common sense to creep into spending decisions? We are seeing countries all around the world going broke because they thought that they could tax, borrow and spend themselves into prosperity. Those countries are now being forced into considering some almost crippling austerity measures to make up for their past overspending. We are in an envious position in that we have not hit that debt/spending wall yet. We need to get rational about what we spend on and how much.

 Where are our priorities? In virtually every poll health and education are the top two concerns voiced by Albertans. Why then are we running short on the aforementioned items while spending billions on luxury programs such as the CBC and bilingualism that only service tiny minorities?

 Think to yourself, will your life change radically for the worse if the CBC were privatized? Would Alberta suffer a crippling cultural blow if we no longer spent millions upon millions to accommodate a convenience for .05% of our population?

 With more time and research people can find all sorts of areas where spending can be cut without any measurable effect on our core services. We need to remember that when elected officials try to play that bait and switch method in defending the hyper-expenditure increases being made by big government.

 We can still maintain a high standard of health and education provision while not raising taxes or overall government expenditures. We have a great deal of spending cuts to make on items that we don’t need however.

Redford is continuing with the PC prohibitionist mandate.

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One constant since the begining of the bumbling Stelmach administration has been a steady attack on liquor consumption from the provincial government. Almost anually the Progressive Conservatives would announce a new policy or tax modelled to socially engineer Albertans to reduce their enjoyment of a drink now and then. Perhaps it was an effort to distance themselves from the prior Klein administration that was led by a man known to imbibe now and then. The bottom line though is that it is an intrusive form of governance that does not fit with the Albertan laissez faire approach to most things.

One of the first things Stelmach did was mandate a pile of ridiculous regulations on business establishments forcing them to adopt minimum drink prices and even determined the volume of liquor a person was allowed to purchase in a bar at certain hours. The Progressive Conservatives had taken to micromanaging private business going as far as telling them what they must charge and how much of their product they are allowed to sell at a time. Mao would have been proud.

This brought about an end to drink specials and the time honored tradition of happy hour.

The next thing Stelmach did was the usual shallow tactic in trying to prohibit something; he announced a massive tax increase on liquor.

In Ed’s usual bumbling manner though, he totally failed in reading public opinion in Alberta. In the typical PC flip/flop he recinded the tax increases shortly after bringing them in due to a public backlash as people tired of his anti-booze crusade interfering in their good times. I remember well talking to a tired store owner trying to keep up with his pricing as the government tried to figure out what to tell private business what to charge customers. Along with the prohibitionism, Redford has mastered the PC flip/flop as well in her broken promises to set fixed election dates and to hold a judicial inquiry into our healthcare system but I digress.

As we all know, Stelmach’s inept management of the province led to his resignation last January. The election of Alison Redford led some people to hope for some change but it is becoming rather clear that we still have the same old free spending, nanny state that we had before. The only thing that has changed is the face at the front with perhaps a little more leftward spin. The social conservatism is still obviously alive and well.

Despite clear evidence that people with only .05-.079% blood alcohol are not causing any undue or extra accidents on Alberta roads, the Redford government still insisted on ramrodding Bill 26 through the legislature and onto Albertans. Using what essentially can be called a legal loophole, the provincial government has found a way to punish people heavily for a non-crime while leaving them with none of the process of defense that criminal law provides. It is almost reminicent of the Human Rights Commissions.

Why would the Progressive Conservatives go so far out of their way to antagonize Alberta businesses and citizens with a law that serves no visible purpose? Clearly we are no safer due to Bill 26. What we will see however is a reduction of drinking even one or two wines with meals as many people will fear the new punishments brought about by government against responsible drinkers. Others who do enjoy a drink with their meal will often simply stay home which of course will come at great cost to our restaurant industry. The goal of the government is simply to attack drinking whether it is done responsibly or not. This people is simply prohibition by stealth and harrassment.

Redford now wants to continue where Stelmach failed and is planning to bring in heavy taxes on liquor again. Not sure if we are at the point of flip or flop. What we do have is blatant social engineering however. Government plans to punish you further through taxation for daring to decide to enjoy a drink.

In Redford’s own words the other day on how her government will make choices on your behalf and will manage your life and decisions:

“Albertans are really sensible. They want to be healthy, they want to be safe and they want government to take some leadership and say: ‘You know what, we’re going to make some choices and these choices are going to be conducive to building a safer and a healthier community where we’re able to make sure we have good programs in place and everyone in society can thrive.’”

