Every time a government prepares a new budget, the conversation ramps up. Nothing turns on the fountain of speculation like the secret process of politicians planning what they’ll do with your tax money.
This time around with our provincial government, it should be no different. But there’s a difference between the speculation of government-watchers in past years, and the atmosphere of sheer confusion we’re seeing now.
This time, it seems nobody has any clear signal as to what to expect from the next budget, or how it will affect the activities of people who work for the government, in the widest sense.
With a right-of-centre challenger in the Wildrose Alliance as a new part of the political landscape, and a surge in citizen action groups like Public Interest Alberta tapping into a wellspring of voter unhappiness, speculation takes a different tone.
Premier Ed Stelmach has added his own twist to the confusion. With mere weeks left in the budget year, he took fiscal hawk Ron Liepert out of the health ministry and appointed more populist Gene Zwozdesky.
His first two acts as health minister were to negate major policy points of his predecessor.
Today, it is hard to find anyone working in health care who has any confidence in how their own particular department will be funded or staffed, even over the next month.
That kind of unease gets picked up by the public.
Town hall meetings have been held to discuss government policy before, but seldom with such energy.
At one, sponsored by Public Interest Alberta in Red Deer last week, Diana Gibson, a researcher with the Parkland Institute, alleges Alberta under-taxes its citizens by as much as $10 billion a year.
Now that’s a statement you haven’t ever heard uttered in Alberta, except to a chorus of boos. Yet this passed without serious challenge at this meeting.
On Tuesday, Central Alberta’s non-profit groups are meeting at CiRS in Red Deer to talk about shared problems in carrying out their mandates via government-funded care programs. These days very few administrators of non-profits can predict which programs are likely to be cut back in this budget, expanded — or ended altogether.
In this upcoming budget, it seems the whole social contract that covers what people pay in taxes and what they expect to receive in services, is up for review. That can potentially be a very healthy development.
There is a growing and more militant sector in Alberta that believes we’re being led on the evil road to socialism. There’s a growing and equally militant sector that believes the government is blindly obedient to a right-wing lobby leading us on the evil road to a banana republic.
That, if anything, is an indication the traditional right/left dialogue has become obsolete.
If we all acknowledge we have a responsibility to education, health care, infrastructure and assistance to the poor, and that it involves money, the discussion should be on the amount, not the character of the person talking at the moment. We should be talking about outcomes, not one sector’s view of hell or heaven.
Truly, nobody knows what’s coming in this budget. Draconian cuts, bold new initiatives, or business as usual — nobody knows what we’re going to get for our taxes.
If nothing else, it’s a chance for all of us to reassess the value of our culture and society. What portion of your gross pay is a civil society worth to you?
If these questions are said to be too important to discuss during elections, maybe it’s better to discuss them just before budget time.
Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.