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Alberta’s provincial authorities is failing. Virtually every day, the proof hits the information.
To remain abreast of what’s taking place right here, I just lately started conserving stats as a slightly grim passion, very like somebody would possibly do to trace a floundering baseball or different sports activities group.
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By the top of March, I’d collected extra numbers than I knew what to do with. Right here’s an abridged model of the UCP’s punishing insurance policies and seeming disdain for the 4.8 million individuals it governs, as demonstrated by the numbers:
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4 cents: The quantity per litre that the provincial gasoline tax went up on April 1 (a.ok.a the April Idiot’s Tax), worsening Alberta’s inflation charge. It “coincided” with the federal authorities’s carbon tax enhance, which added one other 3.3 cents. Double April Fools! (Observe: most Albertans will get again the entire carbon tax in a rebate, however not a penny of the gasoline tax.)
4.2%: The speed of inflation in Alberta in February, placing it on the high of the heap in Canada. Rising prices for groceries, pure gasoline and lease had been fingered because the culprits.
2.8%: The common charge of inflation in Canada in February. In Manitoba, inflation’s been crushed all the way down to lower than one per cent.
20%: The promised tax saving for Albertans incomes lower than $60,000 a yr that was dangled by Danielle Smith within the 2023 provincial election marketing campaign. These incomes over $60,000 had been informed they might anticipate tax financial savings of $760 a yr. Smith snatched the treats away in February. Possibly, she mused, they’ll seem in 2026 or 2027.
No. 1: The place Alberta held because the wind and photo voltaic capital of Canada till that standing was shaken to the core final summer season when the UCP authorities positioned a controversial moratorium on approving new renewable power initiatives, ostensibly to guard agricultural land.
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4%: The quantity of renewable power initiatives presently positioned on Class 2 (lower than prime) agricultural land, in accordance with a report by the Alberta Utilities to Fee (AUC). All different wind and photo voltaic initiatives are positioned on even much less productive agricultural land, says the report, commissioned by the federal government and launched to the general public in March. It notes that wells, mining, roads and concrete sprawl are the actual causes of agricultural land loss.
35-kilometre buffer zones: Regardless of the AUC report, in February the UCP launched new guidelines concerning buffer zones round protected areas; ill-defined “pristine viewscapes” guidelines may stop the event of renewable power, however not different types of trade.
$250 million: The quantity of unpaid property taxes owed to rural municipalities in Alberta by oil and gasoline firms.
$11,601: Spending per scholar in Alberta within the 2020/21 faculty yr – the bottom spend on public schooling of any Canadian province. The common for all provinces in that yr was $13,332 per scholar, in accordance with Statistics Canada.
159%: The “utilization charge” of some excessive colleges in north Calgary. “May you think about sending your baby to a faculty that’s 160 per cent full? I couldn’t,” Calgary Board of Training board chair Laura Hack mentioned in an interview with the Calgary Herald.
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33%: The rise in post-secondary tuition since 2019 when the UCP took workplace. That’s 4 consecutive years of tuition will increase, together with hikes for the 2023-24 yr.
Zero: The variety of instances Smith and the UCP talked about the plan to interrupt up Alberta Well being Companies into 4 separate silos – with a fifth silo to control them – throughout the 2023 election marketing campaign.
126: The variety of planning jobs terminated in AHS – key abilities wanted to maneuver ahead with dismantling and rebuilding Alberta’s extremely advanced and ailing health-care system.
20,000: the variety of well being care and social help staff who left Calgary in 2023, in accordance with Statistics Canada. Well being-care staff repeatedly warn that the system is buckling and extra departures are imminent.
$75 million: The price of shopping for kids’s acetaminophen from Turkey in Smith’s misguided try and fill a brief drug scarcity. Solely a tiny fraction of it was used, and it proved harmful for neonatal use.
68%: Albertans who are not looking for political events concerned in municipal elections– an concept pushed by the UCP – in accordance with a 2023 ballot executed by Janet Brown Opinion Analysis for Alberta Municipalities; it represents 260 of the province’s 334 municipalities, making it the most important municipal group in Alberta.
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67%: Albertans against the UCP authorities’s proposal to exchange the RCMP with a provincial police power, believing it will have little or no impact on decreasing crime. The 2023 ballot was carried out by Janet Brown for Alberta Municipalities; its members additionally oppose the thought of a provincial police service.
57%: Albertans surveyed who oppose the federal government’s proposal to go away the Canada Pension Plan, in accordance with a latest ballot by Frequent Floor, a analysis undertaking on the College of Alberta. The federal government’s finance ministry has refused to launch the outcomes of its personal surveys a few potential Alberta pension plan.
10 million: Alberta’s inhabitants, in accordance with Smith’s forecast for 2050. This, as the federal government is already reluctant to correctly fund the province’s fraying infrastructure – schooling, well being care and companies – in what’s already Canada’s fastest-growing province.
These stats symbolize a authorities that has determined that it is aware of what’s greatest for Albertans. However the UCP authorities isn’t listening to the vast majority of Albertans or proof and it impacts each facet of our lives. At greatest, It’s ignoring the needs of Albertans; at worst, it’s treating them with contempt. It cares not for its individuals or its land. It’s shortchanging Alberta’s kids and younger individuals– and compromising their probability at a greener, extra hopeful future.
I consider we’d like a greater authorities to construct a greater future. Say, isn’t there a “new” man with higher concepts on the provincial scene…?
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