I have to call bullshit Alison. If you really thought Albertans were responsible, then you would not be trying to micromanage our personal decisions would you? We don’t need you to make choices on our behalf!

While dedicated, the ladies of the temperance movements soon discovered that lips that didn’t touch liquor were exceedingly unlikely to touch theirs.

I would have thought that people such as Alison Redford would have gained a great appreciation of the concept of beer goggles in her post-secondary educational years. I guess it just led to further bitterness.

It is ironic that Redford is considered a crusader for liberals when her government is clearly so dedicated to socially conservative efforts in social engineering.

Leave us our booze at least Alison so that we may drink away the pains of your inept government as you tax, borrow and spend away the inheritances of our grandchildren.

Budget time!!

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Well, lets see. Courts across the country are indeed proving that there is not, never has been and never will be a Charter protected right to squat illegally in a city park under the guise of freedom of expression. Sadly court time had to be wasted in reaffirming this reality as common sense on the part of city officials should have ended all this squatting long ago.

Vancouver, Toronto and Edmonton are all moving and will be getting rid of their illegal squatters soon. Regina, Saskatoon, Victoria, London and Halifax have all evicted the squatters from their park.

Despite all this, Nenshi’s Calgary is still intent on negotiating with what can now only be called extortionists. These guys are clearly breaking the law and are demanding that the city provide them with a long list of freebies in order for them to consider ending their illegal squatting.

The city’s last offer (way too generous as it was) was spit upon by the squatters who said they would like to light it on fire. That offer from the city would have provided the extortionists with the means to hold several public forums and to establish what could be a permanent information booth for them near the plaza.

I am sure that many charities and lobby groups would love to have free hosted public forums and free permanent information booths downtown. Alas, legitimate groups have been playing by acceptable rules of society. Clearly the way to get things is to break the law. Nenshi and the rest of the cowardly officials will then heap offers upon your cause in hopes that you consider becoming law-abiding again.

Now the squatters have been emboldened further (who can blame them?) by the craven attempts of capitulation from the city and they are drafting new demands. Since it is budget time, I would like to itemize these demands so that Nenshi can add them to the budget deliberations as he clearly is not afraid of throwing city tax money at our illegal squatters (on top of the estimated $40,000 in damage that the squatters have already done to our park).

From the mouths of squatters themselves:

1) That the city find a place agreeable to OC where we can hold General Assemblies in safety and warmth.

2) That the city will cover rent for said place.

I guess it should go without saying that the squatters expect us to pay for everything but they made sure to make a specific demand for that to be sure.

Now they hold their GAs daily and have been known to hold them twice per day. Turnout is extremely variable but lets be generous and assume that they will need daily space for as many as 60 people. The Epcor center is right next to the squatters so would be an ideal new warm spot for their general assemblies. Lets be kind on the costs though and just assume that they will hold one meeting per day in that room.

Daily meetings for 60 in meeting room next to Olympic Plaza: $277,400
Of course with regular scheduling that could even be knocked down to a cool $250,000

4) That the city pay to hold sixteen GAs as stated above with time/date/location/format of our choosing. (Maybe even twenty to get us through our winter of discontent with weekly GAs).

Again they wanted to ensure that the taxpayers would cover everything. Now when I went down to Olympic Plaza, they advertised a General Assembly every day at 1:00pm and 6:00pm if I recall. Perhaps it has now moved to sporadic or maybe there are different categories. Some are general General Assemblies while others are Uber Big General Assemblies. It really does not need to make sense or have consistency. Nothing else from the squatters has so far.

Due to the above ambiguity, I will raise the Epcor room cost back to the initial estimate that I had reduced for what I thought would be regular scheduling of the room.

5) That the city permit one tent at the plaza, or at a mutually agreed location, as an info booth to disseminate information to the public and to operate during normal park hours.

OK so they want permanent prime space downtown. Well, for a 10×10 vending tent on Steven Avenue it is $520 per month plus GST so that comes to about $6552 per year.

6) That the city provide electricity during normal park hours to ensure adequate lighting in and around the information tent referred to in 5) and provide assistance (CFD, Bylaw) in setting up an adequate and compliant heating system for the information tent referred to in 5). Also, that the city provide security for the information tent during off hours.

Hmm. So they want the tent to remain 24/7, with electric, heat and security. That is essentially a small free-standing business in downtown Calgary. Lets give that a cost of around $200,000 and forgo the earlier vending tent estimate.

