Leading up to the previous election, our Wildrose candidate said the following in a video he posted on YouTube:
“Did you know that the province is about to post a $3 billion deficit? Three billion dollars! In the great province of Alberta! In this energy-rich province! Is that acceptable?”
He was right to scorn the government. It wasn’t acceptable then, and it is not acceptable now. Yet here we are three years later–after he turned his back on his constituents–and his new friends in Edmonton just tabled a budget containing a $5 billion deficit? Ludicrous!
Before the last election, the candidate that I voted for warned us that the Alberta government had a spending problem, not a revenue problem. And even though oil prices are down, no significant steps have been taken to solve our fiscal problems–we are still living beyond our means. And just as our former Wildrose candidate warned us back in 2011 that they would, in 2015, the Alberta government has increased income taxes, liquor taxes, tobacco taxes, gas taxes, and health care taxes. But instead of cleaning up their own mess, this government only ever offers one solution–to take your hard earned money. And it is determined to make the families of ordinary hard working Albertans suffer.
And make no mistake–many families will suffer. The budget contains 59 new or increased taxes that will cost the average Albertan family approximately $2,500 more each year. And if you ignore the government’s deceptive accounting practices, the budget contains a deficit of $7.7 billion, which will balloon to crippling $31 billion in debt by 2019.
Suddenly, I do want a spring election, because deficit and debt are not the legacy I want my children to inherit.
Derek From
Chestermere Resident
