Environment minister challenges Kenney to reveal policy
Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips is challenging United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney to spell out exactly what regulations and labour laws he’d kill if his party forms government in 2019.
Like the NDP, the UCP has no policy platform for next year’s election. Kenney has released bits and pieces of his party’s plans over many months, usually during speeches for various organizations.
Postmedia rounded a chunk of them up into one place Monday, which drew the attention of the NDP government and social media. To that, Kenney said “over-caffeinated NDP-types” were getting “worked up.”
Speaking with media Monday, Phillips said “the mask has slipped with respect to what Jason Kenney wants to do to the people of this province.”
She was particularly critical of Kenney’s pledge to create a ministry tasked with cutting regulations by one-third.
“The idea that you would need more bureaucracy to deal with bureaucracy is about as backwards as the rest of Mr. Kenney ’s approaches,” she said.
But her big question, she said, is whether water safety and air quality regulations will be cut.
Kenney wasn’t made available for an interview Monday. In a Facebook statement, he said of regulations that “senseless red tape ultimately means fewer jobs.”
YOUTH WAGE CUTS ‘PERFECTLY REASONABLE’: KENNEY
He also said on Facebook a youth wage is a “perfectly reasonable policy to discuss,” adding the NDP’s minimum wage hike has forced employers to cut young workers.
According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, Alberta’s unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 24 fell to 11.8 per cent in August from 12.2 per cent in July. That reflected a national summer trend, with youth unemployment falling to 10.9 per cent from 11.1 per cent.
UCP caucus spokesperson Christine Myatt said party policy is under development as it consults with stakeholders.
Although Kenney is now entertaining a plan to lower youth wages, he said during the UCP leadership debate in Edmonton last September that wage cuts were not a path to victory.
“Let’s not allow the NDP to scare hundreds of thousands of Albertans by saying the conservative party is going to cut their wages,” he said.
At the time, his opponent Doug Schweitzer — now the UCP candidate for Calgary-Elbow — advocated rolling back the minimum wage to $12.20 an hour.
“I can tell you, promising hundreds of thousands of people that you’re going to cut their wages is not the winning formula for winning an election,” Kenney said.
Phillips accused Kenney of peddling policies “that hurt the youngest, the most vulnerable, the poorest among us, so he can turn around and usher in a suite of policies that benefit only his friends and the conservative insiders.”
Myatt said Phillips’ criticism was “quite rich, given that (the NDP) never once mentioned their carbon tax during the 2015 campaign.”