7) That the city pay for three evenings rental of the largest rooms at every Community Hall in Calgary for the purpose of holding public forums.

This one is cute. I am afraid that at three days each, they would not be able to get through all of the meetings in one year as there are too many halls in Calgary. Lets just assume one every day all year then. My community hall charges $500 for it’s largest room for a night. It is about an average sized hall. There will be a meeting held at a hall in somewhere in Calgary every day of the year.

Demand for hall rentals: $182,500

8) That the city pay for the rental of all equipment necessary to hold such forums. For example: mic’s, amp’s, speakers, tables, chairs etc. Including internet access for live steaming.

Tables and chairs are usually included with most halls. Sound systems and internet are extra though. Lets just be generous and add $100 per night.

Extras: $36,500

9) That the city pay to advertise all public forums. Including TV, radio, newspapers, community newsletters, etc.

Hmm, I am afraid that gets really pricey. Lets just assume that you get good deals on advertising in all of those mediums for 365 meetings per year with a total being about $2,000 per day.

Advertising on all forms of media: $730,000

10) That the city pay for a CPS presence at each public forum for the duration of the meeting.

Afraid I can’t find a pricing guide for genuine armed police officers. I assure you it will be at least $500 per meeting.

Personal police presence: $182,500

Well at the moment that is all they have come up with so far. Rest assured their greedy little entitled minds will come up with more things that they feel hardworking taxpayers owe them.

Nenshi has made it clear that he is OK with squatters being in our park ad infinitum so this had best be added into Calgary’s city budget.

The cost annually to keep up with he latest extortion demands being made by “occupy” Calgary squatters totals:

$1,608,900!!!

Please include this in the budget deliberations Mayor Nenshi.

Of course you could also grow a set, do your job and kick the damn illegal squatters from our park too.

The above pricing does not account for leap years nor further illegal occupations of parks that will be sure to follow upon capitulation to extortion by the city of Calgary.

Time to take back Olympic Plaza!

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This embarrassing and expensive scene has gone on long enough. A small collection of squatters has been camped in our taxfunded park illegally for weeks now and the damages and costs are beginning to mount up. These kids have done an estimated $40,000 in damage alone to our park and the costs will only rise.

The Muslim Heritage day event which was booked and paid for in good faith will now have to hold their event in a dirty park (cant maintain and clean properly with squatters camping) and they will have less space than anticipated due to these tenters. Another group that had booked the plaza for Monday is now seeking a new location as will another group that is booked for Wednesday if we do not kick these kids out of our park.

Olympic Plaza was never designed for camping and due to that the damages are mounting up fast. Costs for extra policing and additional maintenance are building up. How many thousands of dollars will have to be refunded to the legitimate groups that have booked and paid for the plaza that will have to relocated due to the city allowing illegal squatting in our park?

This is a sad and expensive joke and is an embarrassment to our city. There is NO reason that we can’t evict these squatters from our park. There is a hollow and weak case being made that these squatters are protected by the Canadian Charter in this. That again is simply a load of BS. Speech is protected as is expression. Both speech and expression are possible without illegally camping in a downtown park. No rights are being repressed through evicting these kids.

If indeed that cowardly excuse of possible charter issues is valid, then I suggest that none of us in the entire city of Calgary need abide by bylaws ever again. The “occupy” group has never really explained exactly what they are protesting. I guess those of us who ignore other bylaws will not need a real reason for our protest either. If I refuse to licence my dog, I have a charter defense in it. I need only say “I don’t like social inequity and I am not licencing in protest”. By city council logic I am covered by the charter. Can I use this defense if I don’t pay parking tickets? Can I occupy a free seat on the C-Train in protest and make a charter challenge if I get a ticket?

Storage is expensive. I suggest that people should park their RVs and fifth-wheels in Calgary parks. Heck you can even camp there when you please. Dig a firepit for yourself. Vandalize the local bathrooms and displace other people using the park. It is OK. Just claim some vapid complaint about the way the world is and claim your action is your means of expression.

Is it becoming clear yet why making an exception in our bylaws for this gang of camping kids is a big deal? To most people it is something of a no-brainer.

Our city council is hiding in collective fear of the potentially poor optics that may happen if we actually enforce the law and kick these kids from the park. We need to take away their excuses. The fear of a charter challenge is utter BS as demonstrated above. I don’t think we really need to sweat a bunch of ragtag hipsters organizing and taking the city to court on a charter challenge anyway. That is simply way too much work for them. There is no charter right for squatting.

