Financial Post: Tragic story in Alberta government’s first fiscal update
The new government, convinced that its dominant oil sector wasn’t paying its fair share, was banking on higher oil and gas royalties.
Last Friday it put those plans on hold until 2017 after watching oil investment plummet by 30 per cent and unemployment grow to 5.7 per cent, including 35,000 jobs lost in the oil industry alone.
h/t peterj
Meanwhile, the heralding dullards and frauds that formerly resided at that huge brick edifice with the “For Sale or Lease” sign on it are doing everything they can to suppress the truth of the economic ruination that is coming our way.
Perhaps they aren’t suicide prone, day-am!
I’m not sure why the NDP are frowning, their utopia is coming into fruition. When they say breadline, we’re supposed to ask “how long?”
I was thinking, of offering a word of encouragement to my Alberta brethren – the way to view this unfortunate commie take over of Edmonton is to view it as a needed high colonic(enema) for the province.
I’m sure the NDP tenure will be 4 yrs (or less) during which they will implode the economy, shut down the oil patch and bring the over heated economy to a halt and reversal- and be widely blamed and hated for it (rightly so)
– Then, like locusts leaving a striped crop field, all the eastern hordes of red-backs that came to feed on Alberta oil prosperity will find a new home to parasitize (Sask?) and housing and the CoL will become reasonable again along with the political atmosphere as Alta is purged (political enema) of its big government era and the worthless drones that demand/feed on it.
Once the Dips and red-backs and such have fled the disaster they created all that will be left in the economic ashes are stoic Albertans who love their home province – then is the time to reform the conservative/libertarian voter base, get it a credible party vehicle, sweep into the legislature in a landslide and downsize government and keep it small – small government was the thing that built Alberta it is there Alberta will find its salvation. Redbacks cannot survive in a small government environment. You will have your province back – now stand guard over it and don’t let allow another invasion of parasitic hordes.
Almost 4 months into the new government and still no budget? C’mon.
Notley forgets that as premier she is the premiers of all Albertans. She is obligated to present a budget. One that will divulge the financial direction she proposes.
She is protecting her federal counterpart. This is not leadership.
I think they got that 35,000 lost jobs figure a little wrong, I think that is the number of field jobs – drilling rig jobs, well and facility service jobs – and does not include the urban office jobs lost, a number that probably exceeds 35,000.
Hopefully you are right about the socialist parasites getting thrown out after their term is over; and hopefully you are wrong about these parasites coming to Saskatchewan. We have had enough of them over the decades to last for decades.
Socialism thrives on destabilizing the economy and society, as this gives it more opportunity to develop their pyramid form of government.
I hope it’s only one term and an exflux of socialists.
This is counter to Alberta’s tradition of 40 year governments. Also Notley administering an influx of high paid socialist advisers that see Alberta as the problem.
Did HaveNotley already run out of OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY?
Tragic story? For whom? It’s fitting that the NDP have to deal with this, particularly when they have to go against principle to try & rectify the situation: for their own paychecks & pensions, including their biggest cheerleaders, the Public Sector unions. Believe me, it’s coming.
The indebted & jobless will return to where they came from, just like they did in 1981. A lot of F-350’s, 5th wheels & toys for sale these days. It was getting pretty crowded lately. A great weeding out.
What I find delicious is that Little Miss Revolutionaire with the Che Guevera wrist watch will have to go head to head with her like minded, oh so green, inter-provincial trade obstructionist premiers of BC, Ontario & Quebec on – pipelines. Her paycheck will demand it, or she won’t have two nickles to rub together to pay even herself & her CUPE commie hubby. On top of that, she will have to stab her supporters in the back to stay solvent. Blaming those progressive convertibles for her problems won’t pay the bills.
Yes, my taxes are going up, but I have no taxable income. The day corporate taxes went up 20% was the day I closed my company. I won’t have any taxable income for a few years yet & Ole Rach will be gone when I do.
PO’ed;
Do not take comfort in the idea that you have no taxable income. The last time the Dippers were in power in BC they levied a ‘capital tax’ of 1% on investable assets. That’s right they wanted 1% whether you made any money or not.
Our NDP ex-Premier Dave Barrett ran Federally years ago with a main plank of taking the government’s share of citizen RRSP’s now rather than later because the government needed the money NOW not LATER.
