Dear Editor,
I found the editorial titled, Stoking the anger, pg. 6, Dec. 26, 2019 issue of the ECA Review interesting.
It was a classic example of “pot calling the kettle black”.
The editorial accuses Jason Kenney of deliberately stoking the anger of everyday Albertan’s to achieve his objectives. when in fact, it was Rachel Notley who incited the anger of Albertans with the radical socialist agenda that she implemented when she became the premier of Alberta.
What really upset Albertans was that she did not campaign on the basis of these radical policies. They came out of the woodwork after she was elected.
Talk about a hidden agenda!
Had she governed on the basis of the policies that she campaigned on, Alberta would not be in the financial mess that it is in now.
Examples of policies that angered Albertans were Bill 6, the carbon tax and the reckless deficit spending that was primarily of benefit to government unions.
Bill 6 imposed costs and regulations on the farm and ranch industry that just was not practical for the industry and it was not done with consultation before the legislation was passed.
The anger that this caused motivated the largest protests in the history of Alberta.
The UPC government has repealed and revised this legislation so it makes sense to the industry now without any protests.
The carbon tax is another example of imposing additional costs on energy consumption for purely ideological reasons.
It does not cause people to use less energy and if they would study real science they would learn that C02 emissions are not the cause of climate change anyway.
The other point I have referred to that has angered Albertan’s is the reckless spending.
Alberta was already running deficits with the old PC government.
There was absolutely no effort made by the NDP’ers to cut back spending in any area.
There are too many top level bureaucrats in Alberta and they are way overpaid. Nobody needs to be paid $600 to over $900 to provide government service.
In just four short years the NDP government ran up the largest debt in the history of Alberta.
In the last election Jason Kenney and the UCP won 60 out of the 87 seats in the legislature. That was because almost 75 per cent of those voting were so angry at how Notley and the NDP were governing Alberta.
In fact, the people were so determined to defeat the NDP government that no one from another party other than the NDP were elected for fear of vote splitting.
When Jason Kenney and the UCP were campaigning for the last election they promised to repeal most of Notley’s irresponsible legislation.
Cuts to government programs had to be made in order to get Alberta’s finances under control.
Of course, people will be upset when their program is the one that was cut.
People are in favour of cutbacks until it is their ox that is gored.
It was Notley who angered the population.
Kenney is not deliberately angering people. He has no choice but to clean up the mess he was left with from the former NDP government.
Herman Schwenk
Coronation, Alta.