Another common dodge used by city councilors is claiming that there have been few complaints. From what I heard from the person on the other end of a 311 call, there have been many complaints already. Still, we need to ramp up the complaints.

Don’t let our city officials hide on this issue and lets not let these squatters cost the taxpayers any more than they already have!!

We must register our complaints and it must spread. Below are the means to contact city hall and your councilors. Use them and spread the word to neighbors and coworkers who are tired of this. Clearly city hall won’t move without some heavy prodding on this issue.

To begin with, simply call 311. There is an option for bylaw complaints. While on a coffee break give the number a dial and make a formal complaint of people camping after-hours in Olympic Plaza.

Calling is most effective but online complaints can be filed here if that is preferred.

Contacting the aldermen themselves is effective as well. They do try to hide direct contact information when possible. The beginnings of contact information for aldermen can be found here and here though.

On twitter many of our aldermen follow the #yyccc hashtag. Tweet them directly if you are on and demand that our park be cleaned up. Some but not all of our city council is on twitter. Their twitter handles are below.

@nenshi @yycgael @councilorkeats @pootmans @aldjonmar @bpincott @bigredyyc @peterdemong @druhfarrell

This issue will not go away until we as citizens make it go away. We can’t let city hall bury their heads on this while countless thousands of dollars are wasted, our park gets further damaged and innocent groups get displaced from events booked and paid for in good faith. Email tweet and call whoever you can on this folks. It has to come to an end and soon.

Taxpayers are squeezed enough! We have a spending problem.

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 A few weeks ago I attended one of the Alberta Party’s big listens in Medicine Hat. It was a cold winter night and I figured that I may as well pop out and see what the Twitter crowd was up to. The tea-house that hosted the event was beautiful and the environment was welcoming for the 17 or so of us who showed up. The people in attendance whether with the Alberta Party or there to learn about the party all appeared to be earnest and seeking ways to improve the province.

 The “big listen” was an interesting excercise to say the least. We began with introductions and continued to circle the room with guests speaking about how they feel about things in what felt like some support group manner. We were asked to expand on what we felt grateful for and what we were optimistic about. It certainly was warm and fuzzy but there really were no conclusive policy discussions within the first hour. That is reflected in what the Alberta Party has hammered together for vague policies so far.  

 The views of the room became more evident in the later part of the meeting when people could speak more specifically to their concerns. One fellow was there because he felt that government was not spending enough for his pet project of a local library. Another person there was a representative of the teachers union who expressed that the government was not spending enough on education. There was a man in attendance who felt that government was not spending enough to preserve and set aside prairie land for protection of species and there was a couple from the “friends of medicare” who went on at length about how government has been starving healthcare.

  The gal from “friends of medicare” then launched into a tirade about how government has a revenue problem and we must further tax the rich and that energy companies are robbing Alberta blind. It was disconcerting seeing the heads nodding around the room during this rant worthy of Vladimir Lenin as people envisioned increased funding for their personal projects taken from some apparent faceless “rich people” and corporations. The simplistic Robin Hood call of taxing the evil rich unfortunately is an effective one for many people. It is unfortunate that is destroys economies when followed as we are seeing in Europe.

 All of the concerns expressed by the people in that room that night are valid ones and important ones. These were the concerns expressed with less than 20 Albertans when an open meeting is called. Imagine how many individual pet projects come up when a large townhall meeting is held. The Alberta Party meeting was a microcosm of a large townhall meeting. People with predetermined special interests show up and lobby MLAs furiously with funding demands for their projects. Due to this, we can see why the tired Progressive Conservative MLAs succumb to the temptation to simply promise money to all rather than take on the difficult task of governing with a sense of fiscal responsibility. This is reflected in our series of deficit budgets.

 Lets get some facts out there now.

Health spending in Alberta was $1,950 per-capita in 2001. This year it will be an estimated $6,266 per-capita. We have tripled per-capita healthcare spending in Alberta in less than ten years and we are spending the most in the entire nation. I must call B.S. on those claiming that we are underfunding healthcare in Alberta.

How about education? Well Alberta tops the nation in spending per-capita on education too.

http://policyschool.ucalgary.ca/files/publicpolicy/albsp2.pdf 

 The trend is consistent in virtually all departments of spending. Alberta is consistently near the top or at the top of spending when compared to every other province in Canada. How the hell can people keep claiming that we do not spend enough?
 
