There aren’t many issues which can unify left minded and right minded people but corporate welfare is one of them.
All three levels of government participate in corporate welfare and it is an economically destructive practice in all cases .
Businesses, particularly small ones in Alberta have been having a tough go of things for years now. Taxes and expenses rise while sales remain flaccid.
To add insult to injury for beleaguered small businesses, the governments who tax and regulate the crap out of them are taking their money and handing it out to other businesses.
We are literally bleeding our successful and hardworking entrepreneurs in order to give welfare to connected business people who apparently can’t manage to run a business without being subsidized. It is ridiculous and harms our whole business environment.
Governments get drawn into corporate welfare for a number of reasons. They toss money at unviable industries based on ideology at times, based on cronyism, in order to buy short term labor peace and in order to buy the electoral love of some regions. None of these reasons justify robbing the successful to pay off the undeserving.
We are entering a period of austerity. Government spending will be cut provincially soon. Federally and municipally the cuts are inevitable as overspending continues.
One of the easiest ways to cut government spending is to cut their corporate handouts but we will need to speak up and tell government to cut it out! If we remain silent, they will continue to rob us.
Ottawa pisses untold billions into Quebec companies such as Bombardier, Calgary taxes businesses right out of the city while handing $100 million to “Calgary Economic Development” so they may hand out grants to cronies and Alberta is continuing the welfare game with handouts such as the recent $10 million given to McRock Capital.
This has to stop!
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is sending an open letter to the Province of Alberta on behalf of businesses calling for an end to corporate welfare. We have thousands of businesses in Alberta working hard to pay taxes only to have those funds handed out to others. They need to speak up if they want to stop being milked like this.
Again though, unless we speak up the government simply won’t stop. Click on this link to sign the petition. Send the link to other business owners. Those dollars will do more for small businesses and Albertans at large when they are left in our own pockets.
We can’t afford to keep remaining silent on this.