Barnes’ numbers not credible

By Medicine Hat News Opinon on November 24, 2018.

The two most recent opinion pieces by local MLA Drew Barnes are little more than random collections of numbers meant to provide paving bricks for disgruntled constituents to toss at the present Alberta government. That is, of course, one of the tasks an opposition MLA is free to undertake.

But Mr. Barnes, who should know better, fails to tell us the sources of the numbers he so generously shares. He must simply assume anything he writes will be accepted as factual by readers. This reader, and I hope many others, will not ‘go quietly into Mr. Barnes’ dark numerical night’. We prefer to base decisions on credible sources. These do not include the work from Rebel Media or the Fraser Institute, two far right groups aiming to turn the world into a conservative Valhalla.

We all know about the economic challenges faced by the present government of Alberta. These are very difficult times. Mr. Barnes’ numbers are not needed to convince us that Alberta’s time as the only province without debt has come to an end.

A March CBC story out of Calgary suggests “Alberta is indeed racking up debt at a rapid rate,but we’ve run larger deficits in the past. Our net financial position continues to slide, but we remain the least indebted province in the country. And we’re still (too) heavily dependent on oil and gas royalties to have any hope of balancing the books … (but) our net debt represents only about 6.5per cent of our economy, compared with about 15 per cent in neighbouring B.C. and Saskatchewan and a staggering 45per cent in Quebec.”

(https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-budget-real-numbers-2018-data-1.4559769)

Now these are numbers that we can trust, unlike Mr. Barnes’ numbers. And it’s evident that Alberta’s continued reliance on oil and gas, which will continue for the foreseeable future, continues to be the black albatross around our necks.

Interestingly, the CBC story goes on to say, “One recent claim came from United Conservative Party finance critic Drew Barnes, who tweeted that Alberta would reach Quebec’s level of indebtedness, on a per-person basis, by the year 2023 and Ontario’s by 2024. Others who have done detailed analysis of Alberta’s growing debt have come up with numbers that are nowhere close.” Hmm. That’s embarrassing.

Is CBC Calgary calling our MLA, the apparent finance critic for the UCP, numerically challenged and out of touch with reality? Are these qualities that would befit a finance minister?

Rather than being the UCP’s financial ankle-biter, yapping from the sidelines at Ms. Notley, I wonder if it would be more useful for Mr. Barnes, since he imagines himself to be the next finance minister, to put forward some detailed alternatives that would turn our economy around. And don’t let him tell you that all we need to do is reduce spending and increase income and investment. That was Ralph Klein’s playbook. It was nasty, brutish, and unfair to most Albertans. We need some new solutions.

“In dollar terms, the province will take in about $10 billion less from oil and gas this year than it did at its peak, in 2005.” (CBC)

So tell us, Mr. Barnes, how will your party get the Trans Mountain pipeline flowing? How will your party convince that one judge in Montana to reopen the TransCanada pipeline? And how will your party balance the budget sooner than 2023, which is the goal of Premier Notley’s government? And how will your party meet the challenge of balancing Alberta’s need to sell its petroleum resources to the world with the need to address global warming? (And don’t tell us that the UCP doesn’t believe that global warming is an Alberta issue.)

So tell us, Mr. Barnes, what magic card do you have up your sleeve that Premier Notley doesn’t?

Peter Mueller is a long-time resident of Medicine Hat who, in spite of all the evidence, continues to believe we can build a better world.