Notley says not unless Albertans say so
SPRUCE GROVE Premier Rachel Notley says she wouldn’t bring in a provincial sales tax without seeking a mandate from voters.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said this week his government is considering an increase to consumption taxes as it wrestles with a budget deficit brought on in part by low resource prices.
In a Facebook post made ahead of his government’s budget Wednesday, Wall said provinces in Western Canada have been dependent on resource revenue for too long and that needs to change.
Alberta has some of the same budgetary problems as its neighbour to the east, but Notley says a sales tax is not something that can be brought in without first campaigning on it.
“An issue like the sales tax is something that ... you need to put to the population,” she said when asked Tuesday about Wall’s comments. “You can’t just pull it out of your back pocket without giving them any heads up or giving them any opportunity to engage in it.”
She said her party campaigned on raising corporate taxes and income taxes on the wealthy, and that’s what it did.
“We feel fairly strongly that on key questions like that, we should stick to what we ran on.”
She said bringing in a PST in Alberta might be talked about in the next election, but she won’t move on it before then.
Alberta is the only province without a sales tax despite repeated suggestions from economists that having one would be the best way to deal with unstable government revenues.