Advice for Kenney: Hike price of gas

By Letter to the Editor on April 26, 2019.

Here’s some free advice for Jason Kenney, and it’s worth every penny.

Smack down that big, bad Alberta deficit fast. Tie the price of gasoline to British Columbia’s. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, call it a tax or a fee. Albertans hate those.

Today I saw a filling station in metro Vancouver selling regular unleaded for $1.78.9 per litre. In Medicine Hat today it’s $1.24.9. So that’s a difference of 54 cents per litre.

Kenney’s UCP government simply ups Alberta’s gasoline price by 54 cents per litre and puts that pirate’s gold 100 per cent to the provincial deficit. Put an iron-clad sunset law in place so when the deficit’s toast, so is the extra charge. Sell the idea by appealing to provincial patriotism.

Give farmers and ranchers a break and don’t charge it on purple (farm) gas or agricultural diesel fuel.

In B.C. people are still driving. Shops are full of shoppers. Big trucks and recreational vehicles still roar up and down the twisty roads. So, Mr. Kenney, ignore the naysayers. You have it made in the shade with a majority government for at least four years. You can wrap yourself in the Alberta flag and with impunity be tough. By the time the next provincial election happens, Albertans will be praising you and the UCP for whacking that deficit and forget how you achieved it.

By election time in 2023, Mr. Kenney, you will be “King Jason” and make Albertans dismiss “King Ralph” as an amateur four flusher when it comes to killing the Alberta provincial deficit. The king is dead, all hail the king!

Ray Marco

Dunmore, Alta.

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