Remember Klein legacy

Re: “Three strikes end Redford era,” Ted Morton, Ideas, March 22 Ted Morton is rewriting history. When Ralph Klein took power in 1992, practically the first thing that he did was cut the already reduced royalties on resources by nearly half. Klein used the manufactured financial crisis that ensued to justify slashing social programs, something that continues to this day.

Morton mentions paying off the $23-billion debt that, it should be remembered, the PC party created, but it took Klein 12 years to do so.

Meanwhile, Norway, a country with a population only slightly larger than Alberta and with petroleum production roughly equal to Alberta, was able to put the same amount as the entire Alberta debt into their pension fund in just 90 days in the third quarter of 2007. Alberta’s Heritage Fund stagnated for more than 20 years at $12 billion, much of that time under Klein’s watch, and it now stands at just $17 billion. Norway started building its sovereign wealth fund in 1996 and at the end of 2013, it stood at $933 billion. Their fund had inflows of $44 billion from their resources, a sum larger than the entire Alberta budget, and it earned $128 billion in 2013.

Former premier Alison Redford’s expenses are just a distraction. The more important question is: What have the PCs done with our resource wealth and who got it?

Allan Hayman , Edmonton