About a year ago I wrote a column on the NDP’s deliberate intention to deceive Albertan’s on what they were up to.
In this column I want to expand somewhat on that concept.
I am sure that when the NDP won the provincial election in May of 2015 they were as surprised as anyone. They knew that this was their one any only chance to try and change the culture of Alberta to fit with their ideological vision of a socialist society.
They immediately set to work and pulled out all the stops.
The first problem they had was the lack of talent in their caucus. Except for a few old NDP diehards, the majority of the caucus were amateurs that did not really expect to get elected.
The best that Rachel Notley could do was put together a cabinet of 12 people, this was not because she believed in a small cabinet but because there were no more in the caucus with the minimum skill set to be credible cabinet ministers.
However, what she did do was go to Ontario and BC and hire as many hard line socialists as she could as advisers. Even if she had a weak caucus she was not going to lose the opportunity to try and change Alberta into a leading socialist jurisdiction in Canada.
It was obvious that her election platform was a lie as she proceeded to implement a number of policy changes that were about as left and ante Alberta as they could get.
The major policies that come to mind were Bill 6 the Farm Labour Act, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2019 and the Climate Change Plan.
This climate change plan when fully implemented will have severe economic repercussions in the province. This plan is intended to close down all the coalfired electric generating plants by 2030, implement a carbon tax of $30 per ton by 2018 and put severe caps on the maximum amount of C02 emissions that would be allowed from producing oil in the Fort McMurray oil sands.
Notley gives lip service to supporting the development of pipelines to export oil from Alberta. Problem is, her polices are making it more difficult and expensive to produce oil in Alberta.
Her climate change plan will substantially increase the cost of electricity and the carbon tax will increase the cost of moving anything.
This all goes to discouraging investment and the ability of business to be competitive with other jurisdictions.
Alberta is already taking a considerable discount on the price it receives for oil due to the cost and restraints to transport oil to market.
She has people in her government that are totally opposed to more oil sands development and pipelines, so it makes you wonder about her commitment to a pipeline.
I think the real purpose of the increased minimum wage and the carbon tax is wealth redistribution.
This government is not the least bit interested in productivity.
Socialist’s never are. They think everyone should be paid the same amount regardless of the value of the contribution that a person makes.
They refuse to acknowledge that a vibrant economy is built on a true competitive society.
The other day on TV, I saw a news item where someone figured out that a CEO making over $10,000,000 had made more money by noon of the first day than the average person who is paid about $49,000 a year, the inference being if the CEO got less the average person would get more.
It doesn’t work that way. In a capitalist society everyone should get paid according to the value they are producing for the entity they are working for.
Very few people have the ability to manage a large multibillion dollar corporation. They get paid that kind of money because people of that caliber are in short supply.
by Herman Schwenk
