Sorry - that should be possibly valid
Sure, and I don’t disagree that Klein has been generally competant with his fiscal policies. But they’re not the magic bullet you sometimes seem to be suggesting they are. Look at Ontario, for example, where Harris was doing a lot of the same stuff and it turns out sinking the province into debt. A large part of why Klein’s tax-cutting worked is that energy revenues were on the rise while he was doing it. It was (and is) a very effective set of policies in that particular time and place, but not a panacea. In Saskatchewan, for example, it would have been insane. Now it might be possible to do that here, if (and only if) oil prices stay over $50, because now the increased energy revenues give our government a bit of breathing space. But Romanow would never have balanced the budget using Klein’s policies.
Sam Stone, my complaint about Alberta’s Freidmannesque economics stands. There are a number of important aspects missing from your rosy picture of Alberta’s economy.
From a 2003 Globe & Mail article:
According to the Edmonton Social Planning Council (working from Statistics Canada Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics), 31.3% of Alberta children in families where at least one parent is working full time are living in poverty, compared to a national statistic of 26.9%.
Here’s a tidbit from a Maclean’s article about Klein harsh cuts to welfare in 1990s:
That fits with anecdotal evidence from most of my friends out west – everyone knows a poor Albertan. Driving out the poor and turning them into someone else’s problem is hardly sound fiscal policy.
As for the employment level, it does nothing to measure the quality of employment. Most of the jobs that have been created in the last ten years across the country are low-income, soul-destroying, low-end service positions. It would be interesting to find out what percentage of new Alberta jobs are part-time, low-end service industry.
Lastly, there’s no indication that these policies have worked so well in any other province. Mike Harris, applying the same policies even more harshly, made a disaster of Ontario.
And thanks Gorsnak and matt_mcl. I do apply the label of theocracy to any government threatening to use the notwithstanding clause to refuse equality to people like me on the basis of someone else’s religious beliefs. And I don’t buy that Klein wouldn’t do it, either – what’s he got to lose? Would albertans elect a Liberal government or NDP government in his place if he did.
Well, being poor isn’t just an Alberta thing. Do you think it is the job of welfare to make people comfortable enough to not bother looking for work? If so that is the difference in our philosophy. If it is the duty of the government to support people in need, it is also the duty of the people receiving that support to limit the time they require it as much as possible. Keeping the rates low gives them incentive to do so if there aren’t inclined to naturally.
Given the housing boom and the oil sands development, a lot of those jobs are probably better than McJobs.
Unemployment rates Canada
This is one of those differences between provinces. Albertans understand that government should be involved to a minimal degree in their lives only providing essential services. Government is a necessary evil, not something to run to everytime things get a little rough. Given the unemployment level here it is a wonder that people living on government subsidies don’t get a lot of sympathy. If a person is willing to relocate to another jurisdiction to get better welfare payments they are probably able to get down the street to work. So why not give them a bus ticket if they want it?
Follow the link to the next page for some historical context.
Debt retired
Some anecdotal evidence, not to say everyone is the same, but for you to understand my position. My cousin is mildly mentally handicapped yet she goes to work everyday at Wendy’s and managed to help our grandmother in her last years every day while raising a daughter conceived during a rape. Doesn’t receive a dime in welfare payments nor has had her soul destroyed working at Wendy’s.
I worked at $6.40 an hour in the 80’s. I managed to have my own apartment and buy a car. I never felt hard done by because of it. It did motivate me to finish my education and go from near the bottom of the wage scales to near the top today. If I had to work for that wage today, I’d get a room-mate or two, and still figure out a way to go to school and improve myself.
And who’s to say the average isn’t pulled down because we managed to remove the marginal cases from the roles of the poor? In other words, you have two types of poor people - those who are fundamentally productive people but who are poor because they can’t find jobs, or because they are stuck in low income jobs, or because they choose to stay on welfare instead of work. Then you have the truly destitute, those who have mental issues, live outside of society, or have other problems. Street people, etc.
Now, if you manage to improve the lives of the marginal cases through job creation, disincentives to stay on welfare in the province, or a general rising standard of living, two things will happen: one is that you will reduce the total number of people in poverty, and the other is that the median average income of those in poverty will go down. So the assumption that the statistic you mentioned is a bad thing is not at all warranted.
So you’re going off of anecdotal evidence? As compared to the two Albertans in this thread who disagree with you?
Yes, there was some flight of hard-core welfare cases to BC when we reduced welfare. That’s not our problem. We’re not beholden to match other provinces’ insane largesse. I remember at one time a welfare recipient in Ontario with two children was making the equivalent of a single mom who was making something like $35,000 when you factored in all the benefits like free child care, free health care and dental, rent subsidies, and other available programs. THAT is nuts.
And do you have any evidence that the jobs we’ve created fit the category of ‘McJobs’? Or is that just a general complaint you get to throw out to dismiss the fact that we have perhaps the lowest unemployment rate in North America?