The energy crisis in Canada could actually have a long term benefit as Canadians might start to realize how important the industry actually is across the country. The CPC is doing a brutal job in conveying these facts. If they had thrown a few ‘bones’ to Ezra Levant’s TV outfit they would have had some response to the BS being pumped out by the CBC and CTV.
News today, Penn West lays off 400, 35% of workforce, mostly from Calgary office.
Let’s analyze this.
The Progressive C lost the election precisely because of the projected deficit. Not being favored party in these quarters, it is just a matter of lesser evil for them to have done better.
The conservative light could not bring themselves to vote for the Rose party.
Never fear though, the socialists/fascists are on the case and will blow billions and billions on their favored pet projects.
The question, while much irrelevant, remains how are the idiots that voted for the socialists/fascists going to handle that.
Of course the only solution is to cut the pay of everyone that works for this government.
To lay off people is not a solution, they only get on another scheme to collect free money that other people pay for.
There are more unemployed in the private enterprise section every day. The least the idiots in government can do, is to reduce the burden on the remainder.
To run deficit and hope that the next generation will to pay for it is gross mismanagement, complete abdication of responsibility, abandonment of common sense, although that last part is somewhat of oxymoron in relation to the socialist brain.
The genius that runs the finances is blaming the previous government. This is what socialists do. None of their fault, it is them other people.
One wonders why they want to be the government if they don’t have solutions for the state of affairs other than blow and throw money around and blame everyone else.
“There is no doubt that our big challenge is commodity prices that the government of Alberta does not control,” – Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci
It’s the inability to CONTROL that drives the commie leftist nuts!
You better believe their working on it, regardless of how futile. “Burn baby Burn”.
They have learned from the American dhimocrapts how to use a “no budget” to steal from the tax payers.
Leftists never seem to consider living within their means by cutting spending because they know they were elected by the ‘Free Shit Army’.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/video/video-oleary-alberta-needs-jobs-investment-ndp-is-creating-neither/article26166798/
posted this in readers tips, it’s bang on
Nothing but lies. They are on track for a $10 billion deficit. They reversed $2 billion of Prentice’s spending cuts and Prentice’s budget was based on $55 oil. They really want Angry Tom to win. Having a budget 7 or 8 months late is the height of incompetence.
“We can find a way out of this that doesn’t rely on draconian cutbacks to our public service,” he(Joe Ceci) said.”
And therein lies the problem. They’re confusing the word ‘draconian’ with ‘necessary’ because their world view estranges them from economic reality.
“So far, in keeping with campaign promises, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has relied on getting more money from the oil industry to keep the gap from getting even wider.”
The Prentice/Redford/Stelmach Progressives made the exact same mistake.
“Ceci said the budget will include investments in infrastructure and to diversify the economy so it can better withstand oil boom and bust cycles.”
Government cannot ‘diversify’ the economy while at the same time crippling the incentive for private investment.
Actually, the only way a government can help the economy is to cut regulation and taxes, a concept which is not available in the Progressive toolbox in the first place.
You can bet that Notley Crew is working on this question: How quickly can we create 35,000 useless government positions?
The dour-faced NDP inherited an essentially NDP-sized leviathan legacy from the happy-faced progressive Conservatives. Giving out loot from a broke candy store is impossible without taxing the unborn which is what she will likely do for a while. If she takes the lead from Ontario, there is no shortage of liquidity to mortgage loot for the benefit of Alberta’s public sector-NDP continuum. The only relevant question is how much different the policies of the dour-faced socialists will be versus those of the happy-faced socialist “conservatives” that preceded them.
Notley may have reversed Prentice’s savings cuts, but she certainly liked most of the taxes he proposed. There are a whole batch that were never passed in the legislature, but which Albertans are paying.
FORWARD.
I hate the NDP as much or more than anyone (they did a really good number on my original home province of Manitoba), but the vast majority of the layoffs and cutbacks in investment would have happened regardless of the government in power. Oil and gas revenues have dropped like a rock over the last year and the result is oil companies (not so much the integrated firms) slashing spending just to stay alive. Take a look south of the border and into Europe and you will see that this is a global phenomenon.
The NDP inherited the most expensive government (per capita) in Canada. They will undoubtedly take the bad Tory record and make it worse.
Yes. Good comment, all true.
“but the vast majority of the layoffs and cutbacks in investment would have happened regardless of the government in power”
My oil company had already laid off 450 people in January, before the election.
