Alberta Social Credit Party has a new policy that would put a stop to casino gambling in Alberta.
The policy was adopted at Saturday’s policy convention held in Innisfail and attended by 14 Social Credit members.
Provincial leader Len Skowronski said casinos are a form of gambling that is destroying marriages and families.
Many of the people who go to casinos don’t have much money and are gambling to try and get money, he said.
“It’s causing a lot of harm to the people who least can afford it, people who really don’t have a lot of money. We’re sort of taxing the poor,” Skowronski said on Monday.
Even though the province makes a lot of money from casinos, Alberta used to get along fine without casino revenue, he said.
Social Credit members also adopted a policy stating they do not support establishing a provincial sales tax.
Skowronski said sales tax is another inequitable tax on the poor.
To raise money, the Alberta Social Credit Party would rather see progressive taxation instead of the current flat tax system. The party already has a progressive tax policy in place.
“We think we should bring back the progressive taxes where those who make more, pay more. It’s only right to tax those who have the money.”
Skowronski said oil companies should also be paying more royalties.
“Oil companies are making huge profits. They’re paying their CEOs $10 million a year and we just can’t seem to balance our budget. We have such low taxation and such low royalties we aren’t even breaking even from the development of the oil sands.”
He said the province has a revenue problem rather than an expense problem, but the Progressive Conservative government prefers to take funding away from programs used by people who can least manage reductions, like seniors and the disabled.
Skowronski was shocked by the new program that encourages poor seniors to take out a loan against the equity of their home — the home they worked so hard to get — so they can pay their taxes.
“That’s ridiculous. There’s something really wrong.”
Another new policy adopted by the Alberta Social Credit Party strengthens its stand against abortion.
Its newest policy states conception is when a human is created, and should have the rights of a person under provincial and federal laws.
The party’s existing policies eliminates the funding and use of abortion as a birth control method; develops counselling to strive to convince women with unwanted pregnancies to carry the child to full term; promotes positive alternatives to the practice of abortion that are within provincial jurisdiction; and gives the divinely given sanctity of innocent human life at all stages priority in all proposed legislation and practices.
The Alberta Social Credits won a majority government in 1935 and remained in power until 1971. It has held no seats since 1982 and finished a distant seventh in the 2012 general election.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com