No price too high for political grandstanding
Politicians shameless in lecturing business leaders on doing their jobs
How long would you expect an energy company to last with Jason Kenney at the helm?
Perhaps three months? Still, even that short time span would be about two months longer than if NDP boss Rachel Notley was in control.
Yet these politicians are absolutely shameless in lecturing business leaders on how to do their jobs. Sadly, that's simply par for the course nowadays across the entire political spectrum.
Yet, if they are so good at running a business, then how come they invariably waste so much money in heading any form of government? Indeed, if taxpayers can be thought of as shareholders, then collectively we've seen more destruction of capital in Alberta than even those unwise souls who bought Bre-x shares at the infamous gold company's peak.
In the latest instance of “Do as I say and not as I do,” there was our premier this week telling Alberta's beleaguered energy industry leaders how to spend the somewhat unexpected windfall they're currently experiencing, thanks to recently rising oil and gas prices.
Kenney reckons it's time to unleash spending and create jobs — not a surprising position for any vote-seeker as the job creation mantra is never far from their lips, although in practice few have ever created any themselves.
“We believe many of the strongest companies have paid down debt, bought back shares, improved dividends and are now massively undervalued in the equity markets,” was Kenney's economic summation of the oilpatch.
Well, before you run out and ask your nice bank manager for a home-equity loan to grab a hatful of those cheap oil and gas stocks, remember, this is the same fellow who recently bet more than a billion bucks on the Keystone XL pipeline project proceeding. Oops. Oh well, it wasn't his money.
Meanwhile, up stepped
New Democrat MLA Shannon Phillips. Her party knows where those extra bucks should go — straight into the itchy paws of government via increased taxes. After all, her boss Notley is a past master of creating jobs — the ability to screw in a light bulb being one prerequisite for employment under her stewardship, if memory serves correctly.
“That corporate tax cut has simply gone to share buybacks and other initiatives and has not remained here in Alberta to create jobs,” is Phillips' economic philosophy.
Heaven knows what those who've somehow managed to stay afloat in the energy business during recent years must think of such endless blather from those who apparently believe a ledger is someone with a strange accent asleep in the spare room.
But at least Alberta politicians still pay lip service to the idea of budgetary responsibility, even if rarely putting such vague musings into concrete action.
In Ottawa, any such pretence has vanished. The country's sinking under a trillion dollars of debt and all the prime minister can do is dream up yet ever weirder ways in which to spend even more dough. (This will, of course, ensure his re-election with a majority government in a few months.)
We are no longer being bribed with our own money. We're being bribed with our great-grandchildren's money, given that the obscene amount now borrowed each year can never be paid back — at least not unless done so with dollars made almost worthless through rampant inflation and a corresponding currency crisis.
Indeed, there now exists a vicious circle in which we endlessly expect politicians to solve ever more problems and, naturally enough, they merrily promise to do exactly that if we just vote them into office.
This wasn't always the case. Not too long ago, we expected politicians to set the national table by ensuring stable borders, the sanctity of property rights, equality before the law, equal opportunity for all and an adequate level of taxation that forces the separation of needs from wants. Oh, and to understand personal ethics isn't some movable feast.
The rest was left up to us. We didn't do such a bad a job of Canada, either.