MANDEL BLASTS NDP OVER RECORD ON THE ECONOMY
Alberta Party leader says he’s pro-business, but without the UCP’s social conservatism
He’s the same old Stephen Mandel, in other words the sharpest, funniest, most plain-spoken politician I’ve ever met.
But now Mandel is in tough. He’s leading an Alberta Party in a provincial election where opposing leaders Jason Kenney and Rachel Notley get almost all the attention.
That doesn’t mean, however, that Mandel and his centrist party can’t steal a few seats. It certainly doesn’t mean Mandel doesn’t have important things to say on the economy.
This includes scathing critiques of his political opponents, starting with Rachel Notley’s NDP.
“The NDP has never met a private sector job they couldn’t scare off,” Mandel says. “When Alberta needed a shot in the arm, the NDP made a bad situation worse by creating uncertainty and enacting job-killing policies and tax hikes.”
Notley and her ministers have not even been open to meeting with many business leaders, Mandel says. “You can’t get in to see them.”
The NDP has focused on pleasing big business, while failing to deal with small-business concerns. The Alberta Party promises to double the small-business deduction to $1,000,000 per year. Another promise is to cut the corporate tax rate from 12 to 10 per cent.
The Alberta Party would also axe the NDP’s carbon tax, except on heavy emitters. Mandel says the current tax, which gives twothirds of people a full rebate on everything they pay, is strictly a wealth transfer. “The people with money, they are the ones that are told to solve all the problems.”
Then there’s the NDP’s instinct to have government own and run numerous businesses, Mandel says. “They got their hands into every business.”
Consistency has been lacking under the NDP, with the rules for doing business changing too much, which has led investors to go elsewhere, Mandel says. “Businesses are very frustrated. They don’t see this as a place of the future.”
When it comes to balancing the ballooning budget, Mandel says the Alberta Party would move slowly to avoid pushing the province into recession.
“It’s important to do it in a reasonable manner but we also have to come up with a plan to deal with the huge debt we have.”
The Alberta Party wants to bolster the petrochemical industry and would have a 10-year program where petrochemical producers get free feedstock gas from the government if they’ll build plants and produce higher-value products here. Industrial zones will be set up where the permitting process is simplified.
As for the proposed Trudeau legislation, C-48, to ban oilsands shipments off the northwest B.C. coast, Mandel says, “It’s some of the biggest boondoggle bulls--t that Alberta has ever had to face. C-48 is a bunch of crap ... They’ve effectively cut off our ability to export oil except to the States ... That is one of the most destructive things they can do. It says to Alberta, ‘We don’t want you.’ And that’s a scary thing.”
As for Bill C-69, the proposed federal plan for the environmental assessment of major projects like pipelines, Mandel says it’s poorly conceived, giving too much power to the environment minister and with too many crazy clauses for businesses to navigate. “You wonder why they’re not going to invest in Alberta, or in Saskatchewan, or in Canada. It’s just going to tell people, ‘Don’t come here.’”
The Canadian dollar is under 75 cents, Mandel points out. “Why? Because nobody has any confidence in our federal government’s economy.”
Mandel says the government should take action against the U.S.-funded campaign of Canadian green and social justice groups which aims to landlock Alberta oil. “I think it’s unreasonable, it’s unfair and I’d go after them. Why are you in our country? Who the hell are you? Go down to California with their pollution. Go to your coal plants.”
I point out to Mandel that his strong free enterprise approach is somewhat similar to what we hear from the United Conservative Party.
So if the economy is your major issue, why vote Alberta Party over UCP?
Mandel says that as a longtime businessman, he has business experience, while Jason Kenney has only been in government.
And for voters leery about the social conservatism of the UCP, Mandel says of his party, “We’re socially progressive but we’re also business people ... We believe deeply in entrepreneurship and free enterprise.”
So where does this leave us? I’m happy to endorse Mandel himself and his party’s business plan. But it’s an election, so you have to make up your own mind.