I must confess Mr. Gull’s letter in the Wednesday paper (St. Albert Gazette, Your Views, Oct. 31) really gave me a fright. Not because it was on Halloween, but because folks like Mr. Gull continue to fall for scary rumours about Alberta’s finances that are more “trick” than treat.
The “massive debt” the NDP has run up in a few short years? It’s roughly seven per cent of our GDP, the lowest in Canada, and well below the 11-12 per cent that conservative darling Saskatchewan has been lugging around. Even worst-case scenario projections have our debt load only hitting the mid-teens sometime next decade, which is highly doubtful considering the budget is balancing much faster than expected.
And yes, I do realize how rich the province would be without equalization payments – about as rich as it is now, actually, because equalization is funded by federal taxes on every Canadian, and not by payments from the provinces. Believe it or not, but there’s no big novelty cheque mailed from Edmonton to Ottawa every six months, nor is “equalization transfer payment to Quebec” a line item anywhere in Alberta’s budget books. Your individual financial contribution to equalization is essentially equal to that of anyone in the same federal tax bracket as you, be they in B.C., Quebec or Newfoundland.
But the real shock comes from Mr. Gull’s claim that this “mess” was started by the NDP! When you’ve cultivated a revenue dependence on one natural resource for 40-odd years, only to have the price floor drop out from under you, it takes a little time, money and ingenuity to build a ladder and climb out of the cellar.
Jason Kenney’s plan is to sell the ladder to buy a tax break for the ultra-rich, and then keep digging deeper into oil revenue dependence. That’s simply not going to work.
And Mr. Gull, for the tummy ache, I suggest you stop fretting so much about the spectre of socialism … and lay off the Halloween candy.
Andrew Traynor, St. Albert
