I recently had an opportunity to participate in a discussion in St. Albert about Alberta government finances. The evening was informative and I want to thank the organizers for the opportunity to participate. As our government financial challenges were presented it became abundantly clear that Albertans have some difficult decisions to make to address the budget shortfall stemming from declining oil prices.
However, some of the suggestions brought forward at the meeting appear to me to be simplistic at best and not helpful in addressing our long-term challenges. A group of our fine business leaders suggested that we should go back to the good old Ralph Klein approach of cutting expenditures! After all that is what they as business people do when times are tough!! Well guess what, government is not like any other business. During times of recession businesses do cut back, but primarily because their clients stop buying! When people are unemployed they no longer buy houses, or go on exotic vacations or go out to eat as often as they used to. So the businesses that provide such consumer goods and services do indeed out of necessity cut back. However, during bad times government clients generally do not go away – In fact, quite the opposite.
Children still need to go to school, youngsters with measles still need to obtain medical treatment, cows still need to be inspected for BSE and some newly unemployed Albertans will no doubt need help meeting daily expenses. It seems to me that whole scale cutbacks by government during slow times is just poor public policy! The consensus of the evening seemed to me to be that Alberta needs to develop long-term stable funding independent of oil revenues. However, one elected official who was present noted that a sales tax is likely off the table. After all he noted, when the Conservative federal government under Brian Mulroney brought in the GST it lost the next election by a landslide!
The GST may not have been the only reason the Mulroney Conservatives lost the election, but no doubt it was a contributing factor. The question is, was it the right thing to do? Since the GST was brought in we have had a number of subsequent federal elections. In several cases this led to either a Liberal or a Conservative party majority government. Yet none of these governments have abolished the GST. Why? Could it be that a sales tax represents good public policy?
Now is the time for politicians to put aside their short-term focus on hanging on to power and do the right thing to affect positive structural change in Alberta’s finances. Nothing should be off the table at this point including the introduction of a sales tax.
Don’t get me wrong. I personally don’t want to pay a provincial sales tax any more than the next guy. However, if that is the only viable alternative to a slash and burn provincial budget then I say, “bring it on.”
Bill Spaans, Sturgeon County
