MLA Report: NDP mismanagement coming home to roost
By Medicine Hat News Opinon on September 21, 2018.
Counting your chickens before they hatch.
You don’t have to be a farmer to know this isn’t a good idea. Yet, this is business as usual for government and it comes with predictably brutal results.
According to the government’s most recent fiscal update, Alberta is on track for a $7.8 billion deficit in 2018-19. Currently, the Notley administration’s fiscal plan calls for deficits to continue until 2024, racking up $96 billion in debt before balance is restored.
In order to balance the budget, the NDP is counting on revenue from not only the stalled Trans Mountain pipeline, but also the proposed Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL projects. After years of dithering, the chances of all three being constructed in that timeframe are effectively zero.
The NDP’s plan to balance the books also depends of continued growth in Alberta’s international exports. These exports, to a large degree, are reliant on Canada’s increasingly rocky trading relationship with the United States.
When it comes to pipelines, and renewing NAFTA, this government has no Plan B. Counting these chickens before they hatch is official government policy.
This is something to keep in mind as Alberta enters another election cycle. Special interests are already lining up at the government’s door demanding new funding and increases for all manner of purposes. in the polls and scrambling, the current administration is facing more pressure than ever before to open the taps.
For those who depend entirely on the proceeds of the public purse, enough will never be enough. Now more than ever, government needs to show some backbone.
Over the past decade, Alberta has squandered an oil boom, blown through a substantial contingency fund, racked up billions in debt, and leveraged pipelines that may never exist.
Does the current administration have the guts to draw the line on spending?
Don’t count your chickens.
Drew Barnes is the MLA (UCP) for the Cypress-Medicine Hat constituency.
“Over the past decade, Alberta has squandered an oil boom, blown through a substantial contingency fund, racked up billions in debt, and leveraged pipelines that may never exist.”
Does Drew not realize he is talking about his own party here, not the NDP?
Drew has learned well the ways of misinformation. One would think he is a neo-Con, cut from the same cloth as Harper, Premier Ford, and that collection of venality down south, known as the Republican Party.