Launching more trial balloons
PCs can use summits to map a middle course
Given the rehearsed content and dearth of meaningful policy of the Calgary one, I am not cancelling the events I already have booked this weekend. – Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman
If you’re someone who cares about the fiscal health of the provincial government and you’ve got a moment today, you might want to drop by the University of Alberta where the government is holding an economic summit.
Oh, wait a minute. Never mind. It’s by invitation only — and you’re not invited.
Not unless you’re on the elite guest list that includes academics and business leaders as well as all 87 MLAs.
If not, you’ll have to settle for a series of 11 town hall meetings that start Wednesday in Athabasca and wrap up Oct. 18 in Edson. Or, there’s always the government’s favourite way of giving you the feeling that your opinion counts: an online survey.
If you’re starting to get a feeling of déjà vu about all this, that’s because this economic summit is similar to the economic summit that took place in Calgary last February. That one dealt with Alberta’s economy and the government’s sources of revenue.
Saturday’s summit will focus on how the government should pay for infrastructure projects and how it should save money. Both are topics worthy of discussion and debate. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with the concept of an economic summit. It’s just that the Alberta government has a long history of summits and questionnaires that went nowhere.
Over the past decade the government has launched unscientific and inconclusive initiatives to solicit the opinions of Albertans under various titles including It’s Your Future, It’s Your Money, Imagine Our Tomorrow and Looking Forward. A year ago, we had the government’s Dollars and Sense study.
Perhaps the most successful attempt to find solutions was conducted by the blue- ribbon Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy that, after two years of discussion and deliberation, offered a thoughtful report in 2011 called Shaping Alberta’s Future.
It recommended the province stop spending energy revenue and start investing the money into a fund to support economic diversification. The report also suggested looking at introducing a provincial sales tax.
Speaking of which, last February’s economic summit heard from a litany of economic experts who also said it’s time the government introduce a sales tax as a way to lessen the province’s reliance on volatile oil prices.
The government’s reaction was to cherry-pick the advice it liked and ignore the rest. The result was the government insisting that rather than changing the province’s tax structure, Albertans want the province to pay for infrastructure projects by borrowing money and going deeply into debt.
That brings us to today’s summit.
Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith and NDP Leader Brian Mason say that even though they’re skeptical of the government being truly open to new ideas, they’ll attend if only to see what kinds of trial balloons the government is floating.
Some other MLAs, such as Liberal Laurie Blakeman, don’t think the summit is worth their time: “Given the rehearsed content and dearth of meaningful policy of the Calgary one, I’m not cancelling the events I already have booked this weekend.”
Finance Minister Doug Horner says if people have other ideas on how the province is supposed to pay for projects such as paving highways and building schools, he wants to hear about them.
Horner suggests P3s (public-private partnerships) could be used to build courthouses. And he tosses out a more controversial suggestion: “What about a toll road? I mean, these are some of the things that we should talk about.”
You have to wonder if Horner is really serious about introducing toll roads or whether he’s hoping to convince Albertans there are worse things than going into debt to build highways.
In that sense, this newest round of public consultations isn’t just about the government saying it wants to hear from Albertans as it starts to prepare next year’s provincial budget.
It wants to push forward its own budgetary message — one that tries to convince Albertans that deficit budgets and borrowing money are an unfortunate necessity, especially in light of this summer’s devastating floods.
These summits also serve another purpose.
The government fully expects to be attacked by Liberals and New Democrats on the one side and by the Wildrose on the other. The Liberals and NDP will argue the government can boost revenues through tax reform, while the Wildrose will argue the government can save money by cutting services.
The government will thus use the opposition parties to position the Progressive Conservatives neatly in the moderate middle, right where it wants to be.