 Alberta spends the least (for now) in debt servicing per-capita. For those who truly care about program spending, how can you lobby for further deficit budgets that will lead us to wasting money on interest charges and debt servicing instead of spending on core programs? I can think of few worse ways to spend tax dollars.
 For those who feel we need to tax those nasty corporations by the way, I suggest that you do some research into who actually owns those corporations and where the profits go (here is a hint, it is your pension plan). RRSPs and pension plans by far make up the majority of corporate ownership in Canada so when you folks want to knock those big nasty businesses keep in mind that you are shooting directly at your own feet. Those corporations employ millions as well and when they get knocked with taxes they tend to lay folks off.
 Support for deficit/debt budgets comes only from people with a deep abiding special interest or people simply participating in intellectual/political sloth. Alberta brings in more than enough revenue from taxpayers. We need to work on the proper management of the funding that we already have.
There really is no excuse to expand spending beyond inflation and population growth. It is too bad that our government is too weak to acknowledge that and we will see that this afternoon when we are presented with the Ted Morton / Ed Stelmach deficit budget.

Authors of our 2011/2012 deficit budget.

Of course there is room for cuts.

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 I wonder what the Stelmach deficit will really total by the end of the fiscal year? At the rate that it is escalating, it is looking likely that we will be $10 billion in the red by the time the year is finished. Iris and Ed’s fiscal predictions have proven to be utterly worthless and off the mark by as much as $15 billion in a one year period. It is frightening to think of what these clowns will do to our province with a few more years to mismanage us.

 The voices of the status-quo apologists are dwindling as most people with any degree of fiscal common sense have migrated to the Wildrose Alliance Party. These people have learned that to try and repair the tired old Progressive Conservative machine is a lost cause.

 Still, there are a dogged few who try to make excuses for the freespending ways of the Stelmach government. It is sad to see them smugly state to critics “Well, where would you cut?” as if that is some sort of knockout blow dealt to critical comment. A better question is; where to begin?

 Virtually every department has had massive increases in expenditures despite Albertans seeing little indication of benefits from this spending. The reason to put it simply is that the spending has been directionless and money is being outright pissed away. Bureaucrats are raking in millions in bonuses from Ed Stelmach while displaying gross incompetence in the spending of hard-earned Albertan tax dollars. What incentive is there for these parasites to improve performance? Firing is one of the best things these people can think of happening to them considering the multi-million dollar golden handshakes that Ed likes to give to senior civil servants.

 Special Ed and others have trumpeted that we are in the midst of an infrastructure deficit. This is a sidelong (and rather sad) way to try and blame our fiscal shortcomings on the previous administration.

 Lets assume that this infrastructure is indeed critical. Does that mean that we can’t cut the spending on it? NO!

 A regular reader of this blog (an rare breed indeed) passed on a couple stories to me that really help demonstrate the efficiency being displayed in the construction of Alberta infrastructure. The contrast is striking and I don’t doubt that hundreds of other projects can be compared similarly.

 Wal-Mart announced a few months ago that they will be constructing a giant store in Calgary’s Southeast. The store will be 185,000 square feet and will be the largest of it’s kind in Calgary. The projected cost of this project is about $11 million dollars.

 Now recently, the province of Alberta and the city of Calgary proudly cut the ribbon on the opening of a new police station in the Ramsey district. The station is 36,000 square feet and cost $19 million to build.

 Now I do understand that there are different needs between these types of facilities but come on, look at that spread in costs. I don’t doubt that Wal-Mart will be installing top of the line security that will rival the police station along with administrative space. I am sure that there are many things that the retail facility will need that the police station would not.

 I see that Canadian Tire is building a store along with a Work Warehouse and other shops in Canmore Alberta. That project is projected to come in at around $11 million dollars. This is in one of the most expensive property areas with the most expensive labor in the province.

 There is plenty of room for cost-efficiency folks and we need not eschew much infrastructure in order to save money. The first step would be to investigate and find out why government funded projects cost twice or more  as much to construct as comparable ones in the private sector. Such an investigation would mean that senior civil servants, unions and contractors with a government relationship and sense of entitlement would likely get their backs up. Alas, our current government will never have the courage to take this on.

 We have all sorts of room for spending cuts people. What other departments are wasting money? Who else is bleeding the taxpayer?  We need people in the legislature with the knackers to ask these questions and demand answers.

 ht to Max for the heads up.

