Klein Plays Hardball? With who?

Honorable Ralph Klein, May 26, 2006
Room 307
Legislative Building,
Edmonton, AB T4K 2C6

Dear Premier:

What is this crap you are peddling about the country going to attack Alberta over oil revenues? You have played this scare tactic every year since the NEP went out of business! The electorate has said they don’t want you! Move on!

As usual you allude to “someone said somewhere” scenario and perceived threats from resource revenue hungry premiers. Such trash!

Albertans should look at this possibility as being a fix for the miss management of resource and extremely low resource money you have put in place. If you won’t fix the revenue base perhaps we can count on Ottawa to pull revenue and redistribute it for us.

For instance oil company tax write offs such as “deduction for future unidentified losses” which pretty much assures the exploration companies don’t pay income tax could be done away with. In fact I can think of a tax on “roll back of deduction for non specific losses not proven or documented” That by its self should put a fair amount of coin into the tax bases where it belongs. Doing this may alleviate the some of the mistreatment of seniors in this province that your policies encourage rather than curtail.

What is bad for the oil companies is not necessarily bad for Albertans. Taking money from Oil Companies is not taking resource revenue from the Province!

What is bad for Albertans is the wholesale give away of our resource at the lowest possible dollar value. What is bad for Albertans is the wholesale rape and destruction of our drinking water by oil companies and power companies with no talk of compensation; no responsibilities for reclamation. With the evidence of cement failing in older wells, where is a responsible provincial government in looking after the interests of the citizens? Masking water problems by legislating cisterns and a designated safe water well to haul water from, in place of conventional wells is so typical of the carpet you use to sweep your garbage under.

Not here, not now and not with you and your Government.

No Ralph, no swan song for you, and I suspect no swan song for your Government. Albertans will just have to hold their noses and let you pass.

Enough of the sky is falling politics please!

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca