The Notley government’s troubling start

Higher taxes, higher spending, higher labour costs: is this what we can expect from the federal NDP?

It’s too soon by far to pass a verdict on Rachel Notley’s NDP government in Alberta — they were only elected last month, after all. Still, while the government’s first legislative session was brief, it saw a lot of activity. With a federal election coming this fall — and with the federal NDP currently leading the polls — it’s worth recapping what we’ve seen from Alberta’s new government so far. Some of it is good, but there is much cause for concern.

To start on a good note, the province’s tough stand against corporate and union donations to political parties was welcome. Long overdue, the issue was the first the Notley government moved on. It was, quite literally, Bill 1. The law is not as tough as we’d like, with a significant loophole — unions may not directly donate to campaigns, but they may pay their members to work on political campaigns. But Bill 1 is still a big step toward cleaner, fairer politics; as we’ve written before, other provinces — we’re looking at you, Ontario — would be well advised to enact similar, tighter restrictions.

That notable accomplishment aside, though, it’s hard to feel too good about Alberta’s prospects under Notley.

Many of the steps taken thus far are puzzling, if not alarming. Consider Notley’s plan to raise the provincial minimum wage. Currently, Alberta’s minimum hourly wage is $10.20. The government announced Monday it was boosting that by a dollar, effective October, and proposes to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018.

Fervently though the NDP might wish it, minimum wage hikes do little to alleviate poverty.

Whatever benefit they confer upon the fewer than two per cent of earners who make minimum wage in the province, they can hardly help those earning no wage at all, that is among the swelling ranks of the province’s unemployed. Indeed, an increase of this magnitude — nearly 50 per cent — could hardly Have the federal Tories really set the bar so low for what constitutes good government that they are compelled — psychically obligated in some irresistible way — to laud themselves even for so minor an accomplishment as swapping out a sewer pipe?

Truly — a pipe, or at best a handful of pipes. We aren’t even talking about some major piece of urban infrastructure, bringing freshwater to, or waste away from, millions of citizens. We are talking, in this particular instance, about “new sanitation lines” at HMCS York, an onshore Royal Canadian Navy facility in the city of Toronto.

HMCS York is one of four National Defence facilities Toronto set to receive renovations as part of almost $20 million in spending announced by Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino on Monday. The National Defence press release described the announcement as a “significant … investment to improve Defence Infrastructure in Toronto.”

One could be forgiven for taking that to mean airfields, new barracks or air defence radars. No such luck. Instead, the Canadian Forces College will receive new HVAC systems — that’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning, not some hightech weapons system, by the way — while the Denison Armoury and family centre will also get HVAC upgrades. Moss Park and Fort York will receive various “interior and exterior” renovations.

Oh, and on top of its exciting new sewers, HMCS York will have a re- be better calculated to add to their number.

Though some recent literature has raised some interesting theoretical exceptions, the weight of scholarship remains clear: minimum wage hikes depress hiring, especially for the young and unskilled, as businesses operating on tight margins offset higher wages by laying off staff or cutting employee hours — or simply by not adding to them. Still less is there any evidence, as provincial ministers have claimed, that increased minimum wages raise employment.

These aren’t the only issues of concern for Alberta’s job seekers. Just when business investment is at its weakest, the province proposes to raise the corporate tax rate, along with the top marginal personal rate. Even as the province’s energy sector reels under the strain of lower oil prices, Alberta will be “reviewing” the province’s royalty formula (we doubt it will propose to reduce the government’s slice of the pie). It has also announced it will double its carbon tax on heavy emitters (including, obviously, the oil sands), a measure that may be necessary as part of a coordinated international effort, but smacks of overkill on top of everything else.

Yet, even while shaking down businesses for every last penny, the province seems determined to abandon any semblance of restraint. Even the not-particularly tough line taken by the government during the dying days of the catastrophic Jim Prentice government is already a fading memory. Indeed, Notley has already said she’s willing to spend, and borrow, more. This, in a province that is already among the highest per capita spenders in the country.

Again, these are early days. Time in office may prove an effective teacher. But Canadians considering whether to vote for the federal NDP should also take a look at Alberta’s new NDP government. A long, hard look. taining wall repaired.

We don’t begrudge the money being spent. The problem is the fanfare. The projects being announced here aren’t significant investments in national defence, they’re basic upkeep. Working sewers, functional HVAC systems and sturdy retaining walls, not to mention modern training facilities and livable on-base housing, ought to be something our troops can expect.

It’s all the more maddening because of how many high-profile procurements of truly defence-related items — trucks, helicopters, jets, warships — the government has bungled. Canada’s military, despite some vital (and endlessly trumpeted) acquisitions during the Afghan war, urgently needs modernized equipment and weapons of all kinds.

But the projects have been stalled by incompetence, delayed for budgetary reasons or simply mismanaged into bureaucratic oblivion. Meanwhile, our military is being asked to do more, with ever less, all over the world. The latest debacle: the government is looking into converting a civilian ship into a supply vessel for the Navy after our two elderly supply ships rusted out without replacements.

It’s maddening, and it has to stop. Rather than patting himself on the back for delivering literally the bare minimum the military can ask for, Fantino should set his eyes on actually getting our troops the equipment they need to do all the nation asks of them.

Basic upkeep is nothing to brag about