Wildrose vows to cut 3,200 civil service management jobs
Lead er Brian Jean says his party would bal ance budget in three years
Wildrose Lead er Brian Jean said Thurs day his party would bal ance the budget in three years, with out rais ing taxes, by cut ting 3,200 civil ser vant pos itions and de fer ring “lower pri or ity” infra struc ture pro jects.
An noun cing his party’s fi nance plat form in the Fed er al Building plaza in Edmonton, Jean said his party would put the budget back in black with out hurt ing the qual ity of gov ern ment ser vi ces.
“This plan fully pro tects all front- line work ers and the import ant ser vi ces that they de liv er to Al ber tans,” Jean said.
He said a Wildrose gov ern ment would slash 1,600 man age ment jobs in gov ern ment and an other 1,600 man age ment pos itions at Alberta Health Services over three years. Jean said the cuts would be achieved main ly through at tri tion. He ac know ledged the health author ity would lose some of its independ ence in the pro cess.
“There are sim ply too many assistant deputy minis ters, too many executive directors and too many executive advisers,” Jean said.
The budget tabled by the Progressive Conservatives before the elec tion included cut ting 1,700 jobs at Alberta Health Services, also main ly through at tri tion. Jean said his plan would see fewer positions elim in at ed, but said they would all come from the “bloat ed” man age ment ranks.
Lib er al Lead er David Swann called the Wildrose pro pos al to reduce the pub lic ser vice “a very dan ger ous de ci sion.”
“Un less there is clear evi dence of re dun dancy, in effi ciency and failure to pro vide prop er leader ship, we should be sup port ing the pub lic sec tor,” Swann said while can vassing in Calgary- Mountain View.
The Wildrose would slash the health authority’s consultant budget 50 per cent and cut the gov ernment’s trav el, advertising, conference and communications budgets in half. It would get rid of cor por ate grants and in sti tute a three- year sal ary freeze for all re main ing govern ment man agers.
The party would also elim in ate the in come tax hikes, a new health tax and user fee hikes intro duced in the prov in cial budget two weeks ago.
He said the cost- cut ting would save $ 2.2 mil lion this fis cal year and $ 3.5 bil lion by 2017- 18.
Jean said the cuts wouldn’t extend to infra struc ture pro jects and pledged to spend more on cap ital in Al ber ta than sim i lar prov inces.
The party would ex tend the govern ment’s cur rent five- year capital plan an ex tra year, but would push “lower- pri or ity” pro jects to the back burn er for a year. Jean said no schools, hos pi tals or roads would be affected.
“We’re not talk ing about can celling those pro jects”
Jean said his plan would see the gov ern ment stop tak ing on debt by 2017 and pay off exist ing debt within rough ly 12 years. He prom ised to in vest half of all fu ture sur pluses in the Alberta Her i tage Savings Trust Fund.
Jean said the meas ures would be pos sible using the gov ern ment’s exist ing stream of rev enue.