NDP policies appear to be having positive economic effects

By Letter to the Editor on September 22, 2017.

The decline in Alberta’s GDP began at the start of 2015, five months before the NDP assumed power. This decline is likely due to a combination of the drop in the price of oil and the policies of the previous government, not the NDP.

Even though oil prices have stagnated during the two years of NDP tenure, it appears as though their policies have had positive economic effects, or at the least have not had negative ones.

From the Calgary Herald on July 28, “Factory sales in Alberta have climbed 18 per cent in May from a year earlier. Retail sales are up 9 per cent as unemployment fell to 7.4 per cent in June from a peak of 9 per cent in November, and as government deficit spending gives household budgets a boost, Statistics Canada reported.” All of this is happening in spite of low oil prices and the carbon tax.

United Conservative Party MLA Drew Barnes makes this proposal, “I would ask our region to be established as a unique economic zone and all tax points and revenue to be kept here and growth to be facilitated equal to Edmonton, Lethbridge and other parts of Alberta.” He is pleading for government assistance. Will this not require considerable regulation and bureaucracy, contradicting his assertion that “Government cabinet ministers must be leaders in demanding bureaucracy streamline regulations to become competitive, efficient and effective?”

Fred Lewis

Medicine Hat

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