Alberta Fianace - Heading for disaster big time!

The  Conservatives, through short sightedness and abject miss management has forced this province into a position of being at least, flat broke and at the outside near bankrupt.  

During the great, high flying times they had drawn more than 90 billion from the Heritage trust (Arms Length ? AIMCo)  Production remains flat meaning little new revenue while expenditures sky-rocket. Recent news broadcasts and releases tout more production but the fine print shows the increases are in foreign holdings.

Make work programs for the resource people costing 9 billion a year or more. Oil companies pulling a million profit or more for non producing wells while workers get 1 week in 3 employment.  Not enough for any trickle down luck to take place.   If these kids manage to get enough coin it goes for new rims for their favorite truck.

For those of you who think they will not face a heavy load of taxation after the next election; the Government is still short near a billion dollars for new power lines!   That coin will come as a new tax measure plus the coin for day to day operations and corporate subsidies.

Much of this loose gold goes to the executive professionals  who get full pay, most of whom are foreign educated because of the Conservatives  attack on the people of Alberta forcing kids into trade schools rather than leave a University choice. The Conservatives found early on it was cheaper to put their kids though trades schools and employ professions from foreign sources.

Reports of high school students still leaving school to get into the artificial, non existent Alberta boom I find very disquieting.

The Conservatives  reduced royalty to 5% Canadian before the crunch! This is not enough money to call it a break even deal!  Now, they have no place to move!

Facing an election in the near future and dwindling profits they are trying desperately at taxpayer expense to generate a picture, no matter how false or  how costly of a rollicking provincial economy and, it simply is not true. 

Probably, "Arms Length" public service pensions administered by AIMCo are being invested in CCS, P3 financing  and like programs so they don't show up as a debt. If they treat them like the Heritage fund they will be paid 4% for their "investment"  This would be one reason why this Government is pushing so hard on a CCS program rift with misdirection and lies.  They have already invested so the WRP grab for attention of saying  "stopping CCS" would bring a whole new set of problems.

 A Pension Fund was invested in Alberta Conservative projects would show on the pension side of the books as an investment  and it would not show as part of the debt on the Government side.  If it is treated like the Heritage fund there is no intention of repaying but will hold appreciation very low to push profits onto the projects.

You can see why this Government fought so hard against a Federal Securities commission!  If you or I tried anything like this we would be in court!

 
Strapped for cash they tried Bond funds which didn't fly; industry doesn't trust them; knows better. But it is possible AIMCo bought up a bunch of the bonds and tacked them into their portfolios. 

Arms Length with this Government means they can direct the funds which ever way they want, investing in whatever doubtful project they want and the "arms length"  comes into effect barring the public from a look at the accounts and investment strategy.

Get rid of these suckers while you still can! And, the WRP is on side with all this stuff so you won't find an improvement there.  If anything it will be much worse.

Alberta Budget plunges us deep into the red.

The Alberta Budget has brought more to light than just fun the Conservatives are having with your dollar!

Earlier this year, the oil royalty was dropped to 5% Canadian dollar which leaves this Government in a deficit position, not enough money to operate on.

This is simply an in house crisis they manufactured by which they can win on two levels.
Firstly, force the envelope of the Conservative agenda forward and secondly and most important put them in a position to promise us yet again they will increase the oil royalty which, just isn't going to happen.

This little trick to get them elected again is costing the Alberta Treasury several billions of dollars to date and probably another 10 billion dollars by the time they call an election and run out their new promises.

The last election they rolled out a “new royalty regime” complete with pie in the sky, meaningless numbers that Albertans seemed to have ate up still in the mindset this Government would not do them any harm.

 In truth, the new regime did nothing more than further reduce our take on royalty (by 18% at the time) when they switched the funds taken to Canadian Dollars away from the American world standard.

Albertans have to get their head around the lies and misdirection put out by this Government in the past and realize that literally any of the opposition parties running would look after the industry in this province just fine. 

My own choice would be the Liberals as they have been mapping the finances for years and know how to put in the fixes and will protect our programs.

The Wild Rose Party still see their role as being the same flavor of Conservatives you have in there now but even harder, more brutal they have no plans other than forcing the Conservative envelope forward, doing away with all the “Evil Social programs”. 

They too have targeted the Health Care as being subject to a ways and means test before the Alberta Government pays anything.  Alberta has a security net they will use that says if you make more than 24,000 a year you will get no health care assistance from the province. This will be the equivalent of the American Medicaid.

In the Conservative philosophy, Government has no business in Health Care at any level; funding foremost.

From the Budget Coverage:

Wildrose Alliance Leader Danielle Smith, who doesn’t have a seat in the legislature, said the government is full of spending addicts.

“They’re practically vaporizing our savings accounts,” she said. “You can’t just keep on hoping that revenue increases are going to bail you out of this problem.”

She said that once the dwindling Sustainability Fund is gone, the government will be forced to implement deep spending cuts or tax increases.

Raising the royalty to that of BC or Saskatchewan which is 17% US$ is just like the present Government; it’s not going to happen!

NDP Leader Brian Mason said the government doesn’t have a spending problem, it has a revenue problem.

“I think they’ve given tremendous gifts to their friends in the oil and gas industry, letting them take most of the value of the resources that belong to the people of this province,” he said. “They have continued to charge the lowest royalties in the world.

“Here again we have this government giving massive billion-dollar gifts to its corporate friends and nickel and diming ordinary people. The priorities are wrong.

He is right on the money; a very accurate statement.

Liberal Leader Dr. David Swann said the government has failed to make the difficult decisions that were necessary.

“This looks like a pre-election budget to me,” he said. “They’ve made no tough decisions.

“This Conservative government continues to act as if its playing with an endless supply of Monopoly money. This is not a game.”

Perhaps he is out of the game but; his comments are totally off the mark probably did not want to offend the oil companies.

Alberta Party MLA Dave Taylor said the province should be focused on creating an aggressive, long-term saving strategy.

“We need to get in the saving habit ... and we are most assuredly not there right now,” he said.

This statement is the biggest nothing say of the day!  Mindless under the circumstance but careful not to shake the Conservative vote.

The $15.8 billion Heritage Savings Trust Fund — which is separate from the Sustainability Fund — is expected to earn $970 million in interest this fiscal year. The province plans to transfer $631 million of that interest to the general revenue fund, where it will be used to pay for programs and services. The remaining $339 million will be left in the fund for “inflation-proofing.”

This trust fund was not to have been touched but left to grow and compound its interests to the benefit of Albertans.  This Government has pulled more than 70 billions of dollars from the Trust Fund, used it in General operating.   Any surplus that showed up at the end of the year because of this influx of taxpayer cash was called “Windfall” and attributed to the Resource companies.

If Albertans would get out and vote rather than sit on their arse thinking they are outnumbered, it would remove Conservatives from the political map!   22% of  registered voters put them into office with a huge majority.  

Your vote would have done so much to eliminate the cuts.

And finally; get over Trudeau and the NEP.  It was agreed on by Alberta as a means to increase Canadian Ownership and, it worked!  The Conservatives managed to turn the whole economic downturn of the day into the fault of the NEP which was an outright lie!

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