by Phil Elder
Last night I had the strangest dream that Premier Alison Redford hired me as a policy advisor. Heres what I told her:
1. Alberta needs its politicians to start an adult conversation about the budget. We also need our politicians to tell us what their parties promises will cost and how they will raise the necessary money. The public needs to know that we cant have the desired and necessary level of health, education, social or other important services without paying higher taxes.
It is childish to believe otherwise.
It is also foolish to spend our non-renewable resource patrimony on these recurring items. Instead, most of our billions of dollars of resource revenue should regularly go into the Heritage Fund. Tying annual expenditures to wildly fluctuating resource revenues is a mugs game, as Premier Kleins erratic lurching from
riches-to-rags-to-riches spending demonstrated.
2. It follows that we need to build a sustainable tax system to pay for necessary programs. That government is NOT best which governs and taxes least, in spite of the rhetoric of politicians like Danielle Smith, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan (the latter contradicted himself by more than tripling the American federal debt). Remember Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: I dont mind paying taxes, they buy me civilization. Several possibilities exist. First, change the regressive flat-rate income tax, which favours high income earners, to the former progressive schedule. Second, start preparing Albertans for a sales tax, say 3%, to be harmonized with the GST. Third, shift more of the tax burden onto activities which we want to reduce, such as smoking, drinking, or emitting pollutants into our air and water.
Youll be accused of being a tax-and-spend socialist, or worse, but ask your critics whether they prefer medicare to be gutted, or a mediocre education system, or more homeless people walking the streets.
3. The existence of food banks and thousands of homeless people, in the richest province in Canada, is an indictment of your partys rule. Raise income support levels (like welfare and AISH) and stop financially penalizing people who show initiative while on these programs. Increase support for low-income and cooperative housing. Even better, consider implementing a guaranteed annual inco me, instead of just massaging uncoordinated anti-poverty programs. Restore the mental health programs instead of dumping people with psychological problems on the street where they eventually cost us way more than if we had treated them appropriately in the first place.
Try diversion instead of jail sentences for non-dangerous offenders (within provincial jurisdiction, of course).
4. Regarding our enormous natural resources, follow Peter Lougheeds advice that Alberta should act more like an owner. To me, this means the province should take control of the phasing of oil sands projects, to even out the boom-and-bust cycle which raises costs and uncertainty, and also launch a sophisticated re-assessment of the structure and rates of royalties.
I also recommend that approval of future projects be made contingent on the environmental and energy balance performance of proponents past projects. In addition, allow queue jumping of project applications for high-level performers.
5. Without publicly criticizing the oil patch, we can privately agree that they needed to be prodded into improving their environmental performance and that neither the Department of the Environment nor the ERCB has pushed them enough. Push them harder. Toughen performance standards. Increase inspection and enforcement staff. Set up the monitoring agencies that scientists have called for. Tailings ponds, air and water quality are especially worrisome.
Its a self-serving myth that the industry cannot perform better look at the innovative technologies which they are at last
developing. What energy companies value above all is regulatory certainty: theyre tremendously adaptable. If they can perform in unstable areas with
shifting requirements like Venezuela, Russia, Nigeria, Iraq or Libya, they can certainly excel in Alberta. And if they threaten to go elsewhere when you gradually, and with notice, raise the still-too-low royalty regime, well, the resources will still be here when they retreat from these riskier areas.
6. Its clear that international pressure for Alberta to deal with both environmental and climate change issues will increase and that a propaganda response is not enough. The measures just suggested would help here too, especially if you announce a gradual increase of the timid carbon levy – say 6-8% per year for the next decade. And spending billions of public dollars to capture and sequester carbon is a dubious use of public funds. See Daniel Yergins book The Quest for more on the enormous expense and time necessary to create an adequate CCS infrastructure.
7. Still on the subject of energy policy, why not initiate a significant feed-in tariff for renewable energy projects (although not at the overly-rich European scale)? Your officials could estimate the cost per gigajoule, so you can compare it with the rich benefits available to the conventional sector. I recommended this to a former Minister of Energy, who replied the government wants to leave pricing to the private market.
Think of where (or if) Canada would be if your illustrious Conservative predecessors like Sir John A. Macdonald (the CPR) or R. B. Bennett (Trans-Canada Airlines, the CBC) had decided to leave these nation-building initiatives solely to the private market. Pragmatism, not ideology, helped build our country.
8. I dont accept many of your colleague Ted Mortons ideas – Im not a social conservative – but hes entirely right that true conservatives should act vigorously to conserve Albertas environment. This implies a robust and binding province-wide regional planning regime, although one which respectfully considers the views of local citizens before approvals are given. With the proper legislative direction, regulators should be able to distinguish unacceptable impacts from exaggerated nimbyism.
9. In the long term, the level of political discourse in Alberta (and, I suspect, of political engagement) would rise considerably if you made compulsory the study of Canadian history, civics and applied ethics in high school.
Madam Premier, your other advisors will say that if you do these things, Albertans will desert you for Wildrose. I doubt it. Havent the elections of you and Calgary Mayor Nenshi shown that Albertans have evolved well beyond the redneck caricature of yesteryear? Of course, there will always be stubborn rear-guard defenders of the status quo, but let them trickle away. Youll pick up scads of new supporters.
Its time for all politicians to stop pandering to cheap sloganeering and one-line sound bites and have faith in our
innovative and sophisticated population. Treat us as adults and youll get a grown-up response.
Good luck.
A sweet dream.
Yes, unfortunately, it is a sweet dream, Earl.
Therefore, our only option is to vote for progressive opposition parties who will stand up for Albertans, but until they figure out a way to work together like rational adults, we are stymied.