Since January, there was a second round of layoffs before the election.
The problem is that the PC government had planned to create an ironclad voter base pegged to the high end of the energy revenue envelope, despite having been in power and managing revenues from the energy sector for over 40 years. They should have known better, but the PC caucus was first top heavy with Progressives and then became only Progressives, so that the reality of fiscal management was forgotten in the quest for the creation of a solid Public Sector Union voter base.
Swings in energy sector market prices requiring layoffs are just a fact of life for those of us who have been laid off several times over our careers.
Re: You can bet that Notley Crew is working on this question: How quickly can we create 35,000 useless government positions?
On topic – Notley crew’s budget update just yesterday bought home a point –
Given that the bureaucracy in Alberta currently has an employee / manager ratio of 5.7:1 it occurs to me that government in and of itself is a colossal welfare system for the so-called middle class.(Usual ratio in business is 10:1)
They need the higher management to emplyee ratio because, unlike the private sector, PSU emplyees are hard to lay off and nearly impossible to fire so PSU employees know they can get away with slacking off/incompetence more.
This then requires more management oversight since the PSU employees are devoid of initiative.
It’s not so much that government set out to become a ‘make-work/welfare system’, but it is the goal of the PSU to create said system in it’s never ending search for more union dues.
Notley has already raised personal & corporate taxes in AB, effective 1 Oct, plus she doubled the top rate in their carbon pricing scheme, which btw was not included in the party election platform.
Now there’s some tonic for the beleaguered oil & gas industry. AB has already been put on Moody’s debt warning, aka pending downgrade, after the AB government passed an order in council authorizing $6B of additional borrowing.
All without bothering to even meet with her legislature or present a budget. Remember, it takes great wisdom, foresight and most of all compassion to throw billions of taxpayer dollars & debt at “problems.” Maybe they want to follow the Bob Rae NDP model of taxing, spending & borrowing their way to prosperity. Who’s prosperity though? Unions? Bureaucrats & other assorted apparatchiks? The UN/IPCC and their rent seeking buddies? Yes, them.
So, since they don’t actually care about workers, and rather than cutting back and reorganizing priorities, the AB NDP has simply raised taxes to make up for the inevitable shortfall, plus borrowing more than the AB Tories whom the voters turfed. I understand her deficit will approach $10b within the year. Soon the big two debtors, ON and QC with add a partner in AB.
So AB is practicing the politics of Trudeau – finance bigger government with deficits and then tax increases, and Mulcair – finance bigger government with tax increases and then deficits.
My fellow Canadians in AB – aren’t you glad you elected a progressive government? I hope your pain can spare the rest of the country by providing a living lab of what happens when nanny statist – with their elitist tendencies and their fatal conceit they can plan more wisely from the top down than the evil market – are given the reins of power.
“There is no doubt that our big challenge is commodity prices that the government of Alberta does not control…”
– Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci
Well, duh.
Oh, and a note to Mr Trudeau and his magical “heart outwards” economic plan: the federal government doesn’t control the price of a barrel of oil either.
“the federal government doesn’t control the price of a barrel of oil either.”
Nova Scotia does. As a result they have none.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/gas-shortage-in-nova-scotia-leads-to-complete-insanity-for-station-owners-1.3209691
“Nova Scotia does. As a result they have none.”
I’m not sure I follow you. The shortage seems to be based on the failure of tankers to show up on time.
(Though never mind, of course, the fact that if we actually had a trans-Canada oil pipeline this would likely have mitigated the need for such tankers.)
Questions on this
I’m presuming that the construction service industry is being hit?
How is employment in the agricultural sector going?
The money quote…
“ … Now is not the time to make things worse, for knee-jerk reactions that would result in firing thousands of Albertans. Our government is focused on building up our economy.”
But increasing taxes to the oil & gas companies is not just that. As a reminder the story title was…
“Tragic story in Alberta government’s first fiscal update: A $6-billion deficit and soaring unemployment”.
And you expected?????
Re: ”Last Friday it put those plans on hold until 2017.”
Very smart move on ”Po Mizz Knotley’s” part.
It’s OK to save face!!
Check out
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/and-another-few-trillion-cu-ft-of-nat-gas-found/
So it will definitely work in 2017 if oil and gas prices are less than now?
I sure hope they keep on going back to Ontario and don’t stop here in SK. there are lots of direct flights from Edmonton to Toronto!