September 1 is Alberta Day. Alberta is a land of freedom and prosperity. Alberta welcomes all who desire to work and to serve, seeking happiness for themselves and their families.
With higher incomes and lower taxes, Alberta leads Canada in economic growth. Alberta is the rainmaker partner in Canada. We are the best.
Yet there are growing threats that we cannot ignore and are compelled to confront.
We cannot unite to lies. Speaking the truth is paramount, even if some choose to contend against it or seek to attack or misrepresent those who are willing to do so.
A main purpose of Government is to protect freedom and prosperity.
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Yet, the truth is that Trudeau’s Canada is a growing danger and threat to Alberta’s freedom and prosperity. Alberta is better off without Trudeau’s Canada.
Trudeau’s Canada is a fiscal train wreck. Trudeau has smashed through a trillion dollars in debt, accumulating more debt than all Prime Ministers before him combined. Trudeau’s Canada has no plan to stop. Their gross negligence, waste and disrespect for taxpayers will be millstones around the necks of our children and our children’s children.
Prior to Trudeau, in 2014, Canada’s per capita GDP was 92 per cent of the U.S. What is it now? In 2022, 72 per cent, a 20 per cent drop in less than 10 years. Canada is getting poorer, fast. This trajectory is unacceptable. Canada could be the richest nation on earth.
Canadians awake and alive to the truth of Trudeau’s Canada and where it is leading are rightly concerned and alarmed. Some are leaving or have left.
Alberta has the highest per capita GDP in Canada, rejecting Trudeau’s woke, socialist values of mediocrity and virtue signalling, producing nothing. Trudeau’s Canada appears to resent Alberta with policies that single out Alberta, seeking to attack, hold back, or drag it down.
Trudeau’s Canada knows Alberta lacks carbon alternatives for electrical generation and imposes onerous carbon taxes and burdens on Alberta families and businesses which are more easily borne in Quebec and Ontario with hydro and nuclear options less impacted by his carbon tax.
Trudeau’s carbon tax is currently $65 per tonne. He intends to increase the tax every year to $170 per tonne by 2030! Watch out! Pain for Alberta families and businesses is here and it will grow.
Trudeau’s Canada also will be publishing regulations this fall to cap emissions from oil and gas production and force them downward. If the oil and gas industry was in Quebec, would we see these hostile attacks on oil and gas? No.
Trudeau’s Canada knows that the global climate does not fail or succeed on Alberta’s oil and gas sector, dwarfed by China’s coal emissions and Saudi Arabia’s oil production which they support as supplier and customer, without carbon taxes, treating China and Saudi Arabia better than Alberta.
Trudeau’s Just Transition / Climate Emergency is manifestation of a pattern seeking to tax and siphon billions from Alberta businesses and families, in this case, for funding green transition projects principally in Ontario and Quebec.
One example, Trudeau’s Canada celebrates paying a taxpayer bribe of more than $16 billion to Volkswagen for a battery plant in Ontario for 3,000 jobs. That translates to more than $5 million per job. We are ruled by fools.
Do not count on the Alberta NDP to stand up for a “Fair Deal” for Alberta. I have seen them in the legislature.
The Premier of Quebec said one of his favorite things about Canada is equalization! Do not count on these politicians to stand up for a “Fair Deal”, because if Alberta gets a Fair Deal, then it means less handouts for them!
Do not count on Trudeau to listen to Albertans. What was his response to Albertans rejecting equalization in a referendum? Extending the current equalization formula which rips off Alberta by 5 years.
While we cannot control the choices of others, we can make positive choices for ourselves.
By doing small and simple things, informing ourselves with truth, doing what is right, it is surprising how much positive improvement occurs, both in speed and scope, sometimes even miraculous. Those who have done so know this is true.
Our ability to make better choices increase as we inform ourselves more with truth. As the truth always prevails in the end, we can unconditionally trust in it.
Let’s provide Albertans with the unbiased truth and facts surrounding “fiscal federalism”. Who is paying what, and who is getting what, directly or indirectly, from Alberta businesses and workers. Albertans should be supplied with the truth about what they are paying for.
Let’s arm Albertans with more truth, and then trust them to lead, to know what is best.
Let’s increase Alberta’s leverage for a Fair Deal. The less Alberta needs Canada, the more leverage Alberta has. There are many things that Alberta can do for Albertans than Trudeau’s Canada.
Albertans need alternatives to Trudeau’s Canada; let’s prepare, insulate, and protect ourselves from this accelerating train wreck, which unabated, will crash as sure as night follows day.
Alberta is a blessed land of freedom and prosperity. We must be vigilant to keep it that way. Happy Alberta Day!
Jason Stephan is the MLA for Red Deer-South.