Gee, go figure. Iris is surprised.

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 I am doing rather well in my predictions. I have to admit, one does not need to be a modern-day Nostradamus to have predicted that our gang of clowns governing the province would be in shock and running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to understand how they have spent us into a record and growing deficit. Ignoring advice from many quarters, the Progressive Conservative government has continued with unrestrained, untargeted and unsustainable spending after having castrated the main industry in the province with an ill-conceived and greed driven royalty gouge. The “rainy day” savings will quickly run dry and we can look forward to putting our grandchildren in debt soon.

 The cartoon in the Calgary Herald lays it out very well.

 The PC government has realized that they were rather dependent on the revenues from the industry that they so recently demonized and drove from the province. Revenues are now down on all fronts. From field and office workers who used to pay income taxes, to land-sale revenues, to corporate tax revenue, to municipal road use revenues and of course royalty revenues the government has seen a massive drop in them all since attacking the energy industry. Sure things were going to slow down in this recession anyway. It never needed to be this bad however.The energy industry came to a screeching halt in Alberta almost a year before the world economy dropped.  This is directly due to the actions of Stelmach.

 Special Ed made a short appearance the other day and muttered some incomprehensible excuses to try and soften the blow for the coming budget update. Ed has now sunken down and will likely remain well hidden until the Calgary by-election is finished. The PCs have at least realized that whenever their leader speaks, they drop another couple points in the polls.

 Despite all of these hard lessons for Albertans, the PC government still appears to have not learned a thing. Iris Evens looks dejected and clearly realizes that she has blown it. Still, there was no uttering of terms such as spending restraint or trying to encourage business to come back to Alberta. From all appearances the PC government looks like they intend to continue with massive spending and praying for a miracle.

 I will make another prediction. Iris Evans is praying that natural gas will suddenly jump in price. Sorry Iris, hoping for it to happen will not make it happen. In the next quarter we will see yet another jump in the deficit. The world is in a slowdown and there is a glut of natural gas (not to mention energy companies don’t want to come back to Alberta right now).

 In a dark-humour sort of way, I am tempted to start a pool for how long it will take and how many budget updates we will see before the sustainability fund is completely gone. It should not be too long.

 The belt-tightening Albertan’s did through the 90s was a good thing. We eliminated our debt and saw a sustained boom afterwards. Ed Stelmach has managed to eliminate all of those benefits in a few short years in power. I shudder to think what he may do with three more years in power.

Hapless Ed is sure to express surprise again.

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 Should Premier Eddie finally make an appearance to address the gross increase in our provincial deficit, I wonder which adjective he will use to describe this? I think in most Stelmach releases he has used all of these words so he must be familiar with them: unexpected, unanticipated, unpredicted, unforeseen, unheralded or perhaps he should simply go to unreal.

 The Herald is reporting on the frightening consequence of horrific fiscal management here.

 It is little wonder that Tom Olsen responds with blasts of obscenities when reporters dare ask direct questions of Stelmach. Being Stelmach’s handler must be one of the most challenging jobs on the planet. How much can you expose the man to the public when all he can do is express astonishment that yet another of his initiatives or predictions have blown up in his face? It must be disheartening in knowing that the best possible strategy to be taken in a by-election is to hide your leader as deeply as you can.

 Will Special Ed shed his cloak of invisibility and address the looming quarterly fiscal update? What marble-mouthed excuses will be used to try and justify the latest example of the Stelmach government’s gross fiscal mismanagement?

 Hmm let’s see, in one year Eddie has taken an $8 billion dollar surplus and turned it into what is looking like an $8 billion deficit. There are still three more quarters in this fiscal year for Ed to drive our grandchildren further into debt and a sadly don’t doubt he will. I wish I could express such surprise as Ed now and then.

 How much longer can we tolerate a premier that has not made a successful move since assuming power? What sort of confidence can we have in our provincial leadership when the leader can do nothing but express shock that his management has been a disaster?

 What is shocking about our situation? Ed massively increased spending and drove our primary industry from the province. A person with a Grade 3 education can figure out the math on that one and see that poverty is sure to follow. Perhaps the reason that Eddie has been in hiding lately is that he is taking some sort of remedial classes somewhere (I sure hope so).

 Well, I have said it before and I will say it again; SEND ED A MESSAGE!!

 Calgary Glenmore has the opportunity and expect that they will indeed send a message. The rest of the province should get to work to make that message final.