Alberta United Conservatives mull flat tax

• Alberta’s governing NDP says draft policy ideas put forward by the Opposition United Conservatives are risky and would benefit the wealthy — but the new party calls that baseless fearmongering.

Finance Minister Joe Ceci says a proposal to return to a flat personal income tax rate would take $700 million out of revenue for the benefit of the highest-income earners.

“This is a glimpse of what the future Alberta will look like under ( UCP Leader) Jason Kenney, and I can tell this is not what Albertans want,” Ceci said Thursday.

The tax cuts would have to be made up somewhere in the budget, he said.

“A life under Jason Kenney and gang would be back to the bad old days when they cut, cut, cut, cut and they said, ‘ Everybody go ahead and take care of yourselves.” ’

Kenney declined comment, but Janice Harrington, the party’s executive director, said the proposals are just that — proposals.

“This is just the starting point of the whole process,” she said in an interview.

A final vote will be held in early May at the United Conservative Party’s founding convention in Red Deer, Alta.