From The Government of Canada:
Perhaps they didn’t just see it through? Forget the tax cuts - what Alberta did was enact some pretty severe spending cuts. We actually rolled back salaries in the public sector - something unheard of at the time. My wife took several pay cuts as a nurse. The left was marching in the streets against the government, but Klein never backed down. At the time, we weren’t even getting that much from oil revenue, which is why we had to cut so much. But we stayed the course, Klein didn’t back down and raise spending, and we balanced our budget. This was before oil prices went up, when our revenue was really no better than it was in the 70’s and 80’s when we spent too much and ran up big deficits.
And since we’ve paid off the debt, instead of just blowing all the revenue we freed up we’ve been putting it in a trust fund so that when the oil revenue dries up we’ll still have some savings.
So let me get this straight: You’re criticizing our government for something that we haven’t done, but that you’re pretty sure we would do, and on that basis you’ve decided that Alberta is a theocracy?
It’s a pretty strange theocracy. I live in a pretty nice area, and within 20 blocks of here are half a dozen liquor stores, a few adult video stores, and if you go a little further two casinos. Our government makes more money from gambling revenue than from income tax. Oh, and a couple of years ago I was the photographer for the wedding of two lesbian friends.
I have never, ever, felt like anyone’s religious beliefs were controlling my life in Alberta, or even affecting it in any way. The biggest intrusion I see is the existence of a Catholic school system, but that’s common across Canada. Our Prime Minister is a guy who is known to enjoy adult beverages and parties.
As for that McLeans article you linked, its bias is obvious. They say things like, “Today, Canada’s richest province boasts some of the lowest social assistance rates in the country.” It doesn’t even occur to them that perhaps one of the reasons we’re so rich is because we expect welfare to be a last resort, that people who can work should, and that welfare should be painful enough that people choose it only as a last resort.
I understand that Alberta doesn’t fit your notion of what good government is. We’re not socialists. We expect people to work. We send our kids to work more than any other province. We don’t have government programs to solve every perceived ill put forward by a special interest group. But the fact is, our economic performance dwarfs the rest of Canada’s. People are moving to the province in droves. It’s pretty hard to argue with success.
What about Ontario is “disastrous” as compared to 1995, precisely? You’ve said this before, I’ve asked you to explain it before, and you’ve always refused to. The province is in better economic shape than any other, save maybe Alberta. I don’t see our cities burning or mass starvation. Unemployment is down; disposable income is up.
I wonder how much better Alberta and Ontario would be doing if they didn’t have to give billions upon billions of dollars in equalization payments to the other eight provinces. Just in the last ten years. Ontario has paid more than $25 billion straight into Quebec’s coffers - plus at least as much into the coffers of the other provinces. That’s free money, for which Ontario receives absolutely nothing.
One wonders how much better we could do fighting poverty in Ontario if it wasn’t for the fact we give so much free money to the other provinces. Over the course of the Harris/Eves administration, Ontarians lost at least $45 billion that was simply given to the eight “poor” provinces in equalization payments. Another seven or eight billion has been shipped your way since Dalton McGuinty took over. If we could have that money back, we could hire 10,000 new teachers at solid wages, attract 5,000 new family doctors into the province and pay them good wages, pump a billion dollars a year into public transit and infrastructure, increase health spending by about three to four percent AND have money left over to fight the deficit.
So don’t knock Ontario’s economic approach, because YOUR province relies on us. Or look at it this way; you know Quebec’s fancy and much-praised provincial $5-a-day day care system? Ontario’s paying for it. If you don’t like the way we run things here, we would be happy to have our money back.
I’m also amazed at the demonization of the Conservatives that seems to go on down east. Being in Alberta, I’m somewhat disconnected from that, so it surprises me. Those of you down east - are conservatives really portrayed this way? To hear Hamish tell it, Alberta is some backwards corporatist hellhole where the poor starve - “everyone knows a poor Albertan”. She also seems to think we’re living in a theocracy out here.
What do easterners really think of us out here? Are we a bunch of redneck hicks with straw in our teeth and dogs on the porch? Or renegade evil capitalists who screw the poor while we drive our Cadillac Escalades to work? Or what?
What in hell is so scary about Conservatives that would make you guys choose crooks over them? What exactly do you think will happen under a Conservative government?
To be honest, I have never encountered this in real life. Hamish is prone to flights of rhetorical extremism; everything s/he (I’m sorry, I thought Hamish was a guy, so now I’m confused) is always a “catastrophe” or a “disaster.” You would think Ontario and Alberta were post-apocalyptic wastelands overseen by mutant overlords. I half expect Mad Max to drive by any minute. S/he just tends to blow things up with somewhat extreme adjectives, that’s all.
No, Easterners don’t think Alberta’s a hellhole, at least none I have ever met. (Winnipeg, now…) Anyone who’s ever been there agrees it’s a great place. Calgary and Edmonton are two of my favourite cities to visit on business. Lovely towns.
True, much better to have criminals running the branches of government that make and enforce the law. Really, governments that blatantly use the mechanism of power to enrich themselves and deceive the public are a small and petty evil compared to people possessing opinions that differ from your own.
Small and petty evils are